when i dial the #646# to check my minutes it says 610 whenever minutes shared and 21 whenever individual minutes used, what does that mean? i have 500 minutes a month and a family plan. does it mean i went over 110 minutes?
If you have a family plan that offer the entire family a total of 500 mins to share between all the lines on that plan, yes, you guys are over the 500 min limit by 110 mins. But if the plan also includes nights and weekends, that 610 will be a total of all the mins used, including the free weekend/night mins.
So if one line used a total of 21 mins, from the total that is what it is telling you. So to find out who the min pig is, all lines on the plan need to do the #646# check. And if it is before the end of the billing period, the main account holder can bump the plan mins up to cover any overage, or just pay the overage when the bill comes due.
If it were me as the main account holder, I would set a min limit on each line, so that when their limit was reached, that line would not have any more talk mins until the next billing cycle. So that if there are 3 lines on the family plan sharing a total of 500 mins, I would set two lines at say... 150 mins each, with the main line getting the remaining 200 mins.
So the BEST thing for your family to do is call up customer service and get a clear understanding of where your mins sit before you actually go over, if you haven't already.