Best Cell phone plans

[Romer]

We had Verizon for as long as we have had cell phones, 20+ years. They had nice perks with Disney+ Bundle, but the price was $176 a month for my wife and I on the unlimited plan and my inlaws (1 phone) on a lower plan.

We have Xfinity internet and I saw their deal for $30 for each line on unlimted and my inlaws phone can be the $15 plan with 1 GB of data as they don't know how to use data.

So I traded the $176 a month plan for 3 phones for $85 (Including taxes)

Funny thing is, xfinity runs on the Verizon network and augments it with their wifi hot spots for data if you want to use their hot spots

I brought our phones with us which gave us an extra $100 per phone

Just did this yesterday and so far so good.

You do have to have Xfinity Internet or cable to get their mobile plan

 

[F.I.R.E User]

I use Visible. Verizon owns them. $25 a month, unlimited everything.

 

[camfused]

I use Visible. Verizon owns them. $25 a month, unlimited everything.

You mean $30/month. If you are paying $25, then you have the old plan, which I believe is going away soon.

 

[Major Tom]

You mean $30/month. If you are paying $25, then you have the old plan, which I believe is going away soon.

It already did for new subscribers. I have the $25 plan, but am grandfathered in. I live in a densely populated area, and the data speed is often so slow as to be unusable (<1mbps). When traveling in smaller towns though, the speed has been good, at anywhere from 20-60 Mbps. I have read that the speeds tend to be consistently faster for those on the new $30 plan.

 

[F.I.R.E User]

You mean $30/month. If you are paying $25, then you have the old plan, which I believe is going away soon.

It was suppose to go way to $30. I don’t see the price increase. I guess I will be grandfathered to $25?

 

[camfused]

^^^^ Sshhh

 

[pb4uski]

We have had airvoicewireless, an AT&T MVNO for many years. Unlimited talk and text and 3GB data for $18/mo on autopay.

But unfortunately, they don't support wifi calling which we want during the summer when we are in VT and the cell signal has gotten weaker for some unknown reason so I switched to Red Pocket Mobile, another AT&T MVNO. Unlimited talk and text and 3GB data for $20/mo plus tax.

We'll be switching DW to Red Pocket soon and once we do we can get a 2-person family plan with unlimited talk and text and unlimited data for $50/mo. BTD!

 

[OldShooter]

We have been using Google Fi for a number of years though it is no longer the clear competitive winner that it once was. Mostly sloth keeps us there but the international coverage is a big factor too.

They have an under-advertised program that reduces total cost of ownership. Basically, they will sell you a new phone (currently Pixel 6a) for ten bucks a month, 24 months, then replace it with another new phone and you get to keep/sell the old one. So the net cost of the new phone is under $200. (https://fi.google.com/about/phone-subscription?pli=1) They market the plan bundled with phone hazard insurance at an additional $5/months, advertising $15/month, but the extra $5 is optional. So I pay $10.

 

[f35phixer]

We had Verizon for as long as we have had cell phones, 20+ years. They had nice perks with Disney+ Bundle, but the price was $176 a month for my wife and I on the unlimited plan and my inlaws (1 phone) on a lower plan.

We have Xfinity internet and I saw their deal for $30 for each line on unlimted and my inlaws phone can be the $15 plan with 1 GB of data as they don't know how to use data.

So I traded the $176 a month plan for 3 phones for $85 (Including taxes)

Funny thing is, xfinity runs on the Verizon network and augments it with their wifi hot spots for data if you want to use their hot spots

I brought our phones with us which gave us an extra $100 per phone

Just did this yesterday and so far so good.

You do have to have Xfinity Internet or cable to get their mobile plan

Think i'm going to do same Romer ! We have xfinity at home, and have had Verizon forever, I'm seeing the same 30/phone deal. That is an interesting tidbit about xfinity on verizon.

 

[homestead]

We have had airvoicewireless, an AT&T MVNO for many years. Unlimited talk and text and 3GB data for $18/mo on autopay.

