Our 360 Methodology for Cell Phone Plans
Why You Can Trust Us: 18 Cell Phone Companies Researched At U.S. News & World Report, we rank the Best Hospitals, Best Colleges, and Best Cars to guide readers through some of life’s most complicated decisions. Our 360 Reviews team draws on this same unbiased approach to rate the products that you use every day. To build our ratings, we researched more than 18 companies and analyzed 15 reviews. Our 360 Reviews team does not take samples, gifts, or loans of products or services we review. All sample products provided for review are donated after review. In addition, we maintain a separate business team that has no influence over our methodology or recommendations.
The following describes our 360 approach to researching and analyzing cell phone plans to guide prospective consumers.
1. We researched the companies and products people care most about.
U.S. News analyzed and compared a variety of publicly available data, including internet search data, to determine which Cell Phone Plan companies Americans are most interested in. We found 18 companies that stand out in terms of volume of searches and research among consumers, as well as across the different rating sources.
We compared the available cell phone plans provided by our top cell phone plan companies across several criteria, including monthly cost, data and hotspot limits, network types, and add-ons. Research shows that these are the most important criteria for people shopping for a cell phone plan. We then narrowed the list down to the 10 best cell phone plans using aggregate data points with a focus on professional and consumer reviews.
Because product lines tend to launch or discontinue often, U.S. News made the best effort to review active and available product lines as of the date of publication
2. We created objective 360 Overall Ratings based on an analysis of third-party reviews.
U.S. News’ 360 Reviews team applied an unbiased methodology that includes opinions from professional reviews as well as consumer reviews.
Our scoring methodology is based on a composite analysis of the ratings and reviews published by credible third-party professional and consumer review sources. The ratings are not based on personal opinions or experiences of U.S. News. To calculate the ratings:
(a) We compiled two types of third-party ratings and reviews:
- Professional Ratings and Reviews. Many independent cell phone plan evaluating sources have published their assessments of cell phone plans online. We consider several of these third-party reviews to be reputable and well-researched. However, professional reviewers often make recommendations that contradict one another. Rather than relying on a single source, U.S. News believes consumers benefit most when these opinions and recommendations are considered and analyzed collectively with an objective, consensus-based methodology.
- Consumer Ratings and Reviews. U.S. News also reviewed published consumer ratings and reviews of cell phone plan providers. Sources with a sufficient number of quality consumer ratings and reviews were included in our scoring model.
Please note that not all professional and consumer rating sources met our criteria for objectivity. Therefore, some sources were excluded from our model.(b) We standardized the inputs to create a common scale.
The third-party review source data were collected in a variety of forms, including ratings, recommendations, and accolades. Before including each third-party data point into our scoring equation, we had to standardize it so that it could be compared accurately with data points from other review sources. We used the scoring methodology described below to convert these systems to a comparable scale.
The 360 scoring process first converted each third-party rating into a common 0 to 5 scale. To balance the distribution of scores within each source’s scale, we used a standard deviation (or Z-Score) calculation to determine how each company’s score compared to the source’s mean score. We then used the Z-Score to create a standardized U.S. News score using the method outlined below:
- Calculating the Z-Score: The Z-Score represents a data point's relation to the mean measurement of the data set. The Z-Score is negative when the data point is below the mean and positive when it's above the mean; a Z-Score of 0 means it's equal to the mean. To determine the Z-Score for each third-party rating of a company, we calculated the mean of the ratings across all companies evaluated by that third-party source. We then subtracted the mean from the company’s rating and divided it by the standard deviation to produce the Z-Score.
- Calculating the T-Score: We used a T-Score calculation to convert the Z-Score to a 0-100 scale by multiplying the Z-Score by 10. To ensure that the mean was equal across all data points, we added our desired scoring mean (between 0 and 10) to the T-Score to create an adjusted T-Score.
- Calculating the common-scale rating: We divided the adjusted T-Score, which is on a 100-point scale, by 20 to convert the third-party rating to a common 0-5 point system.
(c) We calculated the 360 Overall Score based on a weighted-average model.We assigned “source weights” to each source used in the consensus scoring model based on our assessment of how much the source is trusted and recognized by consumers and how much its published review process indicates that it is both comprehensive and editorially independent. The source weights are assigned on a 1-5 scale. Any source with an assigned weight of less than two was excluded from the consensus scoring model.
Finally, we combined the converted third-party data points using a weighted average formula based on source weight. This formula calculated the consensus score for each product, which we call the 360 Overall Rating.
Cell phone family plans should have advantages for the whole family over other individual plans. For this subrating, we include plans that offer free in-family calling, share a single monthly bill, share data or per line allotment, and require a minimum of two lines.
Cell phone plans for seniors should be easy to sign up for and offer incentives or discounts. For this subrating, we looked for plans that did not require any contracts, offered discounts for people above the age of 55 or AARP members. If no discounts were available, we looked for plans with a price threshold of $40 or less.
Cell phone plans can also be prepaid. For this subrating, we looked for plans that had no overcharge fees and gave the individual an option of using their own device when initiating service.
Cheap cell phone plans should be affordable to most people. For this subrating, we looked for cell phone plans with a price threshold of $40 or less.
Unlimited cell phone plans are very popular these days as data is incredibly important. For this subrating, we looked for cell phone plans that came with unlimited data.
U.S. News 360 Reviews takes an unbiased approach to our recommendations. When you use our links to buy products, we may earn a commission but that in no way affects our editorial independence.
