Phones, Phones, Phones
November 15, 2014 8:53 PM Subscribe
Should I and Mr. Darling get on a smart phone plan together?
Currently, we both have cell phones, no home phone. My cell phone is paid for by my employer and the phone belongs to them. The more I rely on it for personal things, the more uncomfortable I get knowing that my employer could technically look at all of it at any given time (there has been no indication that this is in the works). I am also training to be a CASA and it looks like I will have to my cell phone extensively to deal with confidential information (see above concern). We also use my cell phone as the home phone.
Mr. Darling owns a prehistoric flip phone that barely texts on an AT&T pre-paid phone with shitty coverage. His employer does not pay for this phone but he uses it as his work cell phone (I do not see this changing).
Given the privacy concerns and that Mr. Darling is looking to join the 21st century, would it make sense for us to switch to a family plan (T-Mobile is probably the choice) and each of us get phones through that? This would mean that I would have two cell phones (one for work and one for home) but I could also keep personal on a personal phone and business only on the business phone. Mr. Darling would still be using his for the man, but at least he can text faster.
Currently, we both have cell phones, no home phone. My cell phone is paid for by my employer and the phone belongs to them. The more I rely on it for personal things, the more uncomfortable I get knowing that my employer could technically look at all of it at any given time (there has been no indication that this is in the works). I am also training to be a CASA and it looks like I will have to my cell phone extensively to deal with confidential information (see above concern). We also use my cell phone as the home phone.
Mr. Darling owns a prehistoric flip phone that barely texts on an AT&T pre-paid phone with shitty coverage. His employer does not pay for this phone but he uses it as his work cell phone (I do not see this changing).
Given the privacy concerns and that Mr. Darling is looking to join the 21st century, would it make sense for us to switch to a family plan (T-Mobile is probably the choice) and each of us get phones through that? This would mean that I would have two cell phones (one for work and one for home) but I could also keep personal on a personal phone and business only on the business phone. Mr. Darling would still be using his for the man, but at least he can text faster.
If your security guidelines allow it, you could just port your work number to your personal cell. My husband does that. I think he keeps his physical work cell updated and charged (he has a Samsung Galaxy now, instead of the doofy LG model he started with) but he does everything on his iPhone. He even kept his old Iowa cell number even though he's had a Wisconsin number on the cell for years; it's easier for friends and family back home.
So we got a family plan, and in fact we put my very reluctant mother on it. His work service is Sprint but our family plan is AT&T.
posted by Madamina at 10:15 PM on November 15, 2014
So we got a family plan, and in fact we put my very reluctant mother on it. His work service is Sprint but our family plan is AT&T.
posted by Madamina at 10:15 PM on November 15, 2014
My husband and I probably would have gone with the tmobile family plans, if we weren't living in a tmobile deadzone. They seem to have pretty cheap plans. Having to decide between the other carriers, well pretty much deciding to go with AT&T because it has the best service at our house, we have the $45 prepaid go phone plan separately on our two phones. We carefully compared the cost of buying unlocked phones and using this plan versus going with subsidized phones and a post paid plan; it was really a wash. The prepaid seemed a lot more flexible for dealing with going over the allotted data usage. Plus when I need to travel abroad, I can really easily switch to a T-Mobile post paid plan for a month and then come back to my prepaid pan. So to sum up, decide which carrier(s) you want to consider and then price out the difference between their family plans and a prepaid plan.
posted by Tandem Affinity at 10:17 PM on November 15, 2014
posted by Tandem Affinity at 10:17 PM on November 15, 2014
Best answer: I do this: I have a work phone and a personal phone. I would have it no other way.
Work phone has nothing on it but work-related stuff. No Facebook, Instagram, photo apps or photos of any sort. The only text messages on it are work-related. The only e-mail that's on it is linked to corporate Outlook. I will, on rare occasion, make personal calls from it.
My personal phone has everything on it, except an easy way to access corporate e-mail.
The only thing in common between both phones is my contact list. Personal non-work-related contacts all have codenames (this began out of habit and humor, eg: mother is "COMMAND HQ," brother is "PICKLE," etc., and also out of a fun concern that should my phone fall into enemy hands, they'd have to deal with this irritating obfuscation. Ok, mostly I just like having codenames for everyone).
My work phone has work-related calendar events, automatically generated by Outlook.
My personal phone, however, has my complete calendar, synced to Google, complete with colored events. Work events are forwarded to one of my personal accounts named something similarly to "HD-SCHEDULE@HD.NET," and such events are added to my Google calendar.
What're the benefits to doing this? To lugging two phones when one would suffice? The biggest and best one is that I can tell work to JAM IT. Going on vacation? Leave work phone at home. There is simply no way for work to get in touch with me if I leave it at home (there are a handful of people who have my personal number, which would be used only in case of emergency).
Already at home? Turn work phone off. No futzing with Do-Not-Disturb settings. Just turn the fucker off, and you're done! There's so much to be said about being able to tie yourself off from work completely.
Other benefits? Well, you've got two phones. If you happen to be in an area with poor coverage for work phone's carrier, you can use personal phone and vice-versa. If you break one phone, you've still got another functional one until you get the broken one replaced.
Family plans really start to save you a lot of money the more people you have under them. Presently, I've got a whole boatload of folks in my plan, most of whom are essentially paying $29/month for unlimited minutes/data. Except for my mother, who pays $19, as she doesn't get slapped with the 4G/LTE data fee, owning a flip-phone.
This has the added benefit of having a bunch of upgrades available. Someone broke their phone? Use another line's upgrade to help with the cost of a new phone.
When it comes to confidentiality-related concerns, I don't think there's any other way to go. Apart from the specifics related to your field of work, it's comforting to know that you've only got work stuff on your work phone (apart from silly codenames).
