I see ads all the time for shit like consumer Cellular, mint mobile, stuff that rents time on Verizon towers and sells you a plan for like half the price.
I’m trying real hard to de-Xfinity myself but the cellular plan is the cheapest of all the major companies. Yes, I know they also piggyback off the Verizon network, but at least they have 24/7 support
Yeah, they’re fine. I use RedPocket for my daughters phone because it’s like $120 for a whole year of phone service. They’re often better than the ‘pure’ networks because they can fall back to AT&T when T-Mobile is down, etc. Often times they aren’t only on a single network. Hell, Mint was doing so well that T-Mobile ended up buying them (probably to dissolve them, honestly)
I love Mint I get service for $180 a year
They ride on T-Mobile’s network, so they have lower priority. Also, support is terrible and almost non-existent. I use Mint myself and it’s been ok. It’s great until you run into an issue, and it can be hell to get it resolved. If it works though, you should be fine, that’s why you should always use the trial sim first so you can test for 7 days if it works on your phone and if you have good reception in the places you’re usually at.
They also don’t bother to run retail locations or advertising or anything. Just phone + app for payments + cheap + good luck
I and friends have had Mint and on the whole it is great
Didn’t t-mobile buy Mint?
I’ve been on Google Fi for 3 or 4 years and it’s been pretty much flawless. I’ve traveled to Mexico and Spain with it, and there’s a sort of calibration period of like 30 minutes before you have service in another country, but that’s literally the only time I’ve been without service for any period of time. My wife and I are on it and use very little data, so covering both phones is typically about $60/month. We usually have 5G service around our home in northern VA.
Proof of bill cost:
I’ve been using Google Fi since 2016. When I worked from home, my bill was $25-$35/mo. I work outside the home now and my bill has been higher, so thanks for the reminder I should probably look into switching.
WFH bills:
Working outside the home:
Lol happy to help! Yeah, nowadays it’s easy to hit a gig in data usage without even realizing you’ve used any at all. I wish the unlimited tier were cheaper. It feels like we have gotten to a point where we should be able to use GPS or do a Google search without considering a cost. Kinda feels like if anything, they should be paying us for allowing into our pocket this ever changing billboard that scrapes our metadata. But that’s unrealistic to get anyone else onboard with, so I’ll settle for free connectivity to knowledge in exchange for advertising and spying on me.
I’m super happy with jmp.chat
I was hesitant to try it, but once I ported my number over, it’s the best service I’ve ever used.
It’s $5/month, and your phone calls and texts are forwarded to an XMPP account. Voice mails are transcibed and sent as a text, with the included audiofile. It works over the internet, so you can have multiple phones with the number, and you can use your computer for the service as well.
For data, I use jmp.chats data only esim. It’s $7/year + $5/gig but the data never expires.
I’m assuming it only works over the internet, right? they’re not a cell carrier
They offer SIM cards, or you can use it with any other carrier. And for the record, I’ve used visible wireless, mint mobile, cricket, and boost and they all work great. They’re just MVNO’s that ride on the big 3 carriers networks. Whatever has good coverage in your area will be fine. I haven’t used a major carrier in over 10 years.
JMP is great! I ported over my number that I’ve had the longest to them probably 2 years ago when it was still beta. It’s so convenient having sms on multiple devices and my computer. I have all calls from jmp forwarded to my phone with service tho. And I just switched that from AT&T prepaid to US mobile.
Edit: I also like popping in to read their group chat. Lots of nerd talk in there. Also, I’m pretty sure if you ask their support you can still get a free XMPP server with JMP service via Snikket.