But unfortunately, they don't support wifi calling which we want during the summer when we are in VT and the cell signal has gotten weaker for some unknown reason so I switched to Red Pocket Mobile, another AT&T MVNO. Unlimited talk and text and 3GB data for $20/mo plus tax.

We'll be switching DW to Red Pocket soon and once we do we can get a 2-person family plan with unlimited talk and text and unlimited data for $50/mo. BTD!

If you use their annual plan you can get same plan for $15/mo.
But you have to prepay for the whole year.

 

[sengsational]

Re Mint Mobile. If you travel a lot, especially in the western US, check the coverage map before you switch, to see if Mint Mobile has coverage where you plan on going. I've been told it is pretty good in cities, but nearly all of Nebraska, for example, has no service.

Talking about Mint Mobile coverage, they claim to offer international roaming [ UPROAM ] but it doesn't work. I landed in the EU and had pre-purchased international roaming, but their tech support wasn't able to get it to work. And mint mobile support sucks; I tried chat (while on WiFi) and they just regurgited what was on the web site, and what I'd already done. I called, and after patiently dragging through all the same stuff again, they hung up on me. I repeated the call, mysterious disconnection. Third call, I told them about going through the script on the two earlier calls, and they immediately hung up on me, lol. I bought a €9.95 SIM, ejected the Mint Mobile SIM with the supposed $20 international roaming credit and put in the new SIM and it worked fine, except I wasn't on my own phone number.

Point being: I'd wager you will only be happy with Mint if you never need to call support. They are universally very difficult to understand, and obviously out of control. I tried (just once) to get my $20 back for the international roaming that didn't work, but the 1st level support didn't have the authority, and they don't have any kind of "help ticket" system, where it could be escalated/tracked, and would not require relating the entire story every time. Just no way to do it, so they stole my $20.

I'd like to hear if any of these other cheap alternatives had on-shore help desk. Original Republic Wireless had US-based support and a legit ticket system. Dish Network purchase of Republic nuked the US help desk. But I would be willing to pay more to whatever cell service provider I choose if they had decent support.

 

[pb4uski]

If you use their annual plan you can get same plan for $15/mo.

But you have to prepay for the whole year.

I've thought about doing that as well.

 

[msieweke]

Mint Mobile has a Black Friday deal where you pay for 3 months at the annual rate and get 3 months free. It looks like a great deal for new customers. I would get it but I just signed on with Tello - $10 for 1GB and unlimited talk/text.

With Mint you're cut off when you reach your data limit, unless you sign up for "unlimited". With Tello you're reduced to 3G speed.

 

[Sunset]

Talking about Mint Mobile coverage, they claim to offer international roaming [ UPROAM ] but it doesn't work. I landed in the EU and had pre-purchased international roaming, but their tech support wasn't able to get it to work. And mint mobile support sucks; I tried chat (while on WiFi) and they just regurgited what was on the web site, and what I'd already done. I called, and after patiently dragging through all the same stuff again, they hung up on me. I repeated the call, mysterious disconnection. Third call, I told them about going through the script on the two earlier calls, and they immediately hung up on me, lol. I bought a €9.95 SIM, ejected the Mint Mobile SIM with the supposed $20 international roaming credit and put in the new SIM and it worked fine, except I wasn't on my own phone number.

Point being: I'd wager you will only be happy with Mint if you never need to call support. They are universally very difficult to understand, and obviously out of control. I tried (just once) to get my $20 back for the international roaming that didn't work, but the 1st level support didn't have the authority, and they don't have any kind of "help ticket" system, where it could be escalated/tracked, and would not require relating the entire story every time. Just no way to do it, so they stole my $20.

...

I used it in Canada, 4 years ago, the Roaming worked fine, but I was disappointed as it was expensive and was on top of the monthly fee. Even if I used data, it took up the roaming minutes.

Since roaming minutes are purchased in a block, I ended up buying blocks every now and then to make calls.

This past summer I signed up for google Fi, and it worked flawlessly for roaming to Canada with data. I only paid for it for 3 months and then cancelled so it was great for that trip.

 

[Cobra9777]

...With Mint you're cut off when you reach your data limit, unless you sign up for "unlimited". With Tello you're reduced to 3G speed.

