T-Mobile will start charging a $35 fee on all new activations and upgrades | Hacker News Reader

T-Mobile will start charging a $35 fee on all new activations and upgrades

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169 pointsmfiguiere288 comments

I bailed from T-Mobile to Mint, an MVNO running on the same network. Downside is that if there's network congestion you'll be deprioritized behind T-Mobile's direct customers, but it hasn't been an issue for me.

Plans from the major carriers are insane, the price structure is always like $80 for the first line plus $10 per additional line, so unless you have four phones on your plan you're really getting screwed.

In comparison, Mint's plans are $15 to $30 per line if you prepay for a year at a time, and there's no extra activation fees. It's been working well for me.

If your phone has eSIM support you can probably install their app and run a free week trial alongside your current phone service if you want to test it out. For older phones they sell a $5 test kit with two SIMs, one for the trial and a second to activate a real account, and it includes a $5 discount to pay back the trial cost.

Canada is so much like the U.S. that the subtle differences often feel kind of eerie and weird. One of them, which I see on TV whenever I visit, is how many phone ads there are, and how they're all basically trying to sell four phone plans at a time.

Bundling is a pretty ingenious evil way to make it very painful for a customer to switch away, especially when you've got your teens on the plan.

That is why bundling is generally considered anticompetitive (despite 40 years of slumber on the part of regulators, it's still illegal).

https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

I switched my ex off my Verizon plan to Visible. It cut costs by 60+% for service they haven't seen a difference with.

They lost the ability to go into a store for support, lost phone support, and get deprioritized but they use it for personal use and don't care.

I use my phone to run a business. I will spend the premium to have the best service I can afford to run my company. I pay for the top plan on Verizon as a result.

Choice is good. An MVNO is not for everyone but it is a much lower cost option for those who want the downsides.

Of the multitude of benefits of living in a major city, one of the big downsides is that in denser areas, the networks are permanently congested. I went the MVNO route for a month and in downtown Chicago on a work day, you have five bars and no service.

Depending on your use case - a MVNO that supports wifi calling + iMessage etc can help. It’s nice in rural areas where the signal is weak.

I'm not trying to spend $40/mo to use wifi calling and iMessage. I'd rather spend $80 and never ever have to think about it.

Agreed. I loved the concept of wifi calling when it was introduced, but it always sucks when I use it. It always manages to find all of the flaws in the network I'm using.

It's just not worth the hassle when I can rely on a cell network that specializes in real-time voice communication.

USMobile supports wifi calling.

I can confirm this.

I’m kinda surprised to hear that. I’m on an mvno in London and have had zero issues. Only time I see congestion issues are at huge public events like like festivals or carnivals. But that tends to affect every network.

That tracks. The dense parts of Chicago are denser than the dense parts of London.

Yeah I went with Mint in the South Florida metro once, and it was painful. Once a download started it finished pretty quickly, but the amount of lag between clicking a link and the page starting to load was on the order of 10-15 seconds.

Apps that pre-fetched a lot of data (like social media apps fetching a ways down your feed, music streaming apps that will fetch the next song, etc.) will operate somewhat okay but web browsing and map usage was pure hell.

The second I swapped my phone over to Verizon it was like night and day.

I might look into Mint again, now that I'm in a Verizion weakspot so to speak. Unfortunately, I took a BYOD rebate from them that they'd claw back if I left before April. :-/

Doesn't even have to be an MVNO, depends on the priority level of your data. I have Verizon Prepaid and during weekends in a suburban downtown, my phone is almost a dead weight. In a tourist city, I'll have full bars and no service, every day from noon until night.

I tried Mint and Visible and experienced this. In Chicago and Miami they were useless. Even iMessage didn't work. I had more than a few occasions with no messaging, ride sharing, maps, etc and it was legitimately scary (being completely stranded).

I'm now on post-paid Verizon so I at least have a fighting chance in these permanently congested metros.

Amazing how much we depend on data!

I've been on Mint for over a year and have been really happy with it as well. It's saved me thousands compared to T-Mobile, and now that my wife and I work from home full time we really don't need much data at all. We each have 4GB/month, and most of the time I barely use 2GB.

The biggest plus for Mint is they now support legit TOTP for account access.

Also a big fan of Mint. They were the first MVNO, and perhaps even carrier, that I can remember having a really slick website, too. Seemed very modern and forward looking. Their founder, Rizwan, is also around on the subreddit and will generally answer valid complaints - which is pretty unheard of for a company of that size.

Also, Ryan Reynolds sent out a postcard once, and also a voicemail, if that's your thing.

Yeah, it still brings me a little smile (smirk?) to recall the voicemail gag he did during the initial COVID lockdown period in LA.

If you're willing to pay for a year in advance (which I personally consider a convenience rather than a hassle), you might like the AT&T 12-month prepaid plan:

https://www.att.com/prepaid/multi-month-plans/

$25/month for unlimited talk & text + 16 GB of data each month that rolls over month-to-month.

AT&T's customer support is absolute garbage and migrating to them from T-Mobile was a pain in the ass, but since then it's been simple.

I recall data overages on AT&T being a festival of excessive fees rather than merely getting throttled, but that was over a decade ago.

Doesn't apply to prepaid. You pay a lump sum of $300 for the year, dont even need an associated credit card.

I've been on an AT&T prepaid plan for over a decade at this point. The price is exactly what's quoted. In a very good way, it's almost like you're not even on an AT&T plan. Just look at how off-brand the (impossible to find) prepaid login portal is: https://www.paygonline.com/ vs https://www.att.com/acctmgmt/login

Frankly, I think it's wonderful. I never have issues with the reception, service, or speed. I buy a new phone in full when I have to (4-5 years?), and just move the SIM over.

However, AT&T's commission-based store employees will provide dreadful service when they find out you're prepaid. Prepaid clients rarely buy anything. I recommend delaying sharing that knowledge as much as possible :)

Huh, I didn't know about this, thanks. I'm on Cricket (which was an MVNO running on AT&T but is now actually AT&T owned), where I pay for $30/month for unlimited talk and text and only 5GB of data.

I rarely go over the data, but if I can pay less for 16GB of data if I pre-pay for the year... I might.

Although cricket is really all-inclusive, no additional taxes or fees, $30 is what my credit card actually gets charged. Is AT&T pre-pay the same?

That ad also has "Reg. 8GB/mo" in grey text, which I don't know what that means... 16GB is promotional for first year, after which it's 8GB? Which would still be fine.

I kind of like having no contract and being able to switch carriers at any time... on the other hand, I literally never switch carriers cause it's a pain.

It would be cool to have Canada included for free again too.

Tax usually ends up being 15 to 20 percent so it will probably be a wash. Online agent can tell you the exact price.

Nice—never knew about this. How would you compare the coverage and speed to T-Mobile? Does it come with Wi-Fi Calling? Looks like it supports hot spot usage.

I cannot think of a reason that a mobile network would not include wifi calling. I presume it is all gain for them to take load off their mobile network?

Cricket only allows WiFi calling on certain devices. I had to switch to Mint to get it working

How do they prevent wifi calling?

WiFi calling in this context doesn't mean any random VoIP app, it means using your same phone number as the cellular service uses. That requires the carrier to be involved on the server side even if your handset is not using the cellular modem. (And it probably is using the cellular modem to some extent even during a WiFi call, to support handover between WiFi and cellular.)

I concur, but carriers do weird things. Some of them will want you to purchase a more expensive plan to get that “feature.”

Verizon prevented two of my unlocked phones (Nexus 6P and Moto G6 Power) from using WiFi calling, likely because I didn't buy them through them. The phones were perfectly capable of it but it was just some carrier config that prevented it. I bought an unlocked Samsung A53 and that is suddenly allowed to use WiFi calling, likely because Verizon sells the exact same model. I went years without WiFi calling despite living in two homes that had awful cell signal. Now I have a phone with the feature but have great home cell signal.

I prepay w/ tmobile for 30/mo. No wifi directly but can use google voice for that.

Anecdotally, coverage and speed in my area are slightly better with AT&T than they were with T-Mobile. Based on actual data, AT&T beats out T-Mobile for coverage and speed across most of the US.

Yes it supports wi-fi calling (my Pixel 6a defaults to that whenever I'm at home). And yes it supports tethering / hot spots.

Is there any downside to having a prepaid plan as opposed to a normal plan ? For example when the next year comes up, is there any additional hassle to continue with the same account and pay for another year ?

It can have effects on the priority your data receives on the network. This post [0] gives a fair amount of detail - from what I can understand, AT&T gives their prepaid plan the same priority as normal post-paid.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/oaophe/data_pri...

I have the annual plan and while the auto-renew didn't work for me for some reason, I was able to pay the amount due on their website hassle-free. In some cases I think the pre-paid is more advantageous if you're not a heavy data user since it allows tethering up to your data limit and also includes 1 month of data rollover.

