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This is a great time to buy a new smartphone plan

If you haven't switched up your smartphone plan in a few years, now may be a good time to look into a new one.

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That's because the last few years have seen an influx of competition in the market. The two-year contract is all but dead, there are a host of different types of plans you can choose from, and carriers are fighting for you like never before.

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Tech Insider/Antonio Villas-Boas

These companies are at each others' necks, and we're the beneficiaries. 

But a word of warning — it's also a complicated time not only to buy a plan and find the one that works best for you. There's no single best smartphone plan for most people, and finding the best one for you may take a lot of homework.

Some background as to how this came to be: A few years ago, AT&T tried to buy T-Mobile for $39 billion, but after a few months, AT&T realized it wouldn't be able to get the deal past regulators, so it withdrew the bid

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Since then, T-Mobile has been aggressively pushing for customers — you've probably seen marketing around this — and has shaken up the industry in the process. It eliminated the two-year contract, got rid of data roaming charges abroad, and introduced plans that don't count streaming from some music and video services against your monthly data allotment.

The other wireless carriers have been forced to respond, lowering their prices and offering more flexible plans. In other words, competition has worked out in favor of the consumer.

I recently spoke about this trend on WNYC's "Money Talking."

But choosing the right plan is no easy feat. To get the best deal, you may have to spend some time doing research and talking to friends in your area who have different services, to hear about how they find the coverage. And, of course, you'll want to read the fine print.

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If you travel outside of the US frequently, for example, and you don't want to get a new SIM card in every country you go to, Verizon may be the best plan for you. If you stream a lot of music and video on your smartphone, then T-Mobile may be the way for you to go. Sprint and T-Mobile in general offer less expensive plans, but if you live outside of a major metropolitan area, then the coverage may not be as good as that on Verizon and AT&T.

And plans and promotions are constantly changing — there are promotions galore during the holiday season.

Here are some questions to consider when looking at a new smartphone plan: 

  • How often do you want to upgrade to a new smartphone?
  • How much data do you use? And how do you use that data (streaming music and movies, for example).
  • How many people do you want to have on your plan, and how much data do they use?
  • What is the carrier's coverage like where you live and where you spend most of your time? (This is more important than anything. Even if a plan is cheap, it's still useless if you can't get a signal.)
  • Do you make a lot of calls overseas? If yes, what countries are you frequently calling?
  • Do you travel outside of the US a lot? And where are you traveling?
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This may be a good time to switch up your plan, but to get the best deal, you have to be willing to spend some time doing some homework.

Broadly speaking though, we'd recommend Verizon or AT&T for most people. They have the most expensive plans, but they also have the best coverage. We also recommend avoiding plans with contracts, so you can switch carriers whenever you want.

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