We are overpaying for phone plans from Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. Budget wireless services, similarly fast and robust, can save thousands.

P.S. Some of the ‘big’ carriers, now and then, offer much less expensive ‘plans’. Some event beat the prices in this article, if your ‘Data’ needs are limited.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.worldEnglish
    291·
    1 year ago

    Not all budget plans are necessarily good… I’ll admit to being a cheap fucker. I can afford a top tier cell plan, I just won’t pay for it. :)

    For YEARS I had a Virgin mobile plan, but I had to drop it when, in their infinite wisdom, they dropped Android support and went iOS only.

    They eventually changed their mind and tried to revert back, but the damage was done and they exited the US market ENTIRELY.

    So I sucked it up and went with a Tmobile plan, which was fine, right up until they pushed an update that bricked my phone and they wouldn’t take responsibility for it.

    Sooo… back to MVNO world. Picked Metro PCS, which was under Sprint at the time and had no problems, and 1/2 the price. Everything worked well… and Tmobile bought Sprint and Metro and my reaction was “Oh, HELL NO.” Not being under Tmobile again.

    Thought the Mint commercials were cute, tried them out and found that while the calls and data were fine, there were so many problems with SMS that it was essentially unusable AND they got bought by TMobile…

    So… Visible it is… MVNO under Verizon. 5G speeds in my area aren’t the best, but it’s functional and not Tmobile.

    • snoopfrog@midwest.socialEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      Team Visible here too. I wanted unlimited so I can stream at work and do some things the firewall would forbid. It’s also just my wife and me, so we don’t need four lines. They’ve been excellent for the three months we’ve had them. It’s my first experience with e-sim, and that has been smooth. I’m a little apprehensive about switching it over when we upgrade phones, but we’ll figure it out.

    • notthebees@reddthat.comEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      I’m in a flipped situation. My MVNO (confiner l consumer cellular) used t mobile and now they switched to ATT. My internet is faster (70 mbps speed test) but my service is less consistent. I’ll get full service in a subway tunnel but none at my house.

      • jordanlund@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        That’s not unusual for AT&T. I remember back in the day their own CEO had to go out to his driveway to get service.