Right now is an interesting time in the cellular industry in the United States. I'm sure similar things are going on in other countries. The major cellular providers are battling hard for customers to come over to their networks. Rarely in this word are things truly free but if you play the game smart you can pick up some pretty good deals on a lot of things. For instance if you play the credit card points / cash back rewards really well you can make money by using credit cards. Same thing with the cell phone situation right now.

It is funny to me how people's perceptions are about different wireless providers. You mainly have the big four networks in the United States. Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T. US Cellular has a fairly large network as well but they aren't near as big as the big four. Most the other companies out there are either owned by these companies or are leasing tower space from these companies. That is the deal with Virgin Mobile, MetroPCS, Cricket, and Boost Mobile.

A lot of the people who are on the big 4 carriers think that people on the the prepaid carriers are poor people. Hahahhaha. It is the most ridiculous situation I have ever seen.

The fact of the matter is a lot of people on the major carriers are so upside down and inside out on their plan it is nuts. They will have 7 lines on their account and owe a combined total of $3,000 on their phones and then pay way more / month for the service. The prepaid carriers do have lower priority on the towers but a lot of times you wouldn't ever know the difference. Their bills get mortgage size! The situations often times gets worse and worse because they feel that after spending so much on their phone that they don't own they have to buy insurance for $11 / month but then if the break their phone they have to pay a $200 deductible. People can do whatever they want and get the phones they want but in my opinion the prepaid services and phone deals are way better.

On MetroPCS which is owned by T-Mobile and Cricket which is owned by AT&T you can have a smart phone plan for $30 / month total. Taxes and all the fees are included in that. You only get 1GB of 4G LTE but if you are on WiFi all the time that might work for a person. The cheapest plan pretty much on Verizon is going to be with 2GB of 4G LTE data and bare minimum you are going to pay over $55 total when it is all said and done.

About those free phones........

A lot of times on the major carriers there is a lot bigger catch. With Verizon you can get a free Android phone like the Samsung J3 V but it is with a $7 bill credit each month for 2 years. So it is trying to lock you in for 2 years. With Cricket and Metro PCS you can get better phones than that and then just bounce out after a month and keep the phone if you want.

I have hopped around to different carriers and just recently bounced from Cricket to MetroPCS. Cricket service was great. It was nothing against them. MetroPCS was just offering a pretty solid port in deal.

You can port your number to them and get a "free" Samsung Galaxy J7. It is a pretty solid phone. You can also get the ZTE ZMAX Pro for "free". The specs are pretty solid for the price of free. 6" screen (full HD), 32 GB storage, 2GB ram, finger print scanner, 13MP back camera, 5MP Front Camera, 3400mAh battery, 1.5GHz octa-core processor and much more. It honestly isn't a bad phone at all and to get it with very little strings attached was cool. I had to pay the taxes of $8 on it and I had to pay my first bill. They said I had to be on the unlimited data plan for $50 the first month and then I can go to a lower plan after that. I can cut the service off at anytime and keep the phone. I could port out right now and get a free phone someplace else and sell this one for $100 or more on eBay.

As far as the service on MetroPCS. It has been great so far and I did a speed test race against a person on the Verizon unlimited plan and blew him out of the water. It was kind of funny but it varies so much location to location and how close to a tower you are.

If you are looking for a new phone or feeling you are paying too much I would take a look at Cricket or MetroPCS. To port out all you need is your account number and your pin number from your current carrier. Your phone also needs to be currently active to port you number to another carrier.

Good luck!

Follow me @brianphobos