Comparison with AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile family plan (Updated 7/20/10)

A reminder to myself if we ever decide to switch our wonderful Sprint SERO plan to a family plan. All the prices quoted are with my company's discount (20% for AT&T and Sprint, 22% for Verizon, and no discount for T-Mobile, prices in braces are the original price) and configured to my needs (Not a lot of minutes, data on both lines, some text) as cheaply as possible. N&W stands for Nights and Weekends. M2M stands for Mobile to Mobile.

	Sprint SERO	Sprint EPRP	Sprint	AT&T	Verizon	T-Mobile
Minutes	500/line	1600	1500	550	700	750
N&W	Unlimited*	Unlimited*	Unlimited*	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
M2M	Unlimited	Unlimited+	Unlimited+	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Text	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited++	Unlimited++	Unlimited
Data	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	2GB/Month	Unlimited	Unlimited
Other	-	Has GPS Navi	Has GPS Navi	Rollover	-	No Contract, phones not subsidized
Price	30/line	129.99	123.99 (149.99)	89.99 (109.99)	110.77 (129.97)	109.99

* Sprint nights start at 7PM
+ Sprint any Any-mobile
++ Android phone has google voice and iPhone has free app providing free unlimited SMS. AT&T charges $30/month for unlimited group SMS/MMS. Verizon charges $10/line for 500 messages + unlimited m2m messages.

I have to say Sprint's offer looks best for someone that needs data on both lines and some text. AT&T is actually better than I thought if we don't use text that much, and also it has the Jesus phone going for it. T-Mobile's pricing is also fairly good but has poor 3G coverage. As for Verizon, unless their Driod handsets are really head and shoulder above iPhone and other Sprint's Android's handsets, there's almost no point picking Verizon since I get excellent reception from all 4 companies. If we don't use text at all, then AT&T and Verizon each would be $10 cheaper, in which case I'd ditch Sprint and go for AT&T for sure just for the iPhone :P

--update 5.24.10
Looks like there were some changes with my company and Verizon's agreement now that the data for 2nd line does not get discounted so that makes the plan $6 more expensive then before. Also for Sprint, as with single person plan, if you want Evo you need to add $10/line to the plan.

--updated price chart again to reflect some changes (7/20/10)
1) Sprint now charges $10/month per line if you want their top of the line phones (HTC Evo/Samsung Epic)
2) There's free unlimited text option on iPhone and Android phones so Verizon/AT&T's prices go down
3) AT&T now changed their data pricing: $15/month for 200MB or $25 for 2GB. $15 plan is not discounted.
4) Starting in Aug/Sept, Sprint will no longer offers discount on lines 3-5 on family plan.
5) The chart is updated based on the assumption that I want the latest phone each carrier has to offer for both lines.

As we can see, with that stupid $10 "Premium data" charge, Sprint is now the most expensive carrier if you don't want text. Even with text added, Sprint's price is no better. To me this is one of the dumbest move Sprint can make, especially when they are still losing customers left and right.