this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2023
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I genuinely don't understand why so many people go with the network brand. AFAIK all of the US networks have MVNO's that operate on their networks at much lower cost. Some of those virtual operators are even owned by the big guys, e.g. Cricket on ATT. My coworkers pay literally hundreds of dollars more per month than is necessary, and what, they get a few Mbps faster data rates? Is that really worth it?
Edit: TIL a lot of people have had a hard time with MVNO's. My experience has been excellent and consistent, but that apparently doesn't generalize.
In more populated areas it makes sense since Brand customers have prioritized traffic over MVNOs. So if you want any service at all, then…
I have both T-Mobile and Visible on my phone and I've had to switch to Visible in more congested areas because T-Mobile will crawl.
I've never had any issues with the Tmobile prepaid plan in either NYC nor north NJ, although I'm not sure if the prepaid plans have the same lowered priority as Mint, for example.
I have used StraightTalk a couple years ago with the T-Mobile SIM. In the countryside, I could barely do anything, whereas my friend on prepaid T-Mobile worked "as normal" as you'd expect. So their MVNO priorities are a bit of a gamble.
In SoCal it can get pretty bad, and I've been to Disneyland and other events (concerts/sports) where the phone simply doesn't work at all. I'm on a Verizon MVNO right now that seems to be fine, but the AT&T and T-Mobile based ones both have issues around here.
Right I'm saying does the prepaid T-Mobile plan count as an MVNO? If it's directly from them vs a separate company like Mint
No, it isn't an MVNO, but I do think it gets lower priority than their premium plans.
This is correct, as many people have pointed out though, this is an urban issue. Priority data doesn't really play into the world of rural users who don't have enough people in town to congest their single tower
I didn't have any issues with Metro when I lived in San Diego and Apple Valley back in 2015 through early 2016.
Because those are way lower down the priority list when it comes to network congestion. If you are in a populated area your service will suffer.
T-Mobile bought Mint. Verizon bought Tracphone, which owns Straight Talk. There aren't many independent MVNOs left. And the ones that are are being deprioritized to the point where the service basically doesn't work when the tower is busy.
Problem with MVNOs is that they get swallowed up or go defunct. I don't need my data transferring hands nor do I want to deal with switching cellphone plans. I just need it to work.
They also have terrible options for international data.
I've stuck with T-Mobile largely for the international data (plus the grandfathered plan I have) but unless you travel intentionally every month it's likely cheaper to just get an in-country eSIM plan to cover you for traveling.
do you have a consistent source for these eSIMs? The thing that's always held me back was that it was just another thing I have to worry about while traveling.
Holafly is decent.
This is what I did when I visited the UK a few years ago. I paid about $30 and I was covered for the entire trip.
I hope this doesn't translate to a higher cost for Google Fi in the future.
My experience is similar to yours.
I've had Metro for years...
Before they existed there was a time when I had service directly through T-Mobile and before they became T-Mobile, Voicestream.
Metro is great... Super affordable and works as well as full fledged T-Mobile for me.
I think part of it for a lot of people is that MVNOs typically don't offer financing on phones and they don't always have the flagships available.