I think the biggest thing missing through pre-paid is the ability to finance devices through the carrier (if this is something you do). Additionally, something like the iphone upgrade program isn't supported if you are on a prepaid plan either. Also, if you ever travel internationally the pricing is absurd ($35/WEEK extra for 5GB of data).

That said, I get the feeling AT&T isn't thrilled about people that opt for their prepaid plans. Porting my number over required me to wait for hours on hold, their support is horrendous if you ever need to get in touch with them for something, and you have to manage your account through an entirely different website that frankly looks like one giant phishing attempt.

> That said, I get the feeling AT&T isn't thrilled about people that opt for their prepaid plans. Porting my number over required me to wait for hours on hold, their support is horrendous if you ever need to get in touch with them for something, and you have to manage your account through an entirely different website that frankly looks like one giant phishing attempt.

Absolutely. I had the same experience & got the same impression.

Honestly, when I'm getting indicators that I'm doing something that a horrible megacorporation dislikes, but enables because it lacks the will to go through the steps to end some particular line-of-business... that's when I feel like I'm doing something right.

I would have expected them to prefer a prepaid plan, they get all the money up front. Isn't that why they give you a discount, to encourage it? But I guess the discount is why they prefer a postpaid plan? Very odd, I wonder why the prepaid plans even exist, or are discounted.

Postpaid plans (the traditional ones which have contracts) usually give discounted or free phone upgrades while prepaid does not, so they can bring the price down.

Ah, right. (Still a mystery why they offer postpaid at that price if they don't want to).

But I think I'll stick with cricket after all. Still has discounted phone upgrades, still with no contract (although the phone can be unlocked from cricket until you've used it a year on cricket, I still prefer that).

(And, of course, to make things even weirder, cricket is owned by AT&T)

Prepaid plans often nickel-and-dime you for small features, although that is starting to happen on normal postpaid plans too.

For example:

- 5G

- Visual voicemail

- Roaming (esp. international)

- Tethering

- Limited to lower video resolutions

- Spam filtering

But in this case, the question is about ATT prepaid. My understanding is that 5G, tethering, and Visual voicemail are included. Not sure about the others.

As I understand it 5G is only included on the unlimited data plans.

I have non-unlimited data and 5G.

For AT&T prepaid, I can verify that all of these work as normal (with a post-paid plan) except for international roaming. I haven't traveled internationally since making the switch, so I don't know about that one.

That said, you can always just buy and pop in a prepaid SIM card if you're traveling for extended periods.

> - 5G

"Luddite", don't need it.

> - Visual voicemail

Built into Android.

> - Roaming (esp. international)

Estoy un gringo.

> - Tethering

Built into Android.

> - Limited to lower video resolutions

My eyes can't see 1080p on a phone screen.

> - Spam filtering

Built into Android.

Roaming is a problem, esp if you are in rural areas. Prepaid is good, if you are in a major metro, and you don't go to rural areas much.

One tangential hassle is situations like Blizzard demanding phone numbers to play games online and not allowing prepaid for some bad reason.

I have yet to run into any such issues. I'm not even sure it would be possible to identify that my ported number, that I've had for ... 17 years?... is prepaid.

But I don't play WoW or anything, so...

My guess is it depends on prepaid carrier. Some of them appear as 'voip' providers. Funny thing is they have no way to detect actual carrier VOIP services like T-Mobile DIGITS as being VOIP.

If it's first party prepaid, Cricket looks the same as AT&T for example. Some carriers do stuff like buy bandwidth.com numbers, these will show up as voip even if it's only usable from a phone plan.

I loved AT&t's network, but leaving them was a Royal pain in the ass. They kept sending me bills for new things after I had closed the account, and customer service would barely talk to me since I was leaving anyway

I had to leave AT&T when I moved to California. It was great in the East, but it seems like they don't understand that mountains attenuate the signal -- I had literally 0 bars in my neighborhood because the tower is on the other side of a hill. Not to mention anytime you drive through a canyon, which is almost anytime you're going to the next town/suburb/valley over, which is pretty often for a lot of people in Southern California.

Does the data include tethering?

Yes

Huh that's pretty good. I pay about $18/mo for 2GB and no tethering on an AT&T MVNO. Seems like an extra $7 to never have to worry about data, and to be able to tether would be worth it.

AT&T's websites are complete junk as well. Which you are forced to deal with for any kind of management.

I wish I was able to use the website to sign up. I spent half an hour on their signup flow entering all the fiddly numbers, then got an email saying for some integrity reason my order was cancelled and there was nothing they could do.

I called support and they said the website just didn't like me and I had to sign up by phone, loosing the significant online signup discount. So I spent the next hour and a half repeatedly spelling things out with a phonetic alphabet to someone who only understood a specific kind of formal English before I gave up.

I moved from Mint to T-Mobile. The internet speed was so unbearably slow that it was useless. This is in NYC btw.

> Downside is that if there's network congestion you'll be deprioritized behind T-Mobile's direct customers, but it hasn't been an issue for me.

I’ve wondered how much of a difference this actually makes. How often does a network get congested enough to impact MVNO users, but not congested enough to impact major carrier users as well?

If I have to guess, congestion can’t be just about the total bandwidth being used. It has to also do with the number of connections to a tower. So any densely populated areas will likely be perennially “congested”.

As an mvno user I do occasionally see it. My wife and I will both independently notice that our data has been garbage that day.

Looks like Selectdude in another thread said it happens all the time in Chicago

I can confirm that an MVNO I was using in Tokyo barely worked during rush hour. It was like a 2g connection or worse

Another person here chiming in with my experiences, I see it a good bit but it is not as bad as one might think most of the time.

If I do a speed test in the city square near me late at night, I'll easily pull >100Mbit on my phone. Utilization at like 3:00 AM is next to nothing. All the bars closed over an hour ago, there's nobody out and about but me coming home from a late night datacenter run.

I go to the same public square at 3:00 PM and I'll likely get 10-20Mbit. More than enough for most things I need, but definitely nowhere near what I was pulling at 3:00 AM. Friends with T-Mobile postpaid plans with me will probably still be able to pull ~100Mbit.

At big crowd events especially in places where there aren't usually as big of crowds (balloon festival, airshow, etc.) connections can be anywhere from okay to next to worthless. Maybe I'll get a megabit, but chances are even Signal might have to retry every now and then to send a text message.

Does everyones speed decrease like that or only MVNO?

I've definitely experienced big crowd events where friends with me on T-Mobile on similar generation phones had plenty of network performance available to even stream video while my phone on Mint could barely load a webpage.

I use Mint in the Bay Area and I’m quite happy with it. Just paid for my second year. I generally don’t perceive much deprioritization. I notice it when I’m streaming music and I hit the Bay Bridge toll plaza with a bunch of traffic (or that’s my assumption, at least). Other than that and maybe a very crowded airport, I can’t think of any other cases.

My wife and I have had Mint for 3 years in NYC and I don’t recall ever having had a situation where there was good service but slow data. Speed tests on 5G generally run over 400mbps.

I did a trial before we switched from a regular AT&T plan and I had significantly faster internet at my office, on the subway, and at home than with AT&T. The AT&T service was typically useless at sports games and concerts and stuff anyway, so the concept of deprioritization didn’t really phase me. Saved us $1000/year and we got better service. Couldn’t be happier.

Getting Mint service activated and working was a 3 day train wreck for me. Can't remember details but they couldn't get the number ported, then they couldn't activate my phone for some reason.

Went with Ting mobile and it's been great.

I have no idea why anyone stays on the 'big' carriers these days.

To answer your last question: because when I go abroad, my phone just works almost everywhere I go. Literally when the plane lands, I get a text message from T-Mobile saying "Welcome to _____" with additional information about my service in that country. Places like Mint, Visible, Ting, etc all charge you per text/minute/MB used abroad which makes them non-starters since that's usually where I'm going to be using my phone even more than usual.

Haven’t traveled internationally since 2019 but AT&T was always good for a chuckle on landing: “Welcome to {country}! You can continue using your AT&T data at our roaming rate of $25/megabyte.” Then I’d buy a 10GB SIM for $15 on the way out of the airport.

Ting is just Dish Network reselling T-Mobile’s network, which means Ting’s users are prioritized behind people directly paying more (or more valuable) to T-Mobile.

I stick with one of the 3 mobile network operators because I do not mind the extra cost for being higher up in the priority chain (or believing that I am).

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/tn4733/qci_leve...

Same except switched to Visible, which runs on Verizon (May even be partially owned by them, not sure).

Visible is completely owned by Verizon. Many US “MVNOs” are just businesses created to implement price segmentation (price discrimination) for the 3 mobile networks.

It's not price discrimination. MVNO customers, whether owned by the carrier or not, pay less and get less. In order for it to be price discrimination, it would have to be the same service that direct customers of the carrier receive. And it's simply not.