It also comes in handy for when you're actually fielding a lot of calls for work: you can use your personal phone at the same time to look up non-confidential/"safe" info, and you're not using up one phone's battery.
Not sure if you're a fan of Bluetooth headsets/earpieces, but many of them will allow you to pair with multiple phones, with different notifications based on which phone is ringing.
Disadvantages: well, you've got to lug around two phones. And you might have to deal with your husband discovering and using Emoji.
posted by herrdoktor at 11:23 AM on November 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
Work phone has nothing on it but work-related stuff. No Facebook, Instagram, photo apps or photos of any sort. The only text messages on it are work-related. The only e-mail that's on it is linked to corporate Outlook. I will, on rare occasion, make personal calls from it.
My personal phone has everything on it, except an easy way to access corporate e-mail.
The only thing in common between both phones is my contact list. Personal non-work-related contacts all have codenames (this began out of habit and humor, eg: mother is "COMMAND HQ," brother is "PICKLE," etc., and also out of a fun concern that should my phone fall into enemy hands, they'd have to deal with this irritating obfuscation. Ok, mostly I just like having codenames for everyone).
My work phone has work-related calendar events, automatically generated by Outlook.
My personal phone, however, has my complete calendar, synced to Google, complete with colored events. Work events are forwarded to one of my personal accounts named something similarly to "HD-SCHEDULE@HD.NET," and such events are added to my Google calendar.
What're the benefits to doing this? To lugging two phones when one would suffice? The biggest and best one is that I can tell work to JAM IT. Going on vacation? Leave work phone at home. There is simply no way for work to get in touch with me if I leave it at home (there are a handful of people who have my personal number, which would be used only in case of emergency).
Already at home? Turn work phone off. No futzing with Do-Not-Disturb settings. Just turn the fucker off, and you're done! There's so much to be said about being able to tie yourself off from work completely.
Other benefits? Well, you've got two phones. If you happen to be in an area with poor coverage for work phone's carrier, you can use personal phone and vice-versa. If you break one phone, you've still got another functional one until you get the broken one replaced.
Family plans really start to save you a lot of money the more people you have under them. Presently, I've got a whole boatload of folks in my plan, most of whom are essentially paying $29/month for unlimited minutes/data. Except for my mother, who pays $19, as she doesn't get slapped with the 4G/LTE data fee, owning a flip-phone.
This has the added benefit of having a bunch of upgrades available. Someone broke their phone? Use another line's upgrade to help with the cost of a new phone.
When it comes to confidentiality-related concerns, I don't think there's any other way to go. Apart from the specifics related to your field of work, it's comforting to know that you've only got work stuff on your work phone (apart from silly codenames).
It also comes in handy for when you're actually fielding a lot of calls for work: you can use your personal phone at the same time to look up non-confidential/"safe" info, and you're not using up one phone's battery.
Not sure if you're a fan of Bluetooth headsets/earpieces, but many of them will allow you to pair with multiple phones, with different notifications based on which phone is ringing.
Disadvantages: well, you've got to lug around two phones. And you might have to deal with your husband discovering and using Emoji.
posted by herrdoktor at 11:23 AM on November 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
Best answer: It's quite common where I work for people to have two cell phones (we receive state and federal funding, which is why they're such sticklers about using work phones only for work). But as a bonus, I get a great discount on my personal phone if I sign up with the same service as we use at work (Verizon, FWIW). I got a similar discount through my last (government) job, so I figure it's not that uncommon. I also set up a family account for my extended family (my wife's sisters), so they could also benefit from my discount, on top of the general "family plan" savings.
It's annoying to have multiple phones, but like you, I don't feel comfortable with personal information on my work phone. As for the Mr. getting a smart phone, I don't use mine for anything particularly special, but having email and the internet at my fingertips is pretty great. I also use mine as a customizable alarm, timer, music player, eBook reader, and occasional navigation assistance, all with free apps.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:16 PM on November 16, 2014
It's annoying to have multiple phones, but like you, I don't feel comfortable with personal information on my work phone. As for the Mr. getting a smart phone, I don't use mine for anything particularly special, but having email and the internet at my fingertips is pretty great. I also use mine as a customizable alarm, timer, music player, eBook reader, and occasional navigation assistance, all with free apps.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:16 PM on November 16, 2014
One other point in favour of work vs personal phones...
If your work uses Exchange then when you connect your personal phone to it then it will take on the security policies demanded by the company - which could be things like password (not passcode), password changes every month and 1 minute screen locking.
Even worse, they can remote lock and/or wipe the entire device whenever they want.
Having worked in mobile all my life and never seen an IT department remotely competent, I wouldn't want to give all that power on my primary personal mobile to someone at work.
However YMMV.
posted by mr_silver at 12:37 AM on November 17, 2014
If your work uses Exchange then when you connect your personal phone to it then it will take on the security policies demanded by the company - which could be things like password (not passcode), password changes every month and 1 minute screen locking.
Even worse, they can remote lock and/or wipe the entire device whenever they want.
Having worked in mobile all my life and never seen an IT department remotely competent, I wouldn't want to give all that power on my primary personal mobile to someone at work.
However YMMV.
posted by mr_silver at 12:37 AM on November 17, 2014
This thread is closed to new comments.
I also have both a work phone and a personal phone. It ended up being much less of a pain to carry around both than I thought it would, it's not that big of a deal at all. It was actually a bigger pain way back in the day when my work phone was a bulky POS BlackBerry, but they're both iPhones now.
In my specific circumstance I would not be allowed to use my personal phone as my work phone, due to a number of security concerns. I wouldn't want my personal texts / emails on my work phone anyway, even though like you they don't look or care.
We do pay considerably less per month together than we would if we had separate plans. It works out great for us.
posted by SquidLips at 9:48 PM on November 15, 2014