It's 2G not 3G. This has happened to me, and it's essentially the same as having data cut off. It's not usable for anything. It's not just slow. Literally... nothing works.

 

[RetiredAndLovingIt]

Mint Mobile has a Black Friday deal where you pay for 3 months at the annual rate and get 3 months free. It looks like a great deal for new customers. I would get it but I just signed on with Tello - $10 for 1GB and unlimited talk/text.

With Mint you're cut off when you reach your data limit, unless you sign up for "unlimited". With Tello you're reduced to 3G speed.

It's actually 2G unless something has changed recently and not really usable except for maybe e-mail. Better to just renew your plan at that time or add $20 to your pay as you go balance and leave it there for emergencies. It will never expire as long as you maintain a monthly plan. I've had $6.38 sitting there untouched for years and it's doubtful I'll ever run out of data, minutes or text due to rollover.

 

[mpeirce]

It's actually 2G unless something has changed recently and not really usable except for maybe e-mail.

I was going to reply “how could that be since 2G has been phased out”, but thought I’d check first.

Yup, there is one 2G network left and it's T-Mobile’s (Mint uses the T-mobile network).

One the other hand, T-Mobile plans to sunset their 2G network next month...

 

[msieweke]

It's 2G not 3G. This has happened to me, and it's essentially the same as having data cut off. It's not usable for anything. It's not just slow. Literally... nothing works.

It's actually 2G unless something has changed recently and not really usable except for maybe e-mail. Better to just renew your plan at that time or add $20 to your pay as you go balance and leave it there for emergencies. It will never expire as long as you maintain a monthly plan. I've had $6.38 sitting there untouched for years and it's doubtful I'll ever run out of data, minutes or text due to rollover.

I was going to reply “how could that be since 2G has been phased out”, but thought I’d check first.

Yup, there is one 2G network left and it's T-Mobile’s (Mint uses the T-mobile network).

One the other hand, T-Mobile plans to sunset their 2G network next month...

Thank you all for the correction. It's an important distinction. Apparently they limit the speed via software, so no need to connect to a 2G network. From what I read, "2G" data is needed for certain features (group and picture messaging, VoLTE, etc.), so even Mint probably also allows unlimited 2G data after the cap is reached.

 

[mpeirce]

Just some info to pass along I didn’t know about.

We were traveling in South America and were pleasantly surprised to find that our ATT Unlimited Family plan included unlimited roaming in most of South America.

When we arrived in each country we got a text from ATT letting us know that we had unlimited voice, text, and data there. Very nice.

Even better than the International Day pass they offer for Europe.

https://www.att.com/plans/unlimited-data-plans/roam-latin-america/

They include Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Perú, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Mexico.

 

[pb4uski]

Just received this morning:

Red Pocket Mobile is increasing the amount of high-speed data you'll get every month with your $20 plan. On your next renewal, you'll receive 5GBs of high-speed data instead of 3GBs.

So unlimited US talk and text and 5GB of high speed data for $20/month on autopay... $21.81 including taxes for us. Plus they support wifi calling.

 

[folivier]

About Red Pocket, 3 of us have switched back to ATT. My DW will switch next month when her 1 year is over (had to get new iphone when 3G went away). We've had problems in the past year with RP. When switching cell towers we had to frequently restart our phones.
It was good while it lasted but now not worth the problems. My DW's phone on wifi calling frequently misses group texts.

 

[pb4uski]

Interesting, we never had either of those problems. Are all 3 phones Apple?

 

[folivier]

3 apples and 1 android (Motorola then switched to Samsung S22). 2 apples usually in town. 1 apple and android frequently traveling.
Here's another nit pick: why are the fees and taxes so high on ATT but very little on RP?

 

[pb4uski]

Since we don't use AT&T, I had no idea that the fees and taxes were higher on AT&T. Actually, my prior AT&T MVNO, airvoicewireless had not taxes and fees at all... a straight $18/month autopay... but they didn't support wifi calling which is a feature that we needed when we are at our summer home.

How much is a unlimited talk/text 5GB plan with AT&T?