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Comment by monksy | Hacker News Reader

It all depends on how much they oversubscribe their frequency band.

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.

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Apparently Google Fi users have the same priority on t-mobile's network as t-mobile users do. https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleFi/comments/wd5ijm/qcipriorit...

I used Fi for years, and was never super happy with it. There's a _rumor_ of it being the same priority, but I never actually saw any proof of that.

For MVNO on Verizon's network, any recommendations? I pay some absurd number for my Verizon plan in the Pacific Northwest because the mountains cause other providers (TMo, for example) to have no reception constantly. Verizon is basically the only choice. However i rarely use it, i spend 90% of the time on Wifi. I just want to be able to get texting/voice SMS/Phone/Data for emergencies (not just 911). So perhaps an MVNO is of interest to me?

Visible

Verizon post-paid has a $25 plan though.

Used to be with Visible up until a few months ago, but their issues with deprioritization started to make it almost unusable. I'd often look at my phone and have 3-4 bars, but nothing would load. Speed tests indicated data in the kilobytes range or just failed.

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 like US Mobile. Their plans are affordable, and you can subscribe to a nominal amount of data and then buy more as-needed.

I also tether and it just cuts into my ordinary data.

I’m not very familiar with the dominant internet providers out there, but Xfinity Mobile has been a great experience for me.

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.

Check if your phone has Band 71 support for good long range communication to the tower with T-Mobile. It's 600 MHz and has excellent penetration through trees. I got 7 mbps up and down through SIX MILES of 100 ft tall trees in Michigan at a cell aimed away from me using a high gain 600 MHz yagi on T-Mobile band 71. The other bands were uselessly attenuated (with smaller yagi antennas and diversity).

Verizon has historically had the edge because of 750 MHz (Band 13)

What do you mean by "high gain 600 MHz yagi"? you can't just attach an antenna to a cellphone, the phone doesn't have the connector for that, but also the FCC has Opinions about you doing that

You use a cell booster device that has an antenna that creates a micro cell.

I used a USB modem and had multiple antennas at my disposal

Total Wireless used to be the easy answer here, but VZ just bought them (of course.) However, their plans (Total By Verizon, it's now called) are still pretty competitive: $30/m for 5GB data (2G speeds after that), unlimited T/T.

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.

As far as I know, US Mobile is the only one other than Verizon-owned Visible that has some allocation of data at equivalent priority to Verizon postpaid customers.

Us mobile or visible

RedPocket has $10/mo for 1gb data plans on VZW, which is marked as the CDMA provider on their site.

And you can buy annual plans from RedPocket via eBay for even cheaper.

What about voice quality or prompt delivery of SMS? Its anecdotal but i've had serious issues having delayed SMS on the T-Mobile MVNOs. Voice calls appear have been more spotty but thats harder to measure.

I did have to configure SMS manually on my Pixel to work with Mint and that cleared up any SMS issues. Have never had any voice call issues.

> Why are they popular? It makes little sense to pay $90 a month per line.

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.

Magenta MAX is T-Mobile's unlimited data plan; $170/mo for 2 lines. 2 lines with unlimited data with Mint is ~$60/mo. You are paying $35/mo because you're only getting 5GB data. Check how much similar plans cost in India, Europe, Israel, UK (spoiler: they are drastically cheaper).

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.

> You are delusional if you think T-Mobile and the other big network providers offer good value for money.

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.

It's about $3.6 for 2gb in india for a month. (2gb a day) Germany it's about 15e for 10gb UK it's usaually 12quid for 10+gb.

etc.

It's been that way for a long time.

T-Mobile Connect is their existing $15/month prepaid plan comparable to Mint's. It doesn't require a bulk purchase, just keeping enough prepaid balance so that the monthly $15 fee can be deducted.

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.

That $20/month 4GiB data (they have $15/mo as an intro rate) Mint mobile plan doesn't include any devices. Whereas $120/month to TMobile is $60 for their base Magenta service (which is still more than $15), but $30/month for an iPhone 14, and another $30/month for a series 7 iWatch (and plan for it). People want shiny new things and sign contracts to pay for them.

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