AT&T Family Plan sucks need new plan with benefits!!!

[Ermac]

I am currently on the family plan with AT&T and hate it with a passion. I don't call my parents enough to worry about the minutes I use with them. I use the phone a lot at night and on the weekends atleast a good 800 minutes. I rack up a good 300 or so minutes weekday. Now the bad part about this is that the family plan I have doesn't help at all with my phone usage. My phone, the 3360, is probably the worst phone I have used so far. I broke three, now four of them, in a matter of 9 months of starting the plan. My 6260 long time ago never broke at all.
So my objective is to cut myself off the plan and jump to another alone. I am an added phone to the family plan so I was wondering if there are any penalties or early term. fees if I just cut out my phone.
Now I need help on finding a good plan out there with good to great benefits on minutes. I really need nights and weekend minutes to be there. Long-distance is cool either way for me. I'm pretty simple as far as the minutes go as long as I have the nights and weekends plus a good amount of anytime minutes then I am set, anything else would be a great benefit. I also would like a plan that isn't crazy expensive like the family plan I am on right now.
I would greatly appreciate any help that would get me going out of this hole and into better light.
With much needed help I ask for help from anyone...please help me.

[cryogenic]

2 options, it seems... T-mobile would be the first, as they offer free unlimited T-mobile to T-mobile minutes, but only unlimited WEEKENDS (not nights) and no night minutes (they take out of your daytime minutes). T-mobile's coverage area is also supposedly spotty in some areas of CA, though I'm not sure how it is where you are. Your other option would be Verizon's america's choice familyshare plans... They give you unlimited nights & weekends and 1000 mobile-to-mobile, which is still quite a bit. Also, m2m depletes first, which would mean if you were talking to the other phone on your plan at 2pm, it would take m2m minutes instead of daytime. On the flipside, the same holds true at 2am... not N&W being depleted, but m2m, which sorta sucks if you ask me, especially with unlimited N&W. Anyway, their coverage is supposedly best in California, so you may end up being best served by going with Verizon. Also note that M2M applies to ANY Verizon customer, not just the other phone(s) in your plan.

[ZaphodB]

Some clarifications:

T-Mobile to T-Mobile minutes mean you can call any other T-Mobile telephone in the U.S., not just the people in your plan. The order of depletion is TM-to-TM, then Weekend, and then anytime minutes. A family plan gives 800 minutes anytime, plus unlimited weekends and unlimited TM-to-TM.

T-Mobile do offer unlimited nights for $7 a month but I'm not sure if they've changed the rules about not allowing family plans to have that. You might wish to enquire.

[CaliphoniaBoy]

I rack up a good 300 or so minutes weekday

Wow, that's 20*300 = 6000 weekday minutes... Or do I get something wrong???

Or is it

300 weekday / 800 nites and weekend --- per month.

If it's the latter, you don;t travel a lot and you don;t call LD to much there are a lot of plans that may be good for you. Two interesting ones coming to my mind would be perhaps Cingular roll over with nightes and weekends or the T-mobil local plan. It's (T-mobile Cali neighborhood) a little more pricy ($49) but you get 3000 minutes flat which you can use on the Cali / Nevada network whenever you want. That's a 100 minutes a day... Of course there are also very nice local Verizon/Sprint/Att plans. I guess you are kind of a "typical" user and can find a good plan from everybody. It's more up to your personal preferences.

C.

[cryogenic]

Thanks, Zaphod for adding in what I forgot to say in my previous post... I noted those very things about Verizon, however I neglected to say that T-mobile works the same way with their depletion order and that their m2m minutes work the same way (any customer on T-mo and not just other phones in your plan). I guess I left a little bit too much to be assumed in my post. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif[/img]

[CommuteMan]

Why not just get the ATT Digital advantage plan?

You can get 600 anytime, unlimited night and weekend, no long distance nationwide for $40.