I currently have ATT Family Plan 69.99. I would like to get a cheaper plan, I'm out of my contract, so I'd like to get 59.99 plan from either Alltel or ATT. Which would you recommend, and why? I actually would like to get two pre-paid accounts, but I don't want to change my phone numbers, any way to keep numbers on pre-paid accounts? Thanks.
I am with alltel and have been with them for 4 years now and i Totally love them, there plans are great and they even offer specials to existing customers, i am never on roam and when my hubby has been out to see his service even worked, we were with att before they merged and hated them there service was horable and so was there staff. Hope this helps
I would consider ALLTEL as well- they give you more bang for the buck and generally have excellent coverage.
I don't know of any pre-paid programs that allow number porting. I know that alltelU does not. If you're comparing between the alltel and at&t 59.99 plans though, I would go with alltel if you can find a phone to suit your needs (I saw your other thread), because the $59.99 plan is a far better value with My Circle. It especially makes a difference if you plan on adding a line. Unlimited is just better than Rollover IMO and alltel's coverage and customer service is usually very good. I've also gotten several anytime minute bonuses for a couple of the lines on my account after being a customer for a year.
I guess I should have clarified, I was looking at the 39.99 plan, plus a line for 20.00, so it totalled 59.99. This plan doesn't include MyCircle.
Oh I see, sorry for my confusion. In that case, for the least expensive plan for at&t would work out as a better deal for the price. They would offer 550 mins + Rollover compared to alltel which would just offer 500 mins. The 'which one is the best deal?' question might also depend on who you know that has each provider for the free mobile-to-mobile. I could see why you might choose at&t. If you're not concerned about going over 500 mins/month though, which I'm starting to pick up on that you just want something basic ... hence the previous question about pre-pay, I would still go with alltel because of the better coverage (at least in my area and in many more rural locations) and you never know where you'll need to go in the future. There's also a fair chance you'd get bonus minutes after a little while and you'd probably find the customer support more helpful. And if you ever added a line or needed more minutes in the future, the alltel plans would be better in that case. For instance, for $10 more you could get my circle with anytime plan changes if there was a month you thought you might need it. But if you're not sure if 500 mins would be enough and the extra 50 mins and rollover would really help and you really don't want to ever go over that $59.99/month price, and if at&t has a phone that you'd much rather carry and good enough coverage in all the places you need it, at&t might be better.
Thanks for the information. I think you hit all the points that I was looking at. We currently have 69.99 with ATT, and we have accumulated 3000+ rollover minutes since we got a landline phone. 500 vs. 550 is probably never an issue, so I will probably be looking strongly at Alltel. Thanks again.
Pros: Excellent network Good coverage Faster data rates (CDMA EVDO vs. 3G) Cons: The retail stores suck with knowing what is what Wait times at retail stores Customer service at retail stores sucks If you can get the service from an independant agent who knows what is going on then you will be able to make a better decision. I work for one here in central KS and we know much more and customers love us so much better.
Retail sales offices or authorized agents, it doesn't really matter. In some cases both are horribly unprofessional, as are some CSRs at 611. It just sort of depends on who you get. Sometimes people take their jobs seriously and sometimes they don't. Sometimes people are more concerned with selling you things than with getting you what you need/want.
Alltel has very good reception. The plans are very good for our families style of calling. The MyCircle is probably the best feature out there with Rollover from AT&T coming in a close second. The being able to change your plan at anytime is a nice flexibility but be careful at what time during a billing period you do it. The customer online billing and account maintenance isn't the best but the current usage is usually within the past 24 hours which is really nice. Alltel on the other hand has probably some of the worst customer support i have encountered. With the handful of problems we have encountered it seems as if Alltel doesn't inform everyone on how to deal with problems. Or maybe it's the training they give their employees on dealing with and effectively communicating with customers. I have found that calling customer support and the employees of a different ethnicity seem to be the most helpful and actually understandable. AT&T has an awesome selection of phones (iPhone) and their digital packages are really nice. The customer service has always been very polite and very helpful. They even call and check up on how well your problem was solved. Their customer online billing and account maintenance is very well designed. AT&T on the other hand has some crazy thing that if you make more than 50% of your phone calls off their towers. They will drop you. If it wasn't for this we would still be with AT&T. If you were me and I was making this decision i'd go with Alltel. One reason being is that i feel i get the most minutes for my money. Even though their customer support isn't the greatest I have had far less problems with them than I did with AT&T. The Biggest reason i would go with them is that i know i'm not going to get dropped by making call on towers that alltel doesn't own.
funny, my experience is the opposite. Horrible cust. service from At&t and great cust. service from Alltel, including retail stores. I guess it depends on whre you live. We have short waits in the store too.
Well if you have questions, you can always ask here, as I check these forums every couple days or so and answer questions as they come up. I know what the heck is going on and can help.
so far, my experience with alltel has been pretty good, although sometimes their techs can be a little flaky, and if there's a network side issue, they usually try to pin it on the phone. That aside, the coverage has been excellent, if you ever want to change your phone plan, you can do that without any hassle, and the smart choice packs are pretty decent, IMHO
In my experience with many carriers over the years, it seems like all carriers tend to pin network issues on the phone.
Well, I suspected it was a network issue when I was able to access the internet with no hassle while the blackberry was tethered, but had trouble making calls, even with decent reception. They insist its the phone, and not the network, and are sending a new blackberry to see if that helps. Oh well, their money, not mine.
