Cell Phone Family Plans from Verizon

With so many offers and deals from various cellular service providers, it is quite a task to pick out what deal is right for you, and it's especially hard when your looking for a plan that will work for everyone in your family.  For the past 5 years Verizon has been my carrier choice, after having some service problems with other carriers, and I've found the Verizon service to be pretty straight forward and easy to manage.  Verizon had been looked at as a bit more pricey at the time, but the reliability was worth the few extra dollars to me.   I've upgraded my phone twice now with Verizon's "New Every 2" deal which allows customers to get a major discount when their current contract is almost up.  I have had 2 phones on my plan over the years, but the option to add another phone at any time has always been an easy option to add online, with many customers needing up to 5 phones on a single plan.

The plan itself has also been easy to manage over the years, with easy online access to your account and the ability to add or take away any features at any time is always nice.  The one complaint that I voiced earlier this year was that you are required to pay for a data plan even if you purchase a non-smart media phone and don't plan on using Internet.  While I still don't like having to pay extra for a date plan I barely use, it's a common practice with all the carriers so I can't complain too much.  The online access makes it easy to monitor usage on each phone as well, so you can easily track down which phone on your family plan the costs on your bill are coming from.

Overall if you are looking for a reliable service for your cell phone family plan, Verizon will deliver the service you need, and allows you to cater to the number of phones, minutes, texts, data etc. on each member of your family's phone.  If you are looking for the best Verizon deals, you can visit our partner site to order your Verizon family plan.

Buying a New Phone Without a Data Plan - is it Possible?

After some recent phone browsing, which was brought on by my wife wanting a new phone that featured a QWERTY keyboard, I came to realize that just about all cell phones on the market now require a data plan.  I"m not just talking about smartphones, as it's understood that if you buy a smartphone your getting the complete package that does everything a phone can do, but phones like the EnV Touch and Chocolate Touch, which are multimedia phones, not smartphones, also require a minimum data plan to function.  

It was my understanding that you could get a pretty nice phone for just texting and calls, and just not use the web/data features, but apparently that is no longer the case.  Since my carrier is Verizon, I figured I would shop around to AT&T and T-Mobile and see what my options are.  With those carriers, I found the same VERY small selection of phones that didn't require a data plan, but I also found that their required data plans on those carriers cost the same or even more than Verizon.  

So for just about any multimedia or smart phone, you are looking at an additional 9.99 or more to your calling and texting plan.  It was already apparent that smartphones like the iPhone are taking over the cell phone world, but it's happening faster than we realized.  

Right now there are only a few phones that don't require data plans, but if your looking for any sort of music or video phone, your probably going to get hit with a data plan.  It doesn't make sense that a person can't even choose to not use the data and use their phone for talking and texting only, but with all carriers doing that, there isn't much choice in the matter.  Apparently there isn't much argument to this either, as anywhere you go now you see people texting, chatting, facebooking, surfing etc. non stop on their iPhone, Droid, and many other smartphones.  

It's become an addiction that the cell phone carriers have capitalized on, so shelling out for a data plan is soon to be just another common cell phone charge....like it or not.