Just a quick note before we get started. You might see other sites advertising $50 off a Ting phone. Ting has updated their referral program and dropped the coupon to $25. So if you still see a site showing $50 off, they are misleading you to earn a commission.
I have been on Ting Wireless for six months now. I love their service as much today as I did when I first made the switch from Verizon. I want to share my experiences over the course of my first six months.
Back in the dark ages (the dark ages of 6 months ago) I had a flip phone. I resisted upgrading to a smart phone because I didn’t want to pay Verizon a high monthly fees for the privilege. I waited for prices to go down, but they never did. Finally I saw that Verizon was going to start offering a shared family data plan. When that plan finally came out, I ran the numbers and found it wasn’t really going to save me any money at all.
*** Ting Coupon – Save $25 on phone or service ***
So, I waited some more. One day I heard about this new company called Ting. Supposedly they did things differently. No contracts, all plans offer shared minutes/texts/data, free wifi hotspot, and prices flexed according to actual usage. It sounded too good to be true.
I was worried about giving up the good voice coverage I had with Verizon, since Ting runs on the Sprint network. Luckily, Ting offers free voice roaming on Verizon if you are outside of the Sprint coverage areas. With that worry out of the way I ordered a phone to give Ting a try.
That phone went to my wife and after one day she was hooked. Moving from a flip phone to a smart phone really opened up the possibilities for her. She could text easier, she could upload pictures to Facebook, and check her email. All the standard smart phone stuff, yet without the ridiculous data charges.
Fast forward six months and you’ll find us very happy with Ting. My wife and I each have a Samsung Galaxy s2, and our daughter has a Samsung Transform Ultra with a slide out keyboard. In my opinion the phone you choose is almost as important as the service. I found the screen on the transform to be a bit too small, while the screen on the Galaxy s2 is just right.
We like the Galaxy s2 so much, we haven’t found any reason to upgrade to the s3. We’re planning to wait until the s4 comes out and even then we stick with the s2. It’s really that good. Of course if I were just moving to ting and buying a new phone today, I’d go ahead and get the s3 so that I’m on top of the technology curve.
The Good Things about Ting
- No contracts
- All plans can share minutes/texts/data
- Free wifi hotspot and tethering
- Only $6 to add additional phones
- Reasonable prices
- Plans flex based on your actual usage (you use more you pay more, you use less you pay less)
- No overage fees (an obvious feature since the plans flex)
- Great voice and text coverage (Sprint plus free roaming on Verizon)
- A new that allows you to port over your Sprint phone (good if you already have a Sprint phone of are looking for a cheaper used device on ebay or craigslist.)
- Fantastic customer service and support
- They support you if you want to hack or root your phone. (lots of good info on Ting’s forum and help area)
The Bad Things about Ting
- Smaller data coverage (Ting uses Sprint data coverage which is smaller than their major competitors, and they don’t offer roaming to other carriers for data.)
- Somewhat limited selection of phones (although much improved from when I first signed up, especially with the ability to bring over a Sprint phone. No iPhones though.)
Good or Bad Things about Ting (depending on how you look at it)
- Unsubsidized phones – This means higher up front costs, but potentially lower cost over time.
Summary
Overall I am very pleased with my decision to switch to Ting. I have three smart phones and my monthly bill ranges from $80 to $110 depending on how much voice, texts, or data I use. The fact that their plan flexes depending on actual usage was a huge plus for me. That means I’m never paying too much and I will never be penalized for going over my minutes, texts, or data. If I use more of any category then they just bump me up to the next level for that month, and if I use less they bump me down to a lower level for that month.
There have been some times where I wish the data coverage was a little better, but I’ve never really been in a spot where I needed it and didn’t have it. It’s mostly just been a minor inconvenience and I’ve found that more and more stores are offering wifi, which helps fill in the coverage area.
I wouldn’t go back to Verizon though. I hate being locked into a contract and having to pay really high fees for phone, text, and especially data. Ting allows me the freedom to upgrade when I choose and the fees are low compared to the other wireless carriers. I can see myself staying with Ting for along time to come.
If you are ready to check them out for yourself, I can save you $25 dollars on your first device or on your first month of service. Just follow the link below.
Save $25 on a Ting phone or wireless service
I want to be open about the fact that I get a small comission if you sign up through this link, but my recommendations would be the same regardless. I am a real Ting customer and believe they offer one of the best wireless plans in the US. If you are leary of this, then you can bypass the coupon link and go directly to Ting.com. I hope you will be as happy as I am with their prices and service!
T-Shirt Give Away
A representative from Ting saw a review I had posted and wanted to thank me by sending a free t-shirt. I told her that I have a bunch of great people reading this blog and I’d really like to give away a few t-shirts to some lucky readers. She agreed and sent me three shirts. Like everything else at Ting, the shirts are pretty cool. Here is a picture.
This contest is now closed. Thanks to all that entered and Congratulations to our winners:
Tony, Mossie, and Teenie.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Totally going to check Ting out! Never heard of it, and I thought I kept up on this stuff pretty well. Thanks for the post!
