[Texas Eagle]

We still have ten year old Star Trek style flip phones because I hear you have to sign up for internet connectivity on the new phones.

Is this true?

If so, we're keeping our old phones. We're not paying 30 bucks a month for something we don't even want. Actually it's 60 bucks since we have two phones.

[outinyellowdogcountry]

It does appear there is not many phone choices that don’t require a data plan.

[sportutegrl]

Go look at the prepaids at Best Buy and Straight Talk plans at Wal Mart. My mother has a stupid plan with AT&T that she pays about 40 or 50 for and she gets only a fixed amount of minutes--no data or texts. I told her to get a prepaid for about $30 a month with 1000 minutes/1000 text/and 40 megs of data. Or unlimited talk/text/data for $45/mo.

If you are paying more for just minutes than you would pay for a plan with data and/or text, then you aren't saving any money. Straight Talk is AT&T service. Virgin Mobile is CDMA from Sprint. They have $30/month plans and unlimited plans for a little more. The only advantage for a contract plan is a discount on a high end phone. If you don't have a new, high end phone, you are getting screwed.

[Cboldt]

There are phones that don’t require a data plan. We have the same issue in our household, with daughter wanting a fancy phone, and we not willing to pay for the dataplan. She has plenty of (new model) phones to pick from, but she isn’t keeping up with the Joneses.