The Ting Adventure 2014

Mooseman

Mooseman

Isengar Tussle
I am on my way to embark on the Ting phone service adventure.
A little background is in order her:
I have had Verizon mobile phone service for 10+ years. My wife and I have phones and our son is on it too. The cost has been about 160 to 190 dollars per month (with the home phone on the cellular too).
This is nuts for the little we use our phones . We have Alias II flip phones, my son uses all the data. A few months ago a friend changed his family (3 adults and one teenager) over to Ting, from Sprint and his largest bill was only $86, they don't use over .5 gig of data. Mostly their bill is under $60.
So, my contract was up last month and I decided my son can get his own plan (and pay for it himself) and my wife and I would use Ting.
Unfortunately, Ting doesn't support my old Alias II, so I embarked on another adventure of buying a SMART PHONE. Yes folks, the mooseman is going to join the ranks of 2012.....
I decided to buy a used one and bring it to Ting (they don't require you buy a phone from them). I decided to get an IPhone 4S... no boos or catcalls now, I like Apple products for their ease of use and longitivity and no I don't have an Apple computer, but I do own an old IPod nano.
Now After porting my number over and calling Verizon to deactivate my device and some stress og getting an error message on my IPhone (error number 16, just shut phone off and turn back on), presto... I have joined the world of the smart phone.
Once I get my son on his own plan, I'll get my wife an IPhone and get her on my plan at Ting.
BTW - I bought the phone off of Swappa, a used phone site that was great, IPhone 4S for $165 with brand new green glass and new battery.

More to come on learning how to use a smart phone coming....
What the heck is an app and how do I get ring tomes that don't suck?
 
S

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
I'm not familiar with Ting but I guess they don't subsidize the phones like the "major" carriers do and that's why you had to buy it used? That phone should have been free since the iPhone 5 is out...

But anyway, an app is another name for a program that runs on your phone. They used to be real simple, now they're full-fledged programs.

Getting a ring tone is a little complicated. You can either buy one or "get one for free" (i.e. do it yourself). I did that so this is my experience:

1) First you have to get/download a (hopefully free) ringtone app from the Apple App store.
2) Then you tie it to the song you want and narrow down the time frame that you want the ring tone to be.
3) (This is the part I can't remember, but there should be instructions in the app) Then you download it from your phone to your computer
4) Then you sync your computer and phone via ITunes and make sure the Sync RingTones box is checked
5) Now it should be on your phone as a ringtone and be configured in Settings to whatever you want it tied to
 
Mooseman

Mooseman

Isengar Tussle
Actually Spiodey, my question about apps was purely sarcastic.
Ting is a service that runs on the Sprint and some Verizon networks
They have a sliding scale for charges, so the less you use the less you pay.
The do not subsidize phones and I like that, since you just end up paying more for the phone during your contract.
Thanks for Apple store ringtone app, I haven't really looked into it yet.

I am having to input my contacts by hand, since you can't download them from the Alias II without an SD card (which I don't have)
 
S

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Actually Spiodey, my question about apps was purely sarcastic.
Click to expand...
Doh! :D

I would also recommend turning on the option to back up to iCloud in Settings (creating an account if necessary), I've had my iPhone 4 conk out a couple times (just die) and when I turned it back on, I had lost all my contact information (among other things).
 
Mooseman

Mooseman

Isengar Tussle
Spiderman said:
I would also recommend turning on the option to back up to iCloud in Settings (creating an account if necessary), I've had my iPhone 4 conk out a couple times (just die) and when I turned it back on, I had lost all my contact information (among other things).
Click to expand...
Thanks i did just sign up for Icloud....
 
Mooseman

Mooseman

Isengar Tussle
Killer Joe said:
GOOD! Now answer your damn text messages when I send them!
:p
Click to expand...
Text messages? Might want to send them to the right phone number...... :)

Week later and the service is great, no dropped calls. My son now has his own plan (Sprint framily) and just need to buy another Iphone for my wife.
The savings should be over $100 a month and I actually have data (don't use much, but I can if needed)
I will post my first bill and usage in June.
 
Mooseman

Mooseman

Isengar Tussle
More news on the Ting odyssey,
I purchased my Iphone on Swappa and things worked so great that I purchased another for my wife....
This is where the wheels come off a little bit. The phone was never shipped (this is a P2P type site) and the payment to someone in CA was received.
After the guy sent me one message that it would be shipped that day, NOTHING..... I contacted the sites staff and was told that all problems like this a handled through the Paypal resolution procedure.
Paypal has stated that it may take upto 30 days to settle this....... I think I may be screwed..... very frustrated.
Anyone know a good place to buy a used IPhone?
 
Mooseman

Mooseman

Isengar Tussle
Got an IPhone off of Craigslist. I was a bit nervous and took my computer to a wifi coffee shop to run the MEID number. Seller was very nice and gave me his name address and phone number.
One strange thing was that he posted it as an 8GN IPhone, but while I was activating it on Ting, dicovered it is a 16GB IPhone. Yeah for me.
So now I am totally off of Verizon's wireless service and my Ting bill is looking to be about $30, compared to $190+ for Verizon.
So to recap, I got 2 IPhone $s 16GB phones for $285 and lowered by cell phone bill by over $150 a month.
Think I might change the home phone over to a Ting cell phone to keep the number.
Still waiting for PayPal to resolve my Swappa fiasco. They are giving the thieving jagoff until the 5th to respond.
 
Mooseman

Mooseman

Isengar Tussle
Well, the good news is that I got my money back from the Swappa fiasco, but it took over 25 days.
It is always a risk buying used from anywhere on the internet.
My ting bill is $30 this month with 2 phones, could go up to $40 with more usage.
Now to fight with Verizon about my home phone. They put me in a 2 year contract for unlimited service when I just wanted basic service. No one at the Verizon store could help..... now it's off to the land of customer service.
Why in heck can't their reps do everything at the stores?
I may have to sell my Verizon stock...... Their system is good, but expensive and their customer service is horrible.
Still getting used to the IPhone thing.....
Sold one of my old cell phones for $15... woo hoo..... craigslist isn't totally useless.
 
Mooseman

Mooseman

Isengar Tussle
Oh they can do things, just not what you want, need or can afford.
They can upgrade your service, but not downgrade it.......
 
Mooseman

Mooseman

Isengar Tussle
Update on the Ting service
This month's bill:
$38 plus about $7 tax
729 Minutes
311 Texts
48 MB data (don't use much)
2 Phones ($6 each)

This is the difference from the Verizon $150 charge for our two dumb phones that used no data.

Saving $100 a month - Well not priceless but $100.... woo hoo
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top