That is a good point. I guess it is more similar to “product binning”? Or whatever it is called when you go to an amusement park and purchase passes to cut 50% of the way into the line, or 75% of the way into the line, and then 95% of the way into the line for a ride?

Yeah, I think that's a better analogy.

same, Mint has been great.

I'm with Cricket Wireless (AT&T MVNO) for a few years now and every time I look at the pricing of major carriers I'm blown away by how intentionally confusing they make it.

So you want unlimited data with your plan right? Well unlimited regular data or "premium" data, are you going to be streaming 1080p, because that only works on "premium" data. Oh and when we said unlimited data, we didn't mean unlimited "premium" data, no you only get 10GB of that before you get another 30GB of regular data and then after that and after that....well consumers with "unlimited data" only really use 30GB max so really "unlimited" is just 30GB plus the 10GB of "premium data" and then you get dial up.

Oh and you want hotspot too? Well for that we have several tiers of premium and non premium data types. Here are 10 more plans to choose from....

Meanwhile Crickets plan is: $50/mo for unlimited data period.

Now try to get AT&T to tell you the difference between the 2010 grandfathered iPad unlimited data plan sold direct from the iPad UI, currently hovering around $30/month ... and any of the above, or in particular the business iPad add-on claiming to offer unlimited iPad data for $20/month.

// This was the plan that was only around for a few months at launch:

https://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/02/atandt-replaces-ipad-un...

// And then sort of reintroduced in 2017, pulled in 2020:

https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/gear/att-dataconnect-tablet...

What are you talking about? Cricket does the exact same thing.

https://cricketwireless.com/cell-phone-plans :

"Unlimited": $55/mo. Video streaming restricted to 1.5 Mbps. No hotspot allowed at all.

Add hotspot to your "Unlimited" account: $10/mo. 10 GB of hotspot data usage, after which it is slowed to 128kbps. "only available with Cricket Core and select grandfathered plans," of which I think "Unlimited" is one, but see how confusing this is?

"Unlimited Cricket More": $60/mo. Includes 15GB hotspot. Unclear what happens if you go over it, but "5GB and 15GB add-ons can be purchased separately". Also you can apparently only share the data allowance among 6 devices you're tethering to. Does include HBO max though. Video streaming still limited to 1.5Mbps.

"100 GB simply data": $90/mo. Not unlimited data, but they won't throttle you. Closest to your claim but note not unlimited. Also unclear if it comes with phone service or it's even allowed to be used on a phone.

I can't see how your post could possibly be more wrong.

No there's a huge difference. I was talking about Verizon but AT&T is the same. Cricket has two unlimited plans, an unlimited and unlimited + hotspot. With AT&T you have 3 unlimited plans that give you unlimited "data" and then different amounts of "premium data" and differing amounts of hotspot data.

so much for "unlimited data period".

And it's not like this is less confusing: Cricket's unlimited with hotspot plan has completely orthogonal features (cloud storage, HBO max, more high speed data) to what you get if you buy the unlimited plan, then add hotspot (more devices allowed, fallback to slow data when out of data allotment). There's at least three plans to choose from here.

The only simplifying factor is that Cricket doesn't even offer you the option to have 1080p streaming with any of these plans! Your premium data allowance is zero GB. How is that any better??

AT&T has a business only truly unlimited data plan for hotspots that I ended up getting by actually going into a store and signing up, they don't advertise it at all and at the time, it was the only truly unlimited data plan I could find. It was a lifesaver as someone who sits on Zoom calls for hours each day while in a campervan.

That said, I upgraded to the NETGEAR Nighthawk M6 Pro 5G hotspot and it is a piece of shit that overheats and gets poor performance all the time.

T-Mobile has similarly priced prepay plans to Mint:

https://prepaid.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans/connect

I tried and liked Mint, but ended up with Red Pocket (MVNO that does Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T) when I moved somewhere that needed AT&T. It is pretty handy having one provider but having a choice of network. It also helps they have plans as low as $5/month, which is great for kids and infrequent users.

Another vote for Red Pocket. I have 5 handsets on the T-Mobile variant for 30/yr(200min/1kTxt/200mb).

Another handset has RP AT&T for incoming sim. Outgoing sim is T-Mobile starter ($23/mo unlim 10gb), good for 2 mos and then a new one arrives.

$5/month is perfect for expats who need to keep a "real" US mobile number for 2FA that insists on SMS, and who only spend a few weeks a year stateside... looking into it now - thanks so much!

… but sadly, it’s currently useless for that purpose, as Red Pocket doesn’t support international roaming: https://help.redpocket.com/can-i-still-use-my-red-pocket-mob...

$2.50/mo is the lowest, but it's eBay exclusive iirc. Gives you something like 200mb of data. (Which coincidentally makes it one of the best deals for a small IoT project sim like a GPS tracker or remote weather station or whatnot)

I used to be on Tello and loved it since the Sprint network had the best performance where I lived. Sadly that went away when they merged with T-Mobile, so I switched to Red Pocket since AT&T is second best here. Great prices and good customer service (the few times I've contacted them).

I'm also on Red Pocket's $2.50/month plan, totally satisfied, and amazed by the quality of the customer service as well considering I'm paying them essentially nothing. Hope it lasts.

I love my Mint. There have been no downsides for me. $15 a month. Got my whole extended family and friends on it. Everyone loves it.

Is Mint cheaper than Google Fi?

And does it work on multiple networks and globally?

Google Fi just seems like it's substantially better than any other carrier - at least in the US.

Mint is a little cheaper, and works with more phones. Which is why I went with Mint. But if you need/want that multi network support and global connectivity, you should probably go with google fi.

According to the Reddit link in another comment it looks like T-Mobile treats Google Fi higher priority than MVNOs, it's in the same tier as the normal plans.

Most of the carriers, including T-Mobile have pre-paid plans that are a much better deal than their post-paid, and I've had fewer problems with them than MVNOs. For example, T-Mobile's less expensive pre-paid plans are:

* $15/month 3GB

* $25/month 6GB

* $35/month 12GB

That is a bit more expensive that Mint, but not insane, and you don't have to prepay for 6-12 months.

T-Mobile prepaid (when their payment processor was Vesta; not sure if it still is) once decided to refuse my payment because my street address started with 4 numbers and they thought I was trying to enter a credit card.

The exchange for those lower prices is lower priority. This is a good post (assuming it is true):

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/tn4733/qci_leve...

Basically, pay more and you get a higher probability of higher quality connection. Whether or not the difference in cost is worth the difference (real or perceived) in quality of connection is of course, unknown.

So Google Fi isn't considered a MVNO by T-Mobile?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fi

>Google Fi ... is an MVNO telecommunications service by Google that provides telephone calls, SMS, and mobile broadband using cellular networks and Wi-Fi. Google Fi uses networks operated by T-Mobile and U.S. Cellular.

> by T-Mobile

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_virtual_network_operato...

> A mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is a wireless communications services provider that does not own the wireless network infrastructure over which it provides services to its customers.

T-Mobile owns the wireless network infrastructure, so an MVNO cannot be “by T-Mobile”, in any meaningful sense.

> considered […] by T-Mobile

i.e. as opposed to consideration by you, me, or Wikipedia articles

If you go through Metro by T-Mobile, you can get an unlimited plan for $40/month. (four lines for $25 each).

Mint deceptively charges a significant processing fee at the last minute even when paying 6 months at a time. 9 or 10%. 18 months (540 days, really) of Mint service requires about $40 in surprise fees.

Are these fees from Mint or local taxes? How does Mint describe them?

Good point. Some of it was taxes, but I forget how much, and they don't tell you in your email receipt. I might be able to dig up the exact breakdown.

One data point:

* Base amount: $180

* "Recovery fee" (which they describe in [0]): $18.5

* "Taxes and Surcharges": $3.89

[0]: https://www.mintmobile.com/taxes-and-fees-explained

   Renew 10GB 5G • 4G LTE Data Plan for 6 Months
   Summary
   10GB 5G 4G LTE Data 6 Months
   $150.00
  
   Recovery Fee
   $11.50
  
   Taxes & Surcharges
   $2.05

So if we treat the "Taxes and Surcharges" as just normal American customs, 18 months of this would be about $35 in "recovery fees".

Mint customer here.

It doesn't always get the best service (live in the Colorado mountains) but my phone is such a small part of my life, I don't really care if it is occasionally slow.

I have the massive privilege of working from home, where I have a consistent internet connection anyway. If I am out and sometimes can't look at HN while taking a shit... life goes on.

Same story for me - but we are on Ting (MVNO of Verizon). They have great customer service, have always been really competitively priced (our two-phone family is usually right around $55/mo), and the cell service has been great.

Prepaid on Verizon has a couple discounts that cut costs, without any lock-in or long term payments.

