It's the same network, but you get the capacity that's left over after everyone on T-Mobile has had their fill. Which is why I don't get why everyone is always so excited about these MVNOs. To me, it's like bragging about how cheap airfare is when you go standby: "It's the exact same planes!".
I live in a major metro area that should theoretically be impacted by sheer volume of use, and I’ve also spent significant time on the road traveling (recent 7K mile overlanding trip through 15 states is one example), and never once experienced a slowdown.
Wireless networks are pretty fast these days, and if I’ve ever been throttled, I just haven’t noticed.
YMMV, and maybe I don’t have use cases that are impacted by this, but after experiencing what I’ve experienced, I have no questions at all about my decision to move away from the big networks.
I’ve used Mint and Xfinity Mobile (Verizon MVNO).
> To me, it's like bragging about how cheap airfare is when you go standby: "It's the exact same planes!"
The experience and cost of using cheap airfare/standby is pretty well documented and rather dissimilar conceptually to what’s going on with MVNOs. The cheap ticket experience isn’t just “same planes”, it brings with it a very real likelihood of failure and customers generally go in knowing this up front.
If MVNOs were unusable as often as standby flights are unavailable, the business model would quickly cease to exist.
I find the notion of bragging about any of this for any reason rather odd, but it’s hard to ignore the significant savings over time.
Nah, those towers tend to be built & upgraded to have the capacity. Where you mostly notice the MVNO suckage is if you take the biggest road out of town, drive two hours, make a left turn, and then drive an hour away from everything. But then again, wide coverage has historically not been T-mo's strength anyway (they've improved a lot in last few years).
I covered this in the 2nd half of the quoted sentence. I spent over a month in places like that throughout the US, and didn’t have issues.
I’m not saying issues don’t exist, but I never ran into the described suckage.
Finding a spot out there with poor signal isn’t hard, but that’s a separate issue.
EDIT: Oh, and I totally forgot about tethering. That can be severely restricted on MVNOs. And, at least for me, I don't need it. Until I need it. Then I NEED it. haha
I've also never had any problems with tethering on a MVNO; I think the restrictions are only for the "unlimited" plans which don't make a lot of sense (may as well get service from the major carrier at that point). In my experience, if you're paying for x GB per month, you are free to use that via tethering without extra interference from the carrier.
As others have mentioned, Mint (and many other MVNOs) has tethering included in all plans without any extras. It counts against your data allotment just like any other data, as it should be.
As a Verizon, Tmobile, or Att customer you might be able to get 1gbps down .. but why do you need that on your phone?
Why are they popular? It makes little sense to pay $90 a month per line. With MVNOs the price is about 20-30$/mo. (Options out there: StraightTalk, USMobible, Lycia, Mint, Visble, Ting, Google FI, etc) Some of these carriers are even getting in international calling and roaming at an affordable price.
Switched to US Mobile (which as long as you have a 5G capable phone, puts you on their high-priority QoS tier) and haven't had an issue since.
I also tether and it just cuts into my ordinary data.
If you’re already am Xfinity Internet subscriber, it’s even cheaper, and the app makes switching between data plans dead simple and achievable within about a minute from the app.
I subscribe to the cheapest option, and if I ever need more data, I just bump up the plan for the rest of the month.
Verizon has historically had the edge because of 750 MHz (Band 13)
I've been a customer of theirs for years, and like you, I barely ever use more than 1/2 GB of data. I always preferred the VZ network in my area as well. Not sure if VZ carried over the tradition, but TotalWireless used to run nice Black Friday sales on low-midrange Android phones as well. I highly recommend one of the Motorola phones around the $200-$300 (less on sale) price point.
Whoever is paying that much probably doesn't do his/her research or have access to some providers.
I pay $35/mo to T-Mobile. 5 GB at high speed per month. Unlimited everything else.
Seems their minimum is now $40/mo, but it goes down to $35/mo if you have two lines.
I'm sure some MVNOs are a lot cheaper, and I'm all for it. But complaining that the alternative is $90/mo is hard to swallow.
You are delusional if you think T-Mobile and the other big network providers offer good value for money.
Having recently switched to Mint after years of being swindled by T-Mobile, I'm really sad to see this news.
What part of
> I'm sure some MVNOs are a lot cheaper, and I'm all for it.
did you not understand?
BTW, T-Mobile's cheapest plan now has 10GB - which is more than probably 95% of users need? Paying $60/mo for that via Mint is just money thrown away for most people. To give you an example, I never exceeded 5 GB/mo, let alone 10GB, in over 10 years of using smartphones.
etc.
It's been that way for a long time.
Last I checked, it had half the monthly data (2GB vs 4GB) and the same unlimited voice and texts policy. I don't follow along closely, so the limits may have changed again.
I wonder if they will reorganize any of that after acquiring Mint.