Hello all,
I need help. I’m 26, I live in Miami, I’m applying for jobs in the legal field, and I don’t have a cell phone. It seems like everyone has one now, but I don’t, my parents don’t, and we all finally realize how they could come in handy. (We had a little incident yesterday with our security alarm going off while the house was being fumigated for termites, and nobody could get in touch with us to find out what happened.)
So since I’m better with technology and comparison-shopping than my parents, I’m looking for a good family calling plan, preferably a cheap one where we can get our phones for cheap or free. My parents would probably never use their phones, except for emergency situations. I would use mine, since I hear about these impossibly cheap long distance plans with free nights and weekends, and I have many friends who live in other cities who I talk to regularly. But I’m also driving on a very long road trip in mid-April, and I’d feel better having a phone with me for that.
I know everyone I’ve talked to locally has a different plan and a different opinion of it. I know Sprint, Cingular, Verizon, and T-Mobile seem to be the heaviest advertisers, and we’d prefer to go with a big company than some fly-by-night operation. I don’t care about getting a fancy phone with lots of features, and my parents couldn’t care less. We just don’t want to pay an arm and a leg for the plan, but we would want something with plenty of minutes and a good long distance plan, preferably with free nights and weekends (that seems very useful). These contracts are usually a year or two, right? That means we’d want to feel comfortable and content with whatever we decide on.
So what do y’all suggest? Let me know about your bad experiences as well as the good. Obviously I don’t know much at all about cell phones, so please educate me and help me be an informed customer! I fully intend to shop around for a bargain, but I’d much rather be advised by smart people like Dopers first. Thanks in advance!