$10/mo Auto Pay discount on plans $45 & higher after the 1st month. $5/mo loyalty discount applies after 3 months of service; additional $5/mo applies after 9 months of service, for a total of $10/mo on plans $45 or higher.

But on the lowest tier plan after your data is used you're living a rough life on 2G speed.

"Once high-speed data is used (including Mobile Hotspot), you will have 2G speeds the remainder of the month. Your data experience and functionality of some data applications such as streaming video or audio may be impacted."

i've had t-mobile before and even tried mint too, but t-mobile is awful in (my area of) LA. so during the pandemic, i switched to visible ($30/mo) and it's been great. no congestion slowdowns yet. it has unlimited talk/text/data, and crucially, unlimited hotspot (for 1 device at a time) when i'm out and need internet for a laptop or tablet. the only potential trip-up is that customer service is chat-/email-only (no phone).

visible just recently added a higher-priced tier for 5G, but don't fall for it. the 4G tier is more than fast enough.

Surprisingly, I've found the Mint's speeds always comparable if not faster than T-Mobile. I did a speed test before/after I switched from T-Mobile to Mint, and Mint was actually faster (I ran the tests within 5 minutes of eachother).

Also, it was pretty amusing to get a voicemail from (a recording of) Ryan Reynolds telling me I could downgrade since I'm not using my full data amount each month.

I left my 20 year career with a telco, and immediately signed up with Visible. (No way I am paying insane prices for a phone that I seldom use).

$25/mo and Apple Watch for $5/mo.

Visible or Mint is a good way to go.

Has Visible worked out the signup problems they had? I remember hearing a lot of people complain about their experience trying to sign up for Visible. A lot of them just gave up and got service elsewhere.

Of the 6 people I brought over with me, there were zero issues. If you were to read the sub-reddit dedicated to Visible, you'd think it was a hot dumpster fire. But from everything I have seen and interacted with their customer service (the two times I needed to), I have zero issues. And this is coming from a person that worked in all aspects of Big Telco and believe me, I know what horrible customer support in telco really is. :)

I have Verizon prepaid. I pay $26.56 a month including state sales tax.

For that I get…

* Unlimited voice.

* Unlimited SMS.

* “Unlimited” data. The first 5GB/mo is at 5G speeds, the rest at 4G speeds which I typically see between 60-110Mbps.

* Yes, tethering as well.

Post-paid from all carriers is vastly overpriced, and that’s what they push push push. Pre-paid is always cheaper, though you can’t bring some things like a watch along. Check the major carriers, and get over not being able to stream unlimited 4K video in the field.

I’ve been paying that $26.56 a month for years now, and that price has come down at least THREE TIMES since I switched to prepaid many years ago. Think I went from $45 -> $35 -> $30 -> $25 pre-tax over the years.

MVNOs are certainly an option, but just look hard at the major carrier prepaid offerings. They don’t actively advertise them, so, “It’s a secret to everybody.”

> I bailed from T-Mobile to Mint, an MVNO running on the same network. Downside is that if there's network congestion you'll be deprioritized behind T-Mobile's direct customers, but it hasn't been an issue for me. Plans from the major carriers are insane, the price structure is always like $80 for the first line plus $10 per additional line, so unless you have four phones on your plan you're really getting screwed.

In comparison, Mint's plans are $15 to $30 per line if you prepay for a year at a time, and there's no extra activation fees. It's been working well for me.

Mint is nice in urban areas, but don't get it if you need roaming coverage or coverage in rural areas. You won't get it. SMS often breaks down as well when you're out of cell signal range. I've had a few important texts disappear due to that. Otherwise if you don't leave an urban area or deal with a disaster flooding cellular traffic, then Mint is a great, cheap, urban option.

T-Mobile recently started preventing you from logging in to their website using Firefox in Private Mode. Phone calls with T-Mobile representatives have made it clear that it's their privacy department who initiated and enforced this.

So it's clear that T-Mobile does not value your privacy. That's the last straw for me. I'm moving to a competitor after being with T-Mobile for over a decade. It's one thing to know that your provider actively monitors your network activity and violates your privacy there. There's little to nothing you can do about that thanks to governments. But to prevent me from even using a browser feature intended to help with privacy? Fuck You, T-Mobile.

It's only on Firefox and not on Chrome. So it's clearly not about privacy there was some bug that they decided not to bother fixing and took the lazy way out.

> It's only on Firefox and not on Chrome. So it's clearly not about privacy

Yup. I knew it wasn't about privacy when their website worked "fine" just a few months ago. Their competitors, and my banks, still work fine in Firefox's Privacy Mode. So there's absolutely no real technical reason whatsoever for them to disable it.

> there was some bug that they decided not to bother fixing and took the lazy way out

My guess is that the bug being that Firefox's Privacy Mode actually prevented a lot of T-Mobile's invasive tracking.

Private mode also enables "tracking protection", which prevents connections to 3rd party sites. It breaks the model of the web, and there are many legitimate use cases that don't work when its enabled. I use uB0 to prevent tracking, and generally disable "tracking protection" to make sure sites keep working.

> Private mode also enables "tracking protection", which prevents connections to 3rd party sites.

Yup and this is a good thing.

> It breaks the model of the web,

I would argue that it breaks the model of user-abusive models. This is still a good thing.

> there are many legitimate use cases that don't work when its enabled

Can you enumerate some of them?

Inlinking third party resources is literally in the original hypertext specification of the web. An HTML site might want to play a video hosted by a third party, or load a shared resource. Tags like <img src> even at the start of the web was intended to let you load images from any host.

I would argue a browser that doesn't access resources on other domains or IPs is not a web browser at all, but instead some weird sandbox that lets you run a self contained app.

> Inlinking third party resources is literally in the original hypertext specification of the web.

Indeed, but it was intended for real content. That intent is being abused by large corporations for tracking purposes and necessitates a heavy-handed block to it. Plus, including third party resources often ends up causing bitrot. It's much better to host your own copy of the things your site wants to load. You want to put in some 5 megabyte of javascript trash? Then you should pay the bandwidth costs for that too instead of letting someone else, with different motives, handle it for you. If you don't want to handle updates to that javascript library, if you don't want to pay for the bandwidth, if you want to offload all of that cost to someone else who doesn't care about the end user's privacy and functionality, then you are literally one of the problems with the "modern" web.

> An HTML site might want to play a video hosted by a third party, or load a shared resource.

There's no situation where I want website A to load resources from website B. Want to share a youtube video? Then give me a youtube link. I don't want to open some potentially malicious third party website which just loads a youtube link. If I don't want to use youtube _at all_ then your site will break too. If I get blocked or banned from youtube, then your site will break anyway and that's still a _you_ problem and not a _me_ problem. It's the same for images, audio, javascript, whatever. If you want it to load on my machine, then you should host it on your machine accessible from the exact same domain that serves your website.

> I would argue a browser that doesn't access resources on other domains or IPs is not a web browser at all, but instead some weird sandbox that lets you run a self contained app.

That is exactly what we have right now anyway. And I fully agree: browsers have turned into semi-sandboxes to let people run self-contained "apps". I don't want or like it and I argue that that very "model" of the web is not conducive to users' privacy.

Well I think we mostly agree on the facts and the terms then. That large companies have co-opted a model of early web enthusiasts sharing. That the original and current model of the web has loading third party resources as a primary feature, and is not conducive to user privacy.

> and that's still a _you_ problem and not a _me_ problem.

Objectively, it's both a server and a client problem if both you and the site intended it to function. I don't see how you not getting a working site isn't a problem for you.

It's clear you enjoy a good conspiracy theory, but you are quite wrong.

First of all Firefox, in regular mode, already blocks all tracking cookies. There is ZERO extra blocking in privacy mode.

> So there's absolutely no real technical reason whatsoever for them to disable it.

The only difference is in privacy mode some offline data storage API's do not work (return null, rather than storing, and then discarding, data). T-Mobile uses those API's, and they did not feel like dealing with the case of them not working.

If you install an extension that re-enables the API's, magically T-Mobile starts working even in privacy mode!

> My guess is that the bug being that Firefox's Privacy Mode actually prevented a lot of T-Mobile's invasive tracking.

Like I said, you clearly enjoy conspiracy theories, but T-Mobile doesn't have much tracking on their login page.

> There is ZERO extra blocking in privacy mode.

Indeed? But there is extra privacy in privacy mode. I don't have to remember to log-out, I don't have to worry about cached items, I don't have to worry about a tab in Private Mode talking to a tab outside of Private Mode (and indeed, that is extra blocking).

> The only difference is in privacy mode some offline data storage API's do not work

That's a good thing. I do not want websites to store data on my machine. If the website cannot function without data stored locally then the website is not a valid website. It's now an app. I do not want to install apps in my browser.