Verizon will never have my business again either! With Verizon, I couldn’t afford the unlimited plans. Keeping a close eye on my usage became very stressful especially while at the hospital for my mom’s knee surgery. It was also stressful when I received my monthly statement as I never knew when I would find mistakes or charges that shouldn’t have been added. I made numerous calls to customer service! Ting and Sprint are not available here in our rural area, but I switched to Straight Talk and have been very happy. I buy their cheapest plan, $30 per month for 1000 minutes, 1000 texts, ? data. (I don’t have a smartphone.) No contract is required. I have never exceeded what I receive with their all-you-need plan. They also offer a $45 unlimited plan….much more affordable than similar offerings from Verizon. Their coverage isn’t perfect, neither is their customer service, but Straight Talk works for me.
I appreciate your insight on Ting. I had heard about them on various twit.tv and 5by5 podcasts, but those shows never went into the kind of depth you have with your articles. I plan on switching out of my AT&T contract when it is up. Looking at my usage patterns, switching to Ting would cut my monthly bill in half.
Hi David,
That’s the reason I decided to post my own review. Most reviews are from people that hear of the service, or maybe sample it for a month, but never really make the switch. I wanted to share the real deal after switching from Verizon.
I absolutely dislike contracts, because it’s so hard to get it in writing when speaking with a representative (I had At&t) and make sure that they did not put me on a contract. I called to change the rate right at the year end of my lower special rate, and was put on a year long contract without my approval. Once that happened, it was basically a done deal with them.
I have since then gone with Net10, for me it works well. I think Ting sounds better, especially with the extras. I especially like the honestly. You pay for what you use.
Hmm. Interesting. I was looking into changing from my current provider Verizon. Ting is pretty interesting. And I’ve heard of TwoCows from a long, long time ago, during the early days of the internet.
I’m thinking of changing over.
Going from ka’ching to ting !
I love the catch phrase, you should send that in to Ting, I wouldn’t be surprised if they used it.
I’m enjoying the stories you all are sharing. Everyone that has left a comment so far is entered in the t-shirt drawing.
Keep them coming, just two more days for your chance to win a Ting t-shirt. All you have to do is leave a comment.
Just made the switch from Verizon to Ting last week. I like how the Ting website shows a dashboard of your current usage and estimates the monthly bill. My previous $140/month Verizon bill for 2 smartphones will go down to $46 (estimated) with Ting.
Hi Jeff,
Yeah, their dashboard is awesome. Verizon didn’t have anything near as useful with their online account info. There is an unofficial dashboard app on the Google Play Store that you might want to check out also. Ting didn’t create it, but the told the guy that did to go for it and post it up to share. Ting is awesome like that.
I just found Ting about 10 days ago and I cannot wait to switch over next month after my AT&T contract expires. I currently pay $160/mo for 4 (non-smart) feature phones. I was ready to upgrade my phone and those of my 3 teens but the only choices out there are smartphones with the costly data plans — completely out of the question. I love Ting’s dashboard features and how I can choose to limit data (or voice mins or texts) on my kids’ phones, they’ll still be able to use WiFi and I won’t have to worry about huge data usage or astronomical bills. I’ll be saving about $60/mo AND we’ll all have smartphones. If I could’ve created my own cell phone service, Ting would be it.
Kerry, I feel your pain with your current contract. 4 feature phones at $160 a month, that is just ridiculous. You’ll be much happier on Ting. I bet you can even give the kids a little bit of data if you wanted to and you’d still be way under the $160 per month.
Make sure you come back here and click on a link when you are ready to sign up so you can save $25 on your first phone. I’d love to hear your thoughts after you switch.
This was a great review! I am ready to switch from Verizon to Ting, just need to convince hubby. He is open to Ting but wants to keep Verizon phones for a month while we simulatneously try Ting. This would mean keeping current phone numbers (say phone numbers A & B) with Verizon and get new numbers (phone numbers X & Y) with Ting. After a month, could we leave Verizon and have Ting assign phone numbers A & B to our Ting phones (switch X&Y to A&B)?
Yes, you can do that with Ting.
We had planned to do that initially. We kept our Verizon phone and ordered one Ting phone. Voice was our primary concern. We wanted to make sure we would have voice coverage everywhere we went. Since voice on Ting can roam to Verizon for free we didn’t think it would be a problem but we wanted to test to make sure. We also wanted to test call quality and make sure it didn’t drop calls.
Everything checked out good. So good that we ended up just keeping the original phone with the Ting phone number and gave it to our daughter. Since it’s only $6 per month to add a phone, it didn’t cost much to give her a phone. Then we ordered new phones and ported our number over right away.
Since our original plan was to take a Ting number and then port over our Verizon number to replace it, we checked with Ting to make sure this was possible and they assured us that it was.
I found some info on Ting’s site that addresses this. Go to the following link and scroll down to the 8th comment. It tells you how to do this. https://help.ting.com/entries/20842287-Transferring-phone-numbers