Best Cell Phone Plans in Ford, VA

Coverage is still king: a few things to keep in mind

Coverage has gotten dramatically better for all carriers in the last few years, especially for Sprint and T-Mobile. While the country's two smallest carriers often had their coverage compared to Swiss cheese in the early 2000s, their LTE networks today are fully modernized, dense, and ready to perform well even during times of peak demand. With that said, it's a good idea to take a look at independent test results that show the strengths of each network. These tests, performed by RootMetrics, will help clarify which carrier is best for clear calls, fast data, or consistent texting.

Best for Calls: For the third time in two years, RootMetrics testing found that all four major carriers are almost the same in Ford, VA when it comes to 'call performance.' This indicates that all four carriers have crystal clear calls, and that all four carriers rarely drop a call that has been initiated. That's great news if your main area of usage each month is wireless minutes.

Best for Texting: During the second half of 2016, RootMetrics testing found that AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile were tied for first place in overall texting performance. All three carriers had a near-100-percent success rate in sending and delivering texts. Sprint's texting performance was just a bit shy of making this metric a four-way tie.

Best for Data-Heavy Usage: This category is a bit more nuanced than the others. Overall, Verizon's LTE network delivered both the fastest speeds and the most reliable connections to customers in Ford, VA. T-Mobile's average data speed increased dramatically in 2016, however, and AT&T showed improvement in average speeds as well.

Breadth of Coverage: All four carriers have an extremely broad network in Ford, VA, with coverage almost everywhere. Sprint, which is still expanding its LTE network, has slightly less high-speed coverage. Even so, it has the high-density city and suburban areas covered very well.

Getting started: what types of cell phone plans are out there?

While the American wireless industry is changing rapidly and becoming exceedingly competitive, the basic structure of wireless plans remains the same. In Ford, VA, you'll be able to choose from a multi-line family plan, a single post-paid line, or prepaid options that present no long-term contractual or device financing requirement. Here's a primer on each type of plan:

Family Plans

By far the most popular type of plan in the United States, family plans allow multiple people to 'share' a single account, splitting line and data fees across several different people in order to get a lower monthly cost of service for each person. Most carriers offer significant discounts on the price of a gigabyte of data for multi-line accounts, making it the economical way of signing up for service. Of course, multi-line accounts are also hard to move between carriers due to different device payment plans and coverage concerns.

Individual Plans

Quite the opposite of a family plan, individual plans allow a single person to pick the amount of data they need each month without splitting the bill. Though more expensive than family plans, individual accounts are easier to manage and are perfect for people who don't want to split expenses and device upgrades with friends or family members.

Prepaid Plans

Once a strong draw because they lacked contracts, today no-commitment plans are a more affordable alternative to individual plans. Most prepaid plans offer more data at a lower cost than an individual plan at a major carrier. Furthermore, prepaid family plans offer a lower cost for multi-line accounts than some traditional family plans at the 'Big 4.' These plans are ineligible for device financing, however, which means you'll have to pay full price to buy a new phone upon release.

The elements of a cell phone plan

The biggest difference between cell phone plans, outside of price and coverage, is the amount of features available to you. Most plans come with some kind of talk, text and data availability, but the amount and price of those features varies.

The majority of contract plans offer unlimited talk and text, but if you don't need that many minutes or messages, you can save some money by choosing a limited plan. With no-contract plans, you can buy minutes and messages individually or in grouped packages to use as you need them.

You'll definitely want to consider the data packages available when choosing a cell phone plan in Ford, VA. The more data you need, the bigger your price tag will be. Going over your data limits will typically cost you overage charges, so be sure to pick a plan that offers enough data for you. Most plans are priced by the megabyte of gigabyte, but a small amount of plans do offer unlimited data plans. The unlimited plans typically allow you to use a certain amount of data at high speeds and then limit you to using unlimited data at very low speeds.

Cell phone service providers in Ford, VA

The companies listed below all provide coverage to Ford, VA. The majority of the lesser-known providers run on one or several of these major carrier systems, so it's likely that your current location has coverage.

AT&T

AT&T is among the most widely known cellular service providers and offers several kinds of plans, including personal, family, and prepaid mobile plans.

Sprint

Sprint offers several different kinds of options, one being its just-launched friend/family plan referred to as the 'Better Choice Plan.' In addition, Sprint is one of very few large companies to provide unlimited wireless 4G data usage with no bandwidth throttling.

T-Mobile

All of T-Mobile's plans are classified as prepaid or pay-per-use plans. These plans allow the company's clients to receive unlimited talking, texting, and data usage (with varying levels of throttling) at one monthly rate. T-Mobile provides personal as well as family mobile phone plans.

Verizon

Verizon provides personal, family, and pay-as-you-go plans. Verizon lets you choose a no-contract or family data usage plan to start off. Family data plans may cover just one person or a whole household, and they have no talking or texting limits and a predetermined level of data.

MVNOs

A number of other smaller but high-quality mobile companies exist and cover Ford, VA that you can review together with the previously listed large providers through the use of the mobile carrier plan compare tool above.