And further: why is this a technical decision made by their privacy team instead of their engineers? Why don't they able to explicitly state what features are required instead of blanket banning the mode? T-Mobile is clearly in the wrong here.

Plus, why would T-Mobile do "invasive tracking" on their login page? One or two clicks later they'll know exactly who you are.

Well that's a good point. But then: why is it the privacy policy department who mandated the change?

I get it till I don't.

What I get: In-store activations and upgrades are time consuming in many cases. I think every time I've gone to a TMO store to upgrade a phone for myself or a family member, at least one other person/group is there doing an activation that for reasons I cannot fathom takes at least from when I arrive at the store, wait 30-45 minutes, finally get handled, get activated... and that other person is -still- going. It's a huge time-sink.

What I don't get: charging the full price for online activation, when you're not involving nearly as many employees. It will potentially backfire, I know if I'm paying 35$ whether I do it myself or have someone else do it for me, the value-prop changes and I might just go in and further load their stores.

What I don’t understand is how they haven’t seen this as friction to conversion and got rid of it entirely, you’re surely supposed to incentivise people to use your service right? Imagine if Amazon charged $35 to get an account!

Worse, this is like Amazon charging you everytime you add a new address

Maybe they bet that every other provider will start doing it, then the joke will be on you because what are you gonna do, not get a phone?

Every other provider (that is, Verizon and AT&T) has been doing this for years.

This is why MVNOs are a godsend. They definitely have been in the UK.

My guess is that the existing players in the US are so entrenched and people are so used to paying these ridiculous fees that all the advertisements around being an "Uncarrier" didn't work out to be a competitive advantage for T-Mobile.

At which point, some MBA came in with a revolutionary new plan to charge the same predatory fees and make N million / year.

The employees of TMO store get commission on sales. It materially affects them when someone complains (like me) that I can do it for free online. At least that is the impression I got from the angry employee.

They've already been doing this, just switched back to T-Mobile recently and it was $35/line for activation, and then afterwards we had an issue with the unlocked Verizon S22 Ultra because Verizon's firmware on the device was (intentionally?) broken, so we "upgraded" that line to purchase a new device and it required a manager to waive the $35 upgrade fee for the line.

That said, I'll take it, I was only on Verizon for 6 months and had nothing but issues, especially issues that just straight out shouldn't happen (phone got stuck thinking it was in Italy after our summer vacation after we returned to the US). I was a happy Verizon customer more than a decade ago and thought going back would be a good plan, but it turned out to be a nightmare that ended up costing me over $1000 for no reason, and the Verizon policies and customer service are horrible.

T-Mobile is the only US based carrier that has reasonable international roaming for data and non-stupid policies. If they go evil after merging with Sprint (Sprint is horrid), then we'll have nobody left, just like most other industries in the US that have become multi-headed monopolies.

> T-Mobile is the only US based carrier that has reasonable international roaming for data and non-stupid policies.

I find ATT pricing to be okay. I get Canada/Mexico/US for one price, and then if I use my phone internationally, it automatically starts and stops charging $10 per day, up to $100 max per month. If you are just stepping out of North America for a week, the convenience of not having to bother with another SIM or eSIM is not that expensive. I guess the most convenient part is not having to do anything, and just being able to continue using my phone.

I spent a good chunk of my life spending 1-2 weeks/month every month traveling internationally for work. AT&T has historically been insanely expensive for roaming data. The max is per-country I believe, and it is common for me to be in 2-3 countries in a trip, but even assuming this is truly a max, you just basically said T-Mobile saves me $100/month at minimum with their roaming policies.

https://www.att.com/international/day-pass/

> You will only be charged one daily fee per 24-hour period for International Day Pass, even if you travel to multiple included destinations in the same 24-hour period.

T-Mobile’s max plan does include 5GB international, so that is neat. If I was frequently traveling internationally, I would consider it over ATT.

That's much better than I expected from AT&T. That's great news, actually, and makes it a better offer than the equivalent from Verizon (Travel Pass).

This is why I stick with T-Mobile. When I go abroad, it just works and is just included in my regular plan. I haven't been charged extra to use my phone abroad in years. And it isn't even shite service anymore, I can typically use 5G/LTE just fine.

Even $10 a day can be STEEP when you're gone for >2 weeks at a time.

> And it isn't even shite service anymore, I can typically use 5G/LTE just fine.

I had T-Mobile before switching to Verizon and am now back on T-Mobile. Ironically, my experience has been my service quality on T-Mobile is better when roaming in Europe than it is when at home in the US. I believe this is because T-Mobile is an off-shoot of Deutsch Telekom, and therefore makes use of DT and partner towers in Europe which have exceptionally good coverage. Verizon used to have a similar relationship to Vodafone, but when I recently roamed on Verizon in Europe, I was no longer on Vodafone towers and got shoddy service at a higher cost (and with issues upon returning to the US).

I primarily ditched T-Mobile due to service quality / coverage in the US, but I've decided to put up with it because they were the first to adopt Wi-Fi calling in the US, and all of their services work perfectly over Wi-Fi and I pretty much always have Wi-Fi in the US.

Same with Verizon: $10/day.

But.... Story Time: I recently switched to Mint, and there is no international (outside of Canada and Mexico, I think?). So had to find a phone store when I recently went to Ireland, and they are a lot less ubiquitous than in their neighbor to the north and east (UK). I had to take a 10 minute walk down to the town centre where I expected the little grocer to have some sim cards, but he directed me down the road to a larger chain grocery. When they didn't have them, I was directed to another town, so then I had to hop on bus for a few kilometers to the next town that had an indoor shopping mall where there was a Vodafone store. All of this with no network connection because I had no sim card.

I forgot how hard travel used to be.

> Same with Verizon: $10/day.

Verizon's Travel Pass is $10 per instance, which can be more than once per day. A Travel Pass is active for up to 24 hours, but includes a limited amount of data, at which point you must purchase another one. Verizon Travel Pass also does not have a monthly maximum. Based on the link provided in the parallel thread, the AT&T offer is better than the Verizon Travel Pass.

I had Verizon during a recent family vacation and ran into issues with this, which was one motivating factor for switching back to T-Mobile.

GF and I went to Iceland in June. She's on Verizon, I am on T-Mobile.

We entered Iceland airspace and I got a nice text from T-Mobile "Welcome to Iceland, enjoy your trip here's unlimited talk, text and data"

My GF got "You are out of the US to use your device it's $20/day for talk, text and 1GB of data"

By the end of the week trip, my cellphone bill was $10 more than normal. Her's was an additional $200.

I just spent half a year in Canada, and my T-Mobile bill was no different. I was limited to 5GB/data/month, but other than that it was just like being in the US.

I just switched to T-Mobile from a 16-year-old Verizon account, and at the beginning of October. We didn't get charged any activation fees for our 3 lines, but we did get charged $15 per line to port our numbers over from Verizon.

As with the OP, the last 3-ish years, Verizon service in our area dropped from being the best service available to the worst I've experienced in the 16 years. I couldn't make phone calls reliably; data rates were abysmal to the point that streaming podcasts was generally not an option. I correlate the dismal drop in service to the rollout of 5G back in late 2019/early 2020. We tried moving around Verizon's data plans to see if paying for "Premium Data" made a difference, and we saw no improvements.

Sucking up the porting fees and paying partial monthly bills for 2 different carriers, was simply worth it. T-Mobile in our area, gives us actual cell coverage so we can make phone calls again, and even on a lower tier data plan, our data speeds are MAJORLY improved over Verizon. It's a bit shocking how much of a difference there is. Plus, we went from almost $50/line to $35/line on T-Mobile, for unlimited data.

One thing that made our switch super easy is the fact that all 3 of our phones were bought unlocked from the manufacturer instead of via a carrier, and no one owed any $$$ for hardware installments.

The 3 lines on my account are used extensively all along the front range area of Colorado, for a point of reference.

> The 3 lines on my account are used extensively all along the front range area of Colorado, for a point of reference.

I'm also in the Colorado front range. Maybe there's a geographical correlation to the service quality issues with Verizon.

Are you experiencing service issues then too?

Yes, I dropped Verizon for T-Mobile partly due to issues. I also think this is related to 5G rollout, because on both providers I get better service quality by disabling 5G on my phone and reverting to LTE.

Very interesting. I am relieved to hear I'm not alone in these issues. So far, 5G on T-Mobile has actually worked and given me improved speeds but I have disabled it too for battery life purposes.

I've seen significant degradation in connection quality since the 5G rollout, but I'm on t mobile, and in the PNW.

Same. I'm in Oregon and the Verizon quality is absolutely horrendous. They still have the best coverage for rural and mountainous areas imo, but the degradation has been severe for sure.

I assume this is more due to the removal of 3G than anything. Edge is so slow it's worthless, and 4G coverage is spotty at best. 5G is, as far as I can tell, a stupid gimmick almost nobody will get great use out of on their phones.

