We No Longer Need a Big Carrier's Wireless Plan. Discount Ones Are the Way
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
(I use Google Fi, but it often seems like it has poor performance and issues sending MMS and receiving group texts to/from mixed Android/iPhone groups)
edit: from the article...
> The discount carriers were, on average, up to 46 percent slower than my Verizon connection. That sounds like a lot, but in real-world tests, I didn’t notice a difference
But then...
> “Is it worth it?” he said. “We’re saving about $1,000 a year. I’ll deal with the hassle for that.”
I personally hate every cell provider and really liked Google Fi, but I constantly had issues receiving text messages and terrible call quality.
I've never been in a situation where my partner didn't have signal but I did.
Some offer premium data which is prioritized but whether or not that’s the same priority as post-paid traffic is not clear.
Even on post-paid, the plan you’re on can determine network priority. I usually carry two phones and sometimes the MVNO SIM data is completely unusable.
The details are a bit sparse, but sometimes it's possible to find the QoS class/level listed for a given MVNO and plan, and some of them are indeed identical to that of the network's first-party plans.
The fact is you're more likely to want cellular data exactly when the MVNO is going to get you de-prioritized. If you never leave home, like a coworker of mine, it's a great deal. If you travel for work it's a recipe for frustration.
I've played the "combined personal and work phone" game in the past, rather extensively, and have come to the conclusion that it's a sucker's game, because it means you always have access to work - and will therefore spend a lot more time thinking about it than you would with separate devices.
What do you do instead? Get a new SIM card everywhere?
Not as a general rule, although it's common.
I'm using one that's only deprioritized after the first 50 GB per month, and even that only ever on low-rate 5G and LTE.
I've had their deprioritized plan in the past, and that oscillated between faster than my home fiber connection (when not congested) and completely unusable (when in crowded cells).
At least that was the case when I was still using their "deprioritized by default" plan (the non-deprioritized plan has only been around for a year or so).
Then Verizon bought them and forced everyone on their network. My in-city speeds went down significantly (as in, over 75Mbps slower) in the city, and the coverage in rural areas was not any better than my spouse who's on AT&T.
Verizon missed the boat on 5G, they are no longer the one stop shop for coverage that they were.
Verizon certainly have but have an excellent network and brand name. At the moment, T Mobile have the most amount of spectrum bandwidth available
When I was using an LTE only device (granted a pretty old one with likely fewer frequencies than a newer LTE device), I would get no service in time square whereas I updated to a phone with 5G and more LTE frequencies (I suspect) and now I get service just fine
I definitely get slow service at high congestion moments but I'm not a heavy user so I generally don't really care (I use my phone mostly to read books/articles that are preloaded as opposed to watching videos like millennials...)
For basic international coverage, reloadable prepaid eSIMs can be purchased online, some with international roaming. But high latency back to the originating telco can make those unusable for voice traffic. Good enough for web/text. Sample price: $75 for 15GB for 365 days, in 144 countries. Use with VPN to make traffic opaque to random telco selling the eSIM.
These days my cost is down to just $5 per month (Red Pocket GSMA annual plan). 500 MB of data is plenty for messaging apps, driving directions, and very light web browsing when I need to look up things while on-the-go without WiFi.
I don't think I know anyone who's using a single plan, though I'm sure they're out there.
But yeah the misc fees are annoying, especially if you ever travel or call overseas.
Edit: Wait, are you implying that Mint's pricing is $35 total, not per line?? No matter how many lines?
Setting aside unlimited plans for the moment: You can get 5 GB of data per month, which seems pretty generous to me, on an MVNO for only $15 per line.
The family plans (whether on big carrier or MVNO) get cheaper per line while going up in total price. But yes, not everyone needs unlimited.
To his point, however, I acknowledge that saving a few hundred dollars per year just isn't worth it to many people when they can walk into an AT&T store, sign whatever the salesman puts in front of them without thinking about it, and have the salesman take care of all the required setup.
Yeah the coverage is maybe slightly worse and I'm sure that I get "deprioritized" but worth the 720$/year of savings.
If you don't need that, I think trying some MVNOs make sense.
Another item is hotspot - typically MVNOs upsell that into a higher tier plan, although presumably not all of them.
That said, if aren't willing to bounce around, prepay months, etc... and are careful about buying new phones on decent promotions, I think the big three are not nearly as much more expensive as the article suggests.
EDIT: I should say, I do have to make phone calls with my existing number, and can't always use wifi or app calling, so I am more inclined to use roaming. I guess for many esim apps work well.
The only downside is that u can't do iMessage from your actual number.
Version and AT&T each charge $10 per day for international data, and T-Mobile's cheapest plan with international data is $90/month.
Your existing number can be routed via a 2nd/data eSIM via "Wi-Fi calling", for voice and text.
I think they basically piggyback off T-mobile's international partnerships.
"in May 2000, legislation passed that required network operators with significant market power to open up access to their infrastructure."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_virtual_network_opera...
I'm not sure if the large networks are called Local Exchange Carriers (LECs), but if they aren't I presume there are similar resale requirements for them anyway.
For example, I'm on Fi with my android, but my wife has an apple watch with cellular connectivity, and the only game in town was to shell out for at&t.
- They are selling spare network capacity, and throttling MVNO traffic during peak usage times.
- The existence of MVNOs means they themselves can target the mid-high end market and don't have to advertise cheaper plans on their website and under their brand. In some cases the big carriers themselves own MVNOs.
- In addition to consumer facing MVNOs, these carriers also make a ton of money from operators of stuff like IoT networks, GPS trackers, vehicle manufacturers and really anything that needs internet access.
It's not really that confusing that they would want to brand a lower quality service differently.
A small number of people filling up a tiny bit of spare capacity on a big carrier's network is hardly the revolution the article makes it out to be. You are simply on AT&T/Verizon/TMO's lowest tier plan, which just isn't advertised as such to preserve their brand.
Many MVNOs can roam between multiple carriers too, which may or may not improve reception.
Some MVNOs also have international partnerships. In the US that's unusual for the big carriers themselves except for T-mobile (which is German, I think?). Fi's international services are dramatically more affordable than AT&T or Verizon's.
I think it's similar to the multi cloud discussion, just applied to telecoms.
Besides, for the multi carrier ones like Fi, that means they can switch the underlying partners. I'd much rather deal with Google than the big carriers.
Unpaywalled