The Best Cell Phone Plans. Unlike most of our reviews, this guide is less about picking one product than it is about helping you make your own pick. We’ll walk you through determining which network will work best for you, deciding how much service you need, and selecting a plan (either pre- or postpaid) based on those usage requirements. Although we didn’t start working on this review with the intention of recommending a single best carrier, judging from what we’ve researched about typical phone usage in the United States, we’re confident that most people who follow the steps laid out below will find Verizon Wireless (or its prepaid offshoot) waiting for them at the end of the path. It’s still the most reliable network in most parts of the United States, according to multiple third- party tests and surveys (including those of PCMag, Open. Signal and Root. Metrics), yet it’s often cheaper than the competition. But Verizon isn’t necessarily the best choice for everyone.

In particular, its high- profile unlimited- data plan doesn’t offer the same value as T- Mobile’s, its phone options are fewer, and its international roaming plans aren’t as generous. We also cover AT& T, Sprint, and T- Mobile, plus a variety of popular prepaid and resold options for common situations in the Our picks section. Table of contents. Why you should trust me. I’ve been covering the wireless industry since the late 1. Given that coverage can vary from block to block or even building to building, no one can say for certain that a given network will work best for you.

Carrier coverage maps can be a good starting point if you zoom in to the street level, but they say nothing about network capacity and consistency. Open. Signal, PCMag, and Root. Lost Season 3 Torrent Download.

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Metrics all publish independently sourced network performance metrics, but they come at it from different angles and are good for different purposes. Its coverage map encompasses basically every major US city street, boulevard, and highway, as well as all the towns and thoroughfares that connect them. You can also get reports tailored to specific metropolitan areas. This amount of detail makes Root.

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Metrics a great source for gauging overall performance by region. The majority of those efforts, however, focus on metropolitan centers and suburbs, leaving entire states out of the analysis (sorry, South Dakota!). Open. Signal has complete coverage data in densely populated areas like New York City ..

Open. Signal’s network tests rely on crowdsourcing: Anyone can download the Open. Signal app and run tests. But that also means anyone (i.

As such, its data skews heavily toward densely populated, urban areas, yet in those regions it has block- by- block information. If you live in a city, you can use Open. Signal’s data to check all the spots you frequent, including your home, your workplace, and any favorite bars and restaurants.

Buying a prepaid SIM card will let you test- drive a network yourself in all your key locations. If you want to go a step further, you can buy a prepaid SIM card and test- drive a network yourself in all your key locations. That’s what I did before switching to T- Mobile back in 2.

T- Mobile worked not just at home and around Washington, DC, but also down into the entrance of my Metro stop. When we looked at all this data, we found that Verizon won or ranked near the top in most areas. Verizon has swept Root. Metrics’s automated tests in the categories of overall performance, network reliability, network speed, data performance, and call performance in the first and second half of 2.

Root. Metrics also judged Verizon best at text performance in its last two surveys; AT& T had tied Verizon in the prior report and had won three times before then. In addition, Verizon was the overall winner for data performance in PCMag’s 2. Fastest Mobile Networks” tests—as well as in its 2.

According to PCMag’s findings, Verizon got the nod for coverage in four of six regions across the US, but at the city level, Verizon led in 1. T- Mobile in 1. 0, AT& T in five, and Sprint in three. This is a nontrivial dip from 2. PCMag report had Verizon first in 1. T- Mobile in eight, AT& T in seven, and Sprint in one (there were a few ties).

Verizon remains the clear winner overall. In contrast, Open. Signal’s latest results show a much closer contest between Verizon and T- Mobile: Verizon’s nationwide LTE network averaged downloads of 1. T- Mobile’s was barely behind at 1. Mbps. Open. Signal’s report, released in February, had AT& T trailing at 1. Mbps and Sprint farther behind at 8.

Mbps. Those crowdsourced results also show similar levels of LTE availability for Verizon and T- Mobile: 8. AT& T’s LTE percentage of 8. Sprint’s 7. 6. 8 percent still represented a notable upgrade from last year’s comparatively woeful 7. Why would these results vary so dramatically from Root. Metrics’—something T- Mobile keeps pointing out in cranky blog posts?

One possible factor: Open. Signal users tend to skew away from rural areas, where T- Mobile doesn’t fare as well. How much do you use your phone? Once you’ve determined which network will work best for you, the next step is to figure out how much you actually use data, voice, and texting. If you feel more comfortable going with one of the big four carriers, you can focus exclusively on how much data the plans provide, since all of their postpaid plans now include unlimited voice and text.

Most prepaid and resold services, however, can yield decent savings for people who don’t need unlimited calls and texts. You shouldn’t pay a premium for gigabytes you don’t use—or for service advertised as unlimited that comes with serious restrictions. You can, in fact, have too much data, since wireless services often jack up their rates for the top third of data use.

You shouldn’t pay a premium for gigabytes you don’t use—or for service advertised as unlimited that comes with serious restrictions. Finding out how much data you actually need is easy for Android users, since that OS automatically provides a clear and correct estimate of current data use, broken down by apps (the counter resets on a monthly basis). If you’ve been paying for 3 GB of data per month while using only 1 GB, you can save money by going with a cheaper plan. But if you find you’re using more—say, 3. GB in a given month—things get a bit less cut- and- dried, because some plans let you roll over unused data from months when you don’t hit your maximum. And with all four nationwide carriers and most prepaid and resold services providing unmetered slow 2. G service once you exhaust your high- speed data, your phone should always allow basic Internet access.

Meanwhile, unlimited data plans—we like the term “unmetered”—have become a lot more attractive since Verizon started offering one again after some five years. Verizon’s $8. 0 unlimited plan includes high- definition video and a 1. GB mobile- hotspot allowance for sharing your data connection with a laptop or tablet via Wi- Fi (after that, your tethering drops to 3. G speeds). Sprint and T- Mobile quickly revised their own unlimited plans, followed haltingly by AT& T, to match most of the Verizon offer. Now all three offer a 1. GB hotspot allowance and allow HD streaming video instead of their previous DVD- grade limits on resolution.

Sprint’s $5. 0 plan and AT& T’s $9. G tethering after you hit that 1. GB limit, while T- Mobile’s offering allows 3. G tethering past that cap. What about talk and text usage levels? All of the postpaid plans from the major carriers provide unlimited calling and messaging, so you in theory don’t even have to compute those numbers. But many prepaid and resold services allow you to save money if you’re willing to stay within certain limits.

The best way to figure out how many texts or calls you send or make is to consult your billing statement. Postpaid or prepaid/resold?