Agreed. I've been a TMobile fan for a good many years now, which is why this worries me. We'll see how TMobile officially responds, but the especially worrisome part for me is how they messaged it. I know it happens all the time, but it makes my blood boil when companies try to sugarcoat blatant money grabs with the "it's good for the consumer" nonsense. It's like they not only want more money, but they are also going to show you how much of an idiot they think you are.

I've been using Google Fi for many years and don't plan on switching. Since I don't like using my phone or use much data, this has been a good cheap plan to use over the years.

https://fi.google.com/about/

I used to be on Google Fi and my wife still is due to their excellent international roaming. Her monthly bills are far higher than mine on Visible though and I have much better reception and unlimited data where she's paying $10/gb.

I've actually never heard of this service. This looks like just a cheaper version of Verizon? This looks promising...

Use prepaid.

I don't see why not many people see the appeal of prepaid SIM cards. Just buy an unlocked phone, and pop in a prepaid SIM card or install an eSIM profile. That's all it takes.

I rarely make phone calls, and haven't send an SMS in years. WiFi is everywhere, so all what I use the SIM card is to register with shitty 2FA providers that dont support TOTP/WebAuthn. The catch with prepaid SIM cards is that phone calls, SMSs, and mobile data are quite expensive. My carrier charges 9,95 euros for a 1GB bundle. I only use mobile data when I need to look up directions or something small that even a small package with a small data cap, or a package with unlimited data at slow rate does the job.

Context: Netherlands, using KPN prepaid. I understand postpaid packages are more common in the US and prepaid cost a lot more too.

> I don't see why not many people see the appeal of prepaid SIM cards.

Because paying your bill ahead of time means you're lending them money!

> My carrier charges 9,95 euros for a 1GB bundle.

That's stupidly high.

But you're also not giving them the opportunity to charge you for something you didn't realize. Imagine if YouTube could charge you automatically if you accidentally clicked on a "Premium" video without realizing.

$10/GB sounds very expensive. Even in the US it wouldn't be that.

Also, a major strike against most prepaid plans is they don't support things like smartwatches paired with a phone. So you're kinda stuck getting a postpaid plan that supports those features.

Yeah the $10/GB price is the catch. In reality, I haven't activated any of these plans in months. The credits have unlimited shelf life (as long as I make a call/SMS every six months), and it has been working great.

For me, having to pay $10 a gigabyte is absolutely absurd.

It is, and that's their catch. That number is only for 2FA SMSs, when I have deliveries, or when something requires a phone number verification. WiFi is plentiful everywhere nowadays, so I didn't have to activate this absurd plans in months.

> The catch with prepaid SIM cards is that phone calls, SMSs, and mobile data are quite expensive.

If you're not using your phone for calls, SMSs, or mobile data, then what are you using it for?

Mostly for incoming SMS 2FA, and to use as a phone number for deliveries, forms, etc.

US Prepaid has a lot of price points. $5/mo for 200mb, $15/mo 3gb, $23/mo 10gb, $32/mo 50gb.

I'm with you that prepaid keeps me safe from unintended charges (eg: no activation fee for moving SIM to another handset). It's more flexible overall (eg:no hotspot restrictions).

Meanwhile in Ireland I pay €20 for a "throttles after 45gb" package on prepaid

Sounds like a great deal! I did try to game the EU roaming by using a Polish carrier SIM in the Netherlands, which in theory should work for a few months each.

Seems not very coincidental that this happens right after the new iPhone in the US went eSIM only, which means you now have to talk to your carrier to change phones instead of just moving your SIM over.

(Unless this doesn't count if you move your SIM over through the OS, but I figure the carrier would have to be informed?)

For a variety of reasons, I ended up with a physical SIM, we'll see when I buy my next phone towards the end of this year if I have the same issue.

I've had it happen with Verizon. Bought a new iphone directly with Apple, moved the sim over and nothing worked, called Verizon and they said they have to perform some action on their end. Ended up with an activation fee.

I have been charged by ATT the same fee even when just swapping a physical SIM.

Apple worked out a deal with the mobile networks where if you buy from apple.com, the price of the phone includes this “activation” fee.

> I have been charged by ATT the same fee even when just swapping a physical SIM.

Based on this, you'd get charged a fee just for testing your SIM in another phone. That's harsh.

I have not done this in many years, but I vaguely recall it used to take a few days for the charge to appear, I presume after the IMEI was updated in the system.

Maybe popping a sim in and out for a short time will not trigger it, but who knows.

Ooof. Sounds like a good sales pitch for prepaid.

Apple's phone migration flow moves the eSim too now.

The question is does that notify the carrier and would they just decide to charge simply because a new device showed up

I was briefly confused, because I was recently charged that fee ( long story; I genuinely needed cell at that very moment -- first day at work ). Upon going through the story it seems that the fee was expanded to postpaid activation and upgrades. I was annoyed, but I was in a real bind so I just shrugged it off.

But yeah, each time a merger is proposed remember that the customer gets squeezed in the end. How we ended up with the same 3 major telecoms as our cell providers is beyond me. No, I do not count virtual ones as real competition as they rely on original oligopolies and exist at their whim.

If you know someone who is 55+ years old, you can join them on the T-Mobile Magenta plan, which works out to $35 per line, with unlimited everything. Pretty cheap IMO, annoying activation fees aside.

I've been very happy with Tello. $5/month if, like me, you barely use your phone. Their 500 MB/month data plan with no voice minutes + one-time $20 pay-as-you-go minutes. Splitting data and voice like this means no taxes or fees, the total monthly bill is $5.

I'm similarly on RedPocket and can recommend it. Good customer support over chat and good plans if you rarely use your phone or data. Their Tmobile MVNO plan goes as low as $30 per year and you can buy it from their store on eBay - 200mins, 100SMS, 500MB if I remember right.

I do this, except Google Voice for calls over data, usually via WiFi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

"The classic example of rent-seeking, according to Robert Shiller, is that of a property owner who installs a chain across a river that flows through his land and then hires a collector to charge passing boats a fee to lower the chain. There is nothing productive about the chain or the collector. The owner has made no improvements to the river and is not adding value in any way, directly or indirectly, except for himself. All he is doing is finding a way to make money from something that used to be free."

Question: If I own my own phones and simply swap the sim from phone A to phone B, they will charge $35 for this??

Certainly sounds like it...

How are they going to handle developers and people that travel a lot. This seems like a bad idea. I’ll do my part to call in and make this cost them more than $35 per instance…

No, that is not a new activation. The activation is at the sim card-level.

If you needed a second sim so that you can have two active devices, that would incur the fee.

Yes

In the UK we sometimes talk about "shrinkflation" where to deal with inflation, companies make products smaller or lower quality rather than increase the price. Toblerone (chocolate) were famously "caught" doing this [1]

But we don't have a catchy term for (service) companies suddenly adding 101 shitty fees and charges for things that used to be free for the same reason.

PickPocketFlation?

[1]. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/155c9f1d9335a6fe4e7f2f530150b...

Not in the "-flation" genre, but Americans use "nickel and dime" as a verb: "The sticker price is low, but they'll nickel and dime you to death on the options." (speaking of a car with a low-seeming advertised price). Other categories where "nickel and diming" is common are airline tickets and car rentals.

What you want to pay for:

- cell towers

- backhaul infrastructure

- better phones

What you pay for:

- advertising

- brand ambassadors

- complex price and deal creation

- call centres due to lack of the 3 things you want to pay for

I switched from Sprint to T-Mobile in late 2019, about 10 months before the merger, in anticipation of prices going up post-merger. T-Mo matched the discounts Sprint was giving me (since they were still competing) so I'm paying $212.42/mo for 6 lines, or $35.40 per line per month, including all taxes. This for the unlimited everything "Magenta Plus" plan. They also cover $13 of my Netflix subscription so I'm really paying close to an even $200/mo. I haven't taken advantage of the free Apple TV+ but I did get free WiFi on my Delta flight last week - another nice bonus.

Activations …what a joke. This is literally a fake charge to generate free money.

When I have gotten a new phone I just swap sim cards and “activate” my new device.

Even if you go with a new sim… registering it to the device an account takes less than 5 min.

I love when Verizon charges me $35 to activate a new iPhone that they never handled in any way and doesn't even have a physical SIM card. $35 to make a few API calls to their activation system. It's obscene.

I got really excited about Google Fi - especially sharing a plan across our family in different locations.

I was just about at the take my money part when I realized iPhones aren't supported.

IIRC iPhones are supported, you just will only have access to the T-Mobile network. That and having to re-enter APN settings on every system upgrade are the only constraints from what I remember.

I know very little about this but don't the other carriers also charge activation fees? I thought TMobile had these fees but just waived them for a few years.

The article discusses this. Yes, they do charge activation fees as well.

