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Comment by manzanarama | Hacker News Reader

Researching this stuff and managing data usage like that is not worth the ROI for most people.

The Mint unlimited plan is still only $35/mo, and I’m sure there’s something cheaper out there. That’s still a whole lot cheaper than the big carriers, with zero of the data usage management.

Is it that much cheaper? I'm on T-Mobile's $70 plan (it is $5 or $10 more expensive now I believe) which includes unlimited 5G data (no throttling), unlimited tethering, unlimited data when traveling abroad, HD video streaming (all discount carriers limit this to 720 or even 480p), Netflix, Apple TV, free in-flight internet, and a free iPhone 14 Pro that will be fully paid off as long as I keep my plan active for two years.

That sounds like a good deal if you actually want and use all those things.

Yeah agreed, I just don’t need all that so it’s not worth it to me, personally

Meanwhile, an unlimited family plan on a big carrier is like $45/mo. Ten bucks less isn't that much.

I don't think I know anyone who's using a single plan, though I'm sure they're out there.

I just looked at the AT&T plans and it appears that two lines with unlimited data would cost $120 per month (before they add on who knows what additional fees that aren't included in that price). The price for more lines goes up from there.

That's total, right? That's still only $60/mo, and it goes down with more people. Most big carriers are like $45 to $50 after 4 or 5 people, which is similar to what Fi costs.

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?

$120 is the total (minus fees) that I see for two lines. I thought you were suggesting that you could have a whole family paying just $45 in total.

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.

Ah, sorry for the confusion there. I should've specified.

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.

Right, managing low data usage like I do definitely requires some thoughtfulness, but it's orthogonal to the choice of using a big carrier vs. MVNO, except for the fact that big carriers won't even sell you a low data plan.

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.

Out of curiosity, what service do you use and how much do you pay for it?

Not OP, and they said what they use (Red Pocket) but I also pay $5/mo for service from Tello ( https://tello.com/ ). 500MB/mo, data only, calls through Google Voice via data. (100 minutes of voice $1/mo extra.) Lots of choice in building your own plan.

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