Mostly talk: New unlimited cell plans won't pay for most

Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile are now offering unlimited talk plans for $99.99 per month. While the plans offer convenience and 'peace of mind,' few subscribers, except heavy talkers, are likely to save with these all-you-can-talk offerings.

That's because with a little consumer planning effort and discipline consumers can maximize Verizon's and AT&T's national, no-roaming-fee, no-long-distance-charge plans that cost $60 a month. Those plans ostensibly sell you 900 anytime minutes per month, but both also give you unlimited nights and weekends. With Verizon's "national IN calling" feature, there's also no charge for calls anytime of the day to some 64 million other Verizon Wireless customers. AT&T's version of this is "mobile-to-mobile" minutes, and offers free calls anytime to AT&T's more than 70 million customers.

It's pretty much the same deal as AT&T's and Verizon's with Alltel's National Freedom 900 plan, except that that carrier's "My Circle" feature also lets you make unlimited free anytime calls to 10 wireless or landline numbers on any network. T-Mobile's myFaves 1000 plan provides 1,000 whenever minutes, free roaming and long-distance and unlimited nights and weekends; but instead of unlimited minutes to other phones on the T-Mobile network, it gives unlimited "myFaves" minutes to only 5 designated numbers on any network.

With some effort, then, the price of somewhat unlimited calling at Alltel, AT&T and Verizon is $60 per month, about $40 less than the totally unlimited plans cost.

A similar differential exists between Verizon's Unlimited Select Plan ($120 per month) and Nationwide Select 900 minutes ($80)—both of which add to the basic voice service unlimited text, picture, video, and instant messaging to anyone on any network in the U.S.—and Verizon's Unlimited Nationwide Premium ($140) vs. Nationwide Premium 900 minute plan ($100)—both of which add on top of the Select plans mobile e-mail, GPS, streaming video and unlimited megabytes of Mobile Web 2.0 data.

The only people for whom the new unlimited plans will likely represent a cost savings are those who spend more than about forty minutes every weekday, between 6:00 a.m. and 8:59 p.m. (7:00 a.m. to 8:59 p.m. for T-Mobile—nights start at 7 p.m. for Sprint customers), on their cellphones. (That is, for whom the 900 or 1000 anytime minutes included in the $60 plans, divided by 20-odd weekdays a month, still typically leaves them short of anytime minutes by month's end.)

Even if you're a big talker who runs a little over the anytime allotment on some months, you could be better off paying the hefty overage charges than stepping up to the unlimited plans: For example, with Verizon, you could rack up an hour and a half of overage charges for the month, which would cost $36 at $0.40 per minute, and still pay less than $100 for that month's bill.

For more helpful advice on how to save money on your cell phone bill, read our report, "Best cell phone deals," on ConsumerReports.org.

—Jeff Blyskal

—Paul Eng