This may be an attempt to appease their store franchisees by eliminating the cost advantage of avoiding the stores. Why compete against your own franchisees?

I get that people hate Google but Google Fi is a nice change from all the scummy tactics that I remember dealing with from traditional carriers.

I use it, the main downside is that I seem to have essentially no service at very crowded events. I think because it's deprioritized. So it can be frustrating if I'm trying to look something up at a crowded stadium for example. But this doesn't happen a lot for me.

They do offer 5G on some of their plans.

Something that I'm pretty sure that has happened, is that I ported a number to Google Fi from Sprint. I am pretty sure sprint somehow blocked something in their system despite reassurances which basically makes Google Fi unusable on their towers now.

Genuinely curious why anyone would choose Google Fi over a way cheaper prepaid plan that's almost half the monthly cost for roughly the same experience. Also Google support is truly terrible.

> a way cheaper prepaid plan that's almost half the monthly cost for roughly the same experience.

Which prepaids? The last time I compared Fi to my prepaid plan they were roughly the same cost.

Single user? Mint comes out to 20 a month for 10gb if you pre pay for a year. Google fi starts at 20 and then 10 for an additional gig. That's actually way more 2x the price if you use more than 2gb of data.

Pre-paying for a year is a significant sunk cost. What's the per-month cost if you don't prepay for a year?

Google it yourself

edit: nm, I misread the page.

Link the prepaid plan with unlimited data for both a phone, a tablet, and via a hotspot (and unlimited text/call on the phone obviously) each for 4 lines at $40/line/month and I'll switch today.

Us Mobile is very competitive. I use a pooled data plan tho instead of “unlimited” because it’s only $2/gig and i typically use way less than what i would need to to make the unlimited plans worth it. I end up paying $30-$40 a month total for 2 lines.

I use on average 30-40 GB/month and have hit as high as 100 in a month in the past (the other people on my plan aren't as bad, but are similar).

I understand that "unlimited" plans mean I'll generally eventually hit a limit where my speeds get throttled but $2/GB is not comparable to Google Fi at all.

They have plans similar to GoogleFi as well.

Their unlimited plans look interesting (roughly equivalent for $30/month) but I don't see any info on if they offer data-only SIMs similar to Google Fi. If they do I'd definitely strongly consider switching.

Update: US Mobile does not include taxes and regulatory fees in their listed pricing (Google Fi does), which still makes them better but not by as much.

mint is 30 a month per device for an unilimited plan but yes I understand they are slightly different plans at this tier. Google doesn't throttle until 50gb which is pretty good. But, that's not the typical use case. I'm talking more single or 2 plan setup, Google Fi is simply 2x more expensive at that tier.

Mint's $30/month plan only offers 5GB of hotspot data, and I couldn't find any info about data-only SIMs (which Google Fi provides for free). Additionally, to get $30/month you have to commit to an entire year.

Obviously, for some people, they won't care about these features/downsides and consider the plan worth it. But comparing it to Google Fi as an equivalent but cheaper option is just misleading.

Happy customer for 4-5 years here. I don't stream much over cellular -- I keep maps, music, podcasts, etc. mostly on my phone storage -- so I never use more than 1GB. Price comes out to less than $30/mo as a result.

None of the major carriers can even scratch that price point for a single device. Most are upwards of twice the price per month, plus BS activation fees etc.

I've considered switching to other MVNOs like Mint, but when I take a look at the pricing, it seems like the only way to go lower in price than what I currently pay is promotional rates. And if the price will spike after a year, I'm not interested in going through the process of switching my line over, creating a new account, and all that jazz. Fi works well and costs me a reasonable price per month so I stick with it.

Another benefit: if I ever get a cellular smart watch or a cellular tablet, you can get data-only SIMs on Fi for no monthly cost -- it just shares the same data pool as your phone. That means I could someday run a laptop, hotspot, phone, watch, tablet, etc. all off a "1 person" Fi unlimited plan for $70/mo all-in. Not too shabby.

The ease of international usage with no roaming charges or extra eSims is what keeps me using it.

Google Fi is great if you never leave the US. If you spend more than 30 days outside the US, you can be penalized due to roaming, even though they have a similar offer/capability to T-Mobile for data roaming. On top of that, it's tied to your Google account, which comes with all the drama that means like the recent story about Google arbitrarily shutting everything off (including Google Fi) for the guy who took photos for his doctor.

I spent quite literally half the last year outside of the US and suffered no such penalty. I have their unlimited plan and everything worked just fine. I don't make many calls, but when I do if you're outside of US/MX/CAN you can do so over wifi for free and my data worked fine.

Most of my time was in South America, I can't speak for overseas if this is the same.

I have never really had complaints about Google-Fi.

I'm glad to hear this. I was a digital nomad for some time, and at the time Google Fi and T-Mobile were basically the only real options for international roaming long-term, and so I associated with a lot of folks on Google Fi and it was commonplace for folks to get penalized for spending a long-time outside the US. At the time, I had an 18 month stretch outside the US on T-Mobile with no issues. Maybe they've gotten better about this.

Not sure how long ago this was for you, but I do know I've received a few notifications from them over the past couple years about how they've updated/changed stuff around international travel/roaming. So it may be quite a bit better than whenever this was.

I also spend about half every year as a digital nomad.

You got lucky. They terminated my data for "being outside the US for too long". It was a crappy experience since the whole advertisement is about the international roaming being the same price as the (overpriced) US data.

The fact that international data doesn't cost any more than domestic is a steal on its own if you travel internationally.

When Google does it for free, you have to wonder if other carriers charging you $10+ PER DAY just to have data even enabled are charging you because they actually incur heavy costs for it, or if it's just a "Fuck you, you're traveling internationally, so you're probably rich and able to pay it" fee, existing solely to extract more money from a high-value customer.

I'm on a Google Fi Flex plan (I use < 3 GB of data per month), so I pay $10/GB. It's fun landing in France or wherever and getting the text from Google saying "Welcome to France, data is $10/GB". Same price. No extra fees.

My concern with Google fi is that I have had cellphone billing issues in my life, due to no fault of my own, and Google has the disturbing pattern of disabling all the things if you fall into such a state.

>is a nice change

Doesn't work without a google account. Doesn't work on AOSP (i.e., the carrier switching features are proprietary). Messes up google voice. Massive risk of putting even more eggs in a basket. Also, not sure how long it will be around. It's not price competitive and probably doesn't make Google much money.

Ah but things like this they can now use for mareting in promotions/sales with it being waived and seen as a value add to the customer. Why have zero fee's when you can have fee's and offer to waive them to make the same thing look like a better bargin than it was before to some people.

It always feels like US carriers compete on anything BUT price. It's always this bundle or that free** phone

** Carrier locked

Same as a business you would run. It's usually a fools errand to compete on price and race to the bottom. Compete on something else.

"usually" should not pertain to utilities like internet, electricity, calling, etc.... the US is the worst western country when it deals with scams in cell and internet service

In India this was the situation before 2016. Calling was expensive, data was a luxury. All telcos were rent seeking parasites who just wanted to extract as much money from their customers as possible while providing the bare minimum service.

A small company called JIO realised that people actually like it when they are not being abused this way. It launched a cheap service with a very simple payment model. Fast forward 5 years and all the other telcos are bankrupt or nearly there. Data is dirt cheap, calling is free. Even the remaining telcos have switched to the JIO model (and pricing)

For anyone who lives anywhere else the situation in the US is a complete mystery. It's more expensive and order of magnitude shittier than pretty much anywhere else in the west

And in the East! In Asia I pay $4 per month for more data than I know what to do with. Service is a bit spotty, but it's quite a lot cheaper.

As usual, it comes down to density. Asia, even including some vast expanses of wilderness, has a population density 3 times that of the US.

It is not like the service is cheap in cities

The US is about the same size as the entirety of Continental Europe with less than half as many people and there is an expectation of good cellular service basically everywhere. It's much more expensive, but I've had very annoying service quality issues in Europe that I never encounter in the United States.

Europe and the US are just different places.

>I've had very annoying service quality issues in Europe that I never encounter in the United States.

Care to expand? I travel all over eu and haven't had an issue for years. Even in the zone 3 'eu' countries (algeria, kosovo, libya, morocco, tunisia)) €9.99 a month for 290gb and 1k sms and calls. Roaming? €0.0030/mb to €0.00238/mb.

When a family member calls me from Floridia...bag o'shit connections that regulsrly drop.

I mean, T-Mobile was pretty good for a long time. You could buy a carrier unlocked phone direct from manufacturer and it was $70/month for unlimited everything with no contract.

But now that their CEO has quit, they've solidified as a leader the brilliant business geniuses are going back to business as usual which is what got them in dire straits in the first place.

The truth is, the entire "phone" system in 2022 is ridiculous. The fact that we still make normal phone calls not over the internet is absurd. When I buy a data only plan in another country, it comes with an assigned phone number. It has to, it's how the system works. It's so anachronistic.

