Last summer, the cable company called me and offered me a sweet deal for bundling cable tv with unlimited phone and internet..... for $50+/- LESS than the same services I had with the phone company and cable co at the time....
 
So I switched..... but not before I called the phone company to ask if they could match the price and guarantee it for 3 years like the cable biz plan was doing.   They tried to bluff and offered me a "deal" that was still $30 more.... but in the end..... nope...they couldn't come close.
 
So I switched.
 
Now..... I get emails and mail fliers advertising the super great pricing that I was asking for..... and now they are willing to let me have the low, low pricing.... but it's too late.  Why could they NOT offer this before I left, to simply keep my business?   And the same thing applied to the cable company..... the very same one I'm with.....I simply closed one account and opened another and the price drop for MORE CHANNELS was quite nice.
 
I called both the phone company and the cable company to see if I could keep both services and drop the prices to match the bundled deal by the very same cable company biz division...... nope.... not even....
 
seems they'd rather lose a customer than to admit they were charging you more than they should have been..... because if they can drop the price substantially to keep you.... that means they were charging too much in the first place.....
 
 
And I asked to speak to "customer retention" for both companies...... "no can do ... you're on the best and cheapest plan we can put you on...... " 
 
 

The competition among cell phone companies is pretty intense right now, but it's either peaking or has just peaked. So if you want to get a deal, now's the time to call...you can actually negotiate with these people sometimes. So if they say "We can save you $40," don't just say thanks - tell them you were hoping to figure out a way to save $50, and see what they come up with.
 
The other thing I found is when I travel overseas, there are various plans to save money (although it's often best just to rent a phone when you get there). As soon as you get home, you can cancel it until your next trip.

I actually just ditched AT&T. Not only were they throttling my data speeds around Manhattan (I was grandfathered into an unlimited plan but was using well below 3GB a month, the threshold past which they claim to start throttling) and making my iPhone virtually unusable at times, but I had a customer experience with them that was so bad I could not stay with them a second longer. 
 
Basically I had wanted to take advantage of their iPhone trade in promotion to upgrade to an iPhone 6 and get $200 credit for my 4S. They botched the application up (I was never emailed a promo code) and what should have been a quick phone call to customer service to sort this minor issue out turned into an epic 3 hour call which ruined my Sunday afternoon. They passed me around department after department because not one of them knew how to deal with it. They put me on hold for 15 minutes at a time hoping that I'd hang up, then they'd tell me that such-and-such department would definitely be able to help me, and after another 10 minutes on hold I'd have to explain the whole thing again to another bozo who made no effort to even understand the problem, who would then go and "speak to his supervisor" and put me on hold again. And on hold, I'd be subject to this endless recorded loop of a bubbly woman with a grating voice breathlessly telling me about all of AT&T's offers and promotions and how good their network is. It got to the point where the timbre of her voice when she said "AT&T" cut through my ear drums so painfully that I never want to hear that name spoken again. 
 
After 3 hours, they put me through to someone who not only didn't understand my problem (and didn't care), but also informed me that my online order for a new phone, for which I'd been sent a confirmation email (and every other rep I'd spoken to so far had confirmed it was OK) was actually invalid, and that I'd have to go down to my local AT&T store with 2 forms of ID in order to sort it out. I told her to cancel the whole thing and gave her the most eloquent tongue-lashing I've ever given anyone in my life. 
 
The next day I walked into a Verizon store, signed up for a business account, paid for a new phone and went home and completed their trade in application, which went off without a hitch. Then I found an article on a popular tech site in which they tested download speeds around Manhattan with all of the major carriers and found that Verizon's speeds were in some cases 4 or 5 times that of AT&T in New York. Can't believe how much I paid AT&T for so long for such a piece of crap phone service. I'm under no delusions about Verizon - no doubt I'll have some terrible CS experiences with them too - but right now I feel like I've just gotten out of an abusive relationship and am dating someone awesome 

I'm looking to get my first Android Smart Phone (mid range) and have been looking around to see what's some of the phones that have good specs/don't cost too much. I've been on a family plan with T-Mobile for about 8+ years and been fairly happy with their service, but really haven't looked into other carriers either.
 
With all these phone choices out there, it's a bit overwhelming.........the reviews on the Motorola Moto G & X are really good and looks like a good buy for my needs.
 
I'm wondering if I should switch carriers (depending on the phone I get) or stay with the same carrier and look for a decent Android that T-Mobile supports???

Interesting comments AFA ATT, they are grinding my gears with regards to my land line service.
 
The two reasons I have a land line are for my home alarm system, and just to have a back up for my cell phone and 911 location services.
All I have is basic service, no features. My phone before taxes, has risen from 12 dollars to 18 dollars a month. WITH tax, it now is 30 bucks a month for dial tone.
 
I called my alarm company and they can install a cellular modem to my system for an additional 25 a month.
SO I would save 5 bucks, but if I drop the land line, lose that safety net.
 
Reading comments around the net, I see most telcoms want to ditch copper anyway, citing the cost of maintaining the i POTS infrastructure vs network and fiber based delivery.
 
I ditched my DSL service because my local cable company gave me greater speed 30 megs vs 3 for just a little bit more.
 
 

I'm going to try a VOIP phone as my backup line after I move (by the 14th).  I don't know what I'd do if my cell phone stops working, I no longer have a landline!

We cancelled our landline over 2 years ago........there was really no need for it when the cell provided unlimited talk, & text.

Mesh
We cancelled our landline over 2 years ago........there was really no need for it when the cell provided unlimited talk, & text.

Well except when we had Katrina, the ONLY thing that worked and was reliable was POTS.
 
Most of the cell towers ran out of battery backup in a short time.and cable? hah!
 
But a lot of landline stuff now run on SLICS, so they had the same battery issue.

I'm "eligible" for a new phone with AT&T. They changed their rules a bit since the last time I traded. It appears as if the offerings they have are doing you a favor when in fact you're padding their pockets.....for instance, if I trade my phone in and pay a monthly fee for a new phone I will pay interest on those monthly payments, then after three years I can trade my phone in for another..........but if you do that math you're better off to outright buy a phone and use the service aside from the phone. In three years an iPhone 6 will still be worth a decent amount of change and I will own the phone.On the 3 year plan I don't think you actually own anything unless you come up with more money and why would you want to do that with a three year old phone?  I'm on their 3gb shared plan.