Choosing a cell phone carrier is usually about finding the best price, but since most packages are pretty much the same, it’s a good idea to look a bit deeper. In fact, the big four carriers each toss a few lesser known bonus features into their plans to make them stand out. Some of them are actually pretty good, too.
Unless you go to your carrier’s web site often, it’s really easy to miss out on all the stuff that comes packed with your cell phone plan. Most of these features get launched with a subtle press release, but rarely do most of us pay attention to to the finer bonus details because we’re so used to just getting fleeced by our carriers.
Of course, when you’re shopping for a cell phone plan you should always start by making sure the service is good in your area, they have the phone you want, and the price is reasonable. That might mean going with an off-contract plan, or picking a plan with fewer perks—but if you’re on one of the big four, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint, you might as well milk them for all they’re worth. These “bonus” features aren’t going to tip the scales in one carrier’s direction or the other, but they are nice to know about.
Verizon
Most of Verizon’s bonus features come packed into their MORE Everything Plan, which, despite the name, is the basic cell phone plan that most on-contract users have. Verizon’s biggest selling point is the free access to NFL Mobile, but there are a few other bonuses are worth knowing about if you’re already a customer:
Free access to NFL Mobile: Verizon contracts come packed in with a premium subscription to NFL Mobile, which grants you access to live footage from games on Thursday, Sunday, and Monday night as well as local games. Put simply: you’ll get a lot of football games, but not every football game. You also get access to shows and features on the NFL Network all year long. One caveat though, as cool as a service as it is, it does still count against your data, so make sure you have a big data plan if you want to stream all those games on your phone.
Free tethering: Verizon’s MORE Everything plan comes with free tethering, so you can turn your smartphone into a mobile hotspot for no additional charge. Any data you use does count against your monthly data caps though, so don’t overuse it.
Bonus extra data every month with autopay: If you’re a prepaid customer, you can get an extra 1GB of data every month just for signing up to autopay. It’s a little thing, but if you’re ditching that cell phone contract and sticking with Verizon, it’s a nice bonus.
IndyCar Access: If you’re a fan of IndyCar racing, Verizon customers get free access to the premium features in the IndyCar apps. With it, you get live interactive 3D views, in-car camera video streams, and more.
Cloud storage: You have a ton of options for cloud storage these days, but if you want to go with Verizon’s solution, every customer gets 5GB of free storage. MORE Everything Plan members get 25GB for free. If nothing else, it’s a simple way to back up your text messages, call logs, and contacts.
Who Verizon’s best for: Football fans who can’t stay home all day on Sundays will appreciate the NFL Mobile subscription. If you’re a prepaid customer, the free 1GB of data is useful as well.
AT&T
AT&T bucks the trend of including useful bonus features by including almost no useful extras whatsoever. They do have a couple bonuses that might be appealing to some people though.
Free Wi-Fi hotspot access: Many retailers, from Home Depot to Starbucks, include free Wi-Fi access for AT&T customers. Your phone will automatically connect when you’re in proximity to the Wi-Fi and you don’t need a password. You can find a map of locations here. Of course, finding free Wi-Fi anywhere in the world is easy, so the only real bonus here is the fact your phone automatically connects so you don’t have to track down a password.
DirecTV bundling: AT&T just merged with DirecTV, and that means bundles, which is a nice bonus if you’re a DirecTV subscriber. Starting August 10th, they’re offering a deal for $200/month for DirecTV, unlimited talk and text on four lines, and 10GB of data. Of course, that a promotion that comes with a contract, but if you happen to be an AT&T wireless customer and a DirecTV customer, you might be able to squeak out a decent deal with a bundle.
Rollover data, international texting, and 50GB of cloud storage for Mobile Share: If you’re a subscriber to AT&T’s Mobile Share Value plans, you get a few bonus features, including rollover data, unlimited international texting from the U.S., and 50GB of storage in the AT&T Locker cloud storage service.
Who AT&T’s best for: People averse to asking for a password for free public Wi-Fi. DirecTV subscribers might be able to save some cash with bundles, though it’s hard to see how that’ll play out in the long term right now.
T-Mobile
T-Mobile has a lot of different little benefits for anyone who subscribes to their Simple Choice Plan with at least 3GB of data. The big boon here is the music streaming deal, but there are a few other useful features as well.
Music streaming doesn’t count against data usage: If you stream a lot of music to your phone, you know how quickly that eats up your monthly data. T-Mobile gives you unlimited streaming from Apple Music, Spotify, Rdio, Pandora, iHeartRadio, Rhapsody, and more. Basically, streaming music doesn’t count against your data usage, which is a huge boon for music service subscribers.
Free tethering: T-Mobile offers free hotspot tethering so you can connect any device to your smartphone at no additional charge. Any data you use still counts against your data caps though (and even if you’re on the unlimited plan they cap you off at 7GB).
Free calling and texting with Canada and Mexico: T-Mobile subscribers get free calling and texting to and from Mexico. That means if you have a US plan and head to Canada or Mexico for the weekend, you won’t get roaming fees. Likewise, you can call people in Canada and Mexico without paying extra.
Free access to UnRadio: T-Mobile users who subscrive to the Unlimited 4G LTE plans get free access to Rhapsody’s UnRadio, which is an online radio app that works like Pandora. You get unlimited skips and no ads. It’s not as good as Pandora, but considering it’s free for T-Mobile subscribers, it’s a nice bonus, and worth a try.
Data rollover: If you don’t use up all your allocated data in a given month, that’ll roll over just like your unused cell phone minutes would for up to a year.
Free in-flight texting: If you’re on a flight with Gogo internet, you can get access to free inflight texting, visual voicemail, and picture messaging. It’s not as nice as free internet access, but it’s better than nothing.
MLB At Bat Subscription: You also get a free subscription to MLB At Bat, which includes streaming of the game of the day, pitch tracking, in game highlights, and more.
Who T-Mobile’s best for: People who stream a lot of music and people who travel to Mexico or Canada often.
Sprint
Sprint has a handful of slightly hidden features as well, though their usefulness varies depending on how much you care about sports and live TV. They talk up their NASCAR package and their NBA package the most, but unless you’re into either sport it’s not enough to separate Sprint from the other providers.
Unlimited international data and text: Sprint has a “value roaming” package that gives you free, albeit slow (2G) access to the data and SMS while travelling abroad. You can enable it for free here. Beyond that, you can also get faster 3G speeds by paying for it ($15/day, or a $25/7-day pass for 200MB). That said, prepaid cards are usually cheaper as long as your phone is unlocked.
Nascar Mobile: If you are a fan of NASCAR, Sprint gives you a free premium account to the NASCAR apps when you subscribe to any of their Sprint Everything data plans. This gets you live in-car audio, live broadcasts, and more
NBA Game Time: You also get access to an exclusive NBA app where you can access home and away radio, in-game video highlights, and other stats.
Sprint TV: Sprint TV is a pack-in that comes with any data package on Sprint and Android phones. You can watch live TV from sites like NBC News, Disney Channel, and USA. Word of warning though, the reviews suggest the app’s pretty terrible.
Who Sprint’s best for: NASCAR and NBA fans. Anyone who travels internationally and doesn’t mind reduced data speeds.
Of course, most of this stuff won’t sway you from one carrier to another, but if you’re already a customer it’s nice to know all the features you have that you might not using. Or, if you’re on the fence between a couple carriers with similar prices, it might be enough to push you over the edge one way or another.
Photos by artjazz, Mike Mozart, Mike Mozart, Mike Mozart, Mike Mozart.