The US always seems to suffer from this the worst, because we usually adopt new technology first.

$70/month for unlimited everything doesn't sound like that much of a deal to me. That's about the going rate for every major carrier, no?

Price transparency is a huge obstacle for me when I try to compare carriers. Somehow there's always a data cap, or at the very least a deprioritization cap, and it's basically impossible to find out what it is from any carrier.

> It has to, it's how the system works. It's so anachronistic.

And yet, based on the proliferation of SMS 2FA, it seems like cheapest and most effective way to prevent spam and bad actors. As well as track people.

> we (the US) usually adopt new technology first.

Evidence for this? Compare to Japan, to Sweden?

> the situation in the US is a complete mystery

It's because in Europe the caller of a mobile pays, while in the United States the receiver pays. So plans are much more expensive because the owner of the mobile has to pay for all usage.

I do wonder how much the actual real bill is at the end for a typical mobile user in Europe with all the charges they have to pay when calling other people

Not unlike Canada's landline internet. Usually due to monopoly or collusion. In this case, I have no doubt the carriers collude with manufacturers to increase their profits.

AT&T hasn't charged me an activation fee in years... yet I also hear people complaining about them from time to time. Maybe it's because I tend to buy direct from Apple?

Are these sorts of fees randomly applied by carriers? I'd definitely start shopping around for a new carrier if I was on T-Mobile.

How come mobile services are so expensive in the US? I'm in Europe and I pay 15€ for unlimited data (like really unlimited, no slow down after X GBs) + 2 hours of talk each month. More than enough for me but just by seeing US ads it seems way more expensive there.

One Technical reason is that there is a lot of land to cover in order to provide service nation wide. There's a 25 square mile area where my parents are located that is covered by a single 4g/5g tower. There are 15 houses in that area, probably not all of them are customers of the company that owns the tower. I'm sure there is other anti-competitive stuff going on as well but infra in most of the EU and US can't really be compared in the same way.

> How come mobile services are so expensive in the US?

A lot more land to cover with towers with less people to pay for it. An unlimited prepaid plan here is $30/mo.

Because in Europe the caller of a mobile pays, while in the United States the receiver pays.

So plans are much more expensive because the owner of the mobile has to pay for all usage.

I do wonder how much the actual real bill is at the end for a typical mobile user in Europe with all the charges they have to pay when calling other people.

What do you mean the receiver pays? You mean roaming?

Also: most plans in Europe include like 3000 free minutes/sms per month so nobody really pays for calls anymore here. The big bucks are in data.

Such a cultural difference that you are not even aware the alternative option exists!

In the US, if I call you, you pay for the call, not me! And no, I don't mean roaming.

i.e. incoming calls count against your minutes.

Here's an article with some nuances: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/03/report-europeans-be-...

Europe has denser population and much more competition.

>Worse, it appears to be justifying the new fee in a dubious way, saying it's "simplifying" the system to bring a "more consistent and straightforward experience for customers." In other words, you'll no longer need to wonder if you'll get soaked for the charge or not — you definitely will.

I love this line.

Honestly, if someone were in a situation where constant connectivity were not necessary, I feel many people could get the absolute cheapest phone line available and just use one of the major communications tools on wifi. WiFi is so ubiquitous in most places, and with some planning everything you need can be cached offline.

I only suggest a phone line at all for authentication to signal and Whatsapp, etc. and perhaps emergency calls.

it's "simplifying" the system to bring a "more consistent and straightforward experience for customers."

This is true. It's simplifying things by imposing the same upgrade fee that AT&T does.

Competition is messy. Tacit collusion makes things simpler for customers.

The problem is that SMS is actually fairly popular in the US and Canada. And "WiFI Calling" isn't that great.

I definitely want my mobile provider to be a dumb data pipe but it is against the grain with what most people actually want.

That being said I have sort of achieved it by getting a data-only "tablet" plan. However it is a pain because some apps are very confused that you don't have a number and Android really wants you to use the default dialer instead of a SIP app for calls.

I agree it would have its complications, like onboarding your contacts onto a non-phone/sms tool for realtime communication.

I was just stating that its more possible to escape telecom these days, even mobile, than it has been before.

“We won’t raise prices “ - t-mobile prior to merging with sprint

It's worth pointing out that less than 6 months ago when AT&T and Verizon both implemented similar "greedflation" price increases T-Mobile posted this:

"Avoid the summer bummer of a rising phone bill from The Carriers and switch to the Un‑carrier’s unchanging rates":

https://www.t-mobile.com/news/offers/takes-aim-at-att-and-ve...

TMobile stands for nothing. There was a time when they competed on price and customer service. With the Sprint acquisition they obviously feel comfortable taking their rightful place alongside AT&T and Verizon as just another shitty megacorp in the cartel. It seems the only real difference between the companies in this triopoly are their awful logos.

Cartels are illegal in the United States, right?

Effectively NO.

Does this affect SIM swap attacks? (Not sure if that counts as an activation/upgrade.)

I guess the $4B they got from the failed AT&T acquisition is running out now.

Does anybody know if this affects carriers on their network like Ting?

this will increase the "productivity" economic indicator.

I honestly think starlink is eventually going to replace major carriers

the physics of LEO satellites and phased array antenna needed to get any bandwidth out of it makes that scenario very unlikely.

It’s possible, but maybe unlikely. A tower is hard-wired to fiber, and immensely cheaper than a satellite, per pound. Satellites are always going to be more expensive than land based equipment, and cost is critical here, plus fundamentally more powerful with better data connections to the trunk.

Why are we measuring cell data bandwidth by pound?

For that matter, how much does 1Gbps weigh?

https://www.ipswitch.com/blog/how-much-does-the-internet-wei...

> Put simply, it's all about electrons. For data storage and transfer to happen on any device — smartphone, desktop PC or internet server — you need electrons. And while these particles aren't exactly massive, they do have weight: approximately 9.1 x 10^-31 kg. Take that and apply it to an ordinary email, which comes in at about 50 kilobytes: You need 8 billion electrons. Sounds like a lot but only comes in at two ten-thousandths of a quadrillionth of an ounce.

> Seitz scaled this up to determine the weight of all internet traffic and got 50g, or the weight of one strawberry. Applied to all the stored information online, which is around 5 million terabytes, the number is just 0.2 millionths of an ounce

The irony of capitalism. Free market is great, but corporations do everything possible not to have a free market.

Corporations prefer oligopolies with clearly divided geographical/physical spheres of influence, ideally duopolies. Monopolies are possible only in dictatures, which even corporations don't want.

This is the trickiness of language.

"Free market" originally (Adam Smith) meant "A market free from economic rent"

Free market now means "Free to charge economic rent"

"free market" is more a political slogan than an economic concept. that's why i prefer the term "fair market", which is better aligned with the underlying economic concept and conveys with it the need for a strong and independent regulatory function to rebalance concentrations of market power.

in that vein, we need to break up the three major carriers who together hold ~98% of the market (principally as a result of restricted spectrum allocation). then institute an escalating tax rate based on market (revenue) share to counteract the negative externalities[0] of concentration itself.

[0]: here's one random report (by barclays) that delves into what these negative externalities are on fair markets: https://www.cib.barclays/content/dam/barclaysmicrosites/ibpu...

This is public infrastructure, running it as a for-profit business is obviously absurd.

I think T-Mobile is decent option, 30GB for $20 per month. Not cheapest but reliable. That is in East Europe, maybe you are in wrong country :)

>T-Mobile has always tried to separate itself from regular telecoms, but charging customers for essentially nothing doesn't sound very Uncarrier-like

It seems weird to call the process which is literally essential to using a device on the network "essentially nothing".

The unstated assumption might be that T-Mobile is charging for something that costs them nothing, but that also seems a little presumptuous. I assume there have to be some fixed costs associated with registering a device to properly authenticate with every bit of transmitter hardware on the network, plus KYC burdens - otherwise, T-Mobile has no incentive to introduce friction costs for new customers.

> It seems weird to call the process which is literally essential to using a device on the network "essentially nothing"

It should all be automated and if it's not, their CTO should be fired.

Activating phones is literally step one to get customers on a 24 month cycle of predictable, recurring revenue. If you can't make that seamless and low friction, then you should not even be in the business of selling cellular plans.

> It seems weird to call the process which is literally essential to using a device on the network "essentially nothing".

Essential, yes. But it's like a restaurant charging a cover to order food. Why make it harder for someone to give you money?

It's possible that it still makes financial sense for them, but it's a barrier none-the-less.

Regardless of any fixed costs, TMobile will easily make up for it in the long run with their expensive monthly plans.

They even gonna charge it for device exchanges. Like what, $35 for popping a SIM into a different phone? What is the cost there for them? It shouldn't even matter to the network.

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