[Silound]

On providers:

I have Verizon and love it. Both AT&T and Verizon have good coverage down here, but when Katrina hit, I had AT&T and was without service for almost 3 weeks, and then VERY spotty poor service after that. Family was on Verizon and had NO problems, so I switched and haven't complained ever. I'm not a smartphone person, I look at my phone as talking, occasional PDA functions, and occasional texting as the only things I do. Smaller regional providers may offer better options, but generally I would stick to one of the big ones because they have more infrastructure to support with.

Verizon has one other nice feature that I prefer. If you lose your phone, you can go online and enter the serial and MAC address of a new one and be using it within 5 minutes. If you lose an AT&T phone, you have to go get a new SIM card, which is an utter PITA.


On phones:

If you aren't going to fork out for a data plan (they're expensive) then your best option is to get a low end family plan that suits your needs and two free phones with it (never mind the two year commitment, that will go by real fast).


Some other pointers:

I get cell coverage at home, so I don't have a landline. I use my cell phone to make all of my calls simply because it's cheaper and I still don't burn 750 minuets a month because a lot of my calls are during free calling hours or are same-network calls. Also, the free long distance thing is nice, compared to landline rates.


Anyway, just some opinions for you.