What carrier do you use and why?
Is it cause of coverage, download speeds, was it cheap, did you trust them more, do they have some bonus on top of phone data, or was it just what your family had and you got it too?
Google Fi because I got it many years ago and I have 3 lines with unlimited everything for $45. Plus no contracts so if I ever want to cancel that's no problem. Coverage has always been fine for me. Not sure what the current prices are but if anyone is interested I have referral links and we both get bill credits I think.
This is my exact situation lol Google Fi is just simple and cheap!
It's not cheap, unless you count the international service that is included and use it. Compared to the price a US prepaid plan like mint or visible, it's perfectly cromulent.
I really wanted to like it, but the data speeds felt so slow for some reason. I was with T-Mobile and Spectrum before and after them and never had the same slow speeds I did with Fi.
I really liked the option to have two SIMs on the same line so I could have an included mobile hotspot wherever I went without having to rely on my phone.
I haven't noticed slow speeds personally but I don't do much data intensive things anyway.
Tello, because T-Mobile got greedy. I pay $50 for the same level of service that cost $150 previously.
Aldi Talk. Mainly because it was cheap, prepaid and I used to buy my groceries at Aldi anyways. I don't need an expensive contract.
Feel free to crosspost to !AskUSA@discuss.online
I’ve had many carriers going back all the way to PrimeCo… I’ve been with AT&T for a few years because they seem to be the least shitty (in terms of coverage and customer service) of all the carriers I’ve tried.
I’m glad that’s your experience! It’s probably regional or whatever but I have att and coverage is awful for me almost everywhere lol.
I’ve had them for a few years as well because their coverage is rock solid.
However their backend is a serious wreck. I had an Apple Watch for about a year but it never worked due to janky NumberSync. I went through it over and over with customer service but the watch never had cellular service longer than a few hours; never had crazy problems like this on other networks.
I found out recently that for about the past six months all incoming calls went to voicemail with no indication whatsoever the calls were coming through (no ring, no missed call notification).
And at one point I had to completely pay off a device just to port a number in to replace the existing number. Apparently their database is so fucked that they use the number as the database primary key.
On AT&T, you have to put in work to keep your devices on network.
2 Reusable cloth bags and a backpack
Mint Mobile because paying up front for ~$180/year= 365 days of Talk/SMS/5Gb-5G/$15-month.
Been with em since it launched. And back then it was only 2Gb-4G/$15-month.
I believe new users can get any plan for the same intro price for various plans for the first 3 months.
Also has "Unlimited" 40Gb and "Unnecessary" 60Gb for extreme data peoples.
me never using more than 2Gb
Unlimited plan incl. 40GB high-speed data w/10GB hotspot. Unnecessary plan incl. 60GB high-speed data w/20GB
You can hotspot all your data on other plans if you wish.
If you use all your allotment, you can still read emails and google maps with throttled speeds, browsing is painful.
The bigger 2 get capped at 10 and 20 of hotspot use to keep people from using them as a primary Home ISP.
You can upgrade a plan at any time, but can't downgrade.
Tubular is really spiffy to force 480p/720p for videos.
People burning data on 1080p/1440p.....why??!?!!
I personally download playlists/music I want for offline use with Tidal and use Organic Maps so that solved my main data use issues right there. (Also refreshing to not be tracked by Google in 2025) and also works no issue, on Sandboxed Android Auto on GrapheneOS 🤔😂🤘
Visible wireless because they use Verizon towers and it's $30 a month unlimited.
$30?
Thought it was $25?
T-Mobile because we're grandfathered into a $100 unlimited everything plan. We could go cheaper and such, but for now it's okay.
Same. I pay “$70 a month” for my unlimited plan from them. Because it’s part of a family plan it only actually costs $30 a month more.
Yeah, I know recently, they've been trying to move peeps over from these GFed plans to their current Magenta, and that failed spectacularly as fuck (damn that was Oct '23?!). From what I can see, outside of 5G, it's the same, just ~$20 more. Le sigh.
Mint because it works well and is super cheap. We pre pay for 5GB/mo for a year and only once have gotten close to using it all. We are just always near Wi-Fi anyways. Their international plans were reasonable as well when we were in Europe for a week last summer.
I thought about mint, but living in a smallish town of this god awful state of Texas, good internet is rarely available and I would easily use up that 5gb
Tmobile because I'm not going to ration my phone use like some kind of third world country farmer. They have been on unlimited everything since forever.
I think it depends on where you live but mine is ATT Prepaid. I pay $300 a year for 16gb, though I only use <5GB month. I have tried:
US mobile. The data pool pricing model works out to be pretty price competitive among the mvno's for the way we use two lines. They also claim to be the only mvno that doesn't get low priority on congested towers.
First hand I can tell you that isn’t true, even with the claims that it doesn’t happen (which specifically are only for Warp/Verizon btw). Every band they buy from the carriers technically has congestion and stream saving (480p streaming) for non postpaid customers. You can pay extra for prioritized on dark star but ATT is so congested where I live already it’s awful even if you do.
Most days I am barely getting above 10Mbps on 5G+/UW on any combination of 5G from them. Can’t wait to leave when my year is up.
Switched to ATT from Verizon because I couldn’t get cell service in my house with Verizon (not in the boonies, just a weird dead zone) and because they just installed ATT fiber, and they were doing crazy offers last year so ended up getting two new iPhones, and ~$200 to switch to their wireless and internet. No problems so far, but I know they’re not the most savory.
3 because they give me pretty good value (20€ for a month of unlimited)
AT&T. I had never had them before and been with all the other big names. They’re okay, not as great as some have said. I’ve been lucky to not experience the most recent outages and I also joined after the leaks occurred but the service is still the same as the others, in my experience.
But I am looking to leave them soon and possibly go with Helium or another small time carrier. $80 a month (more like $100 after all the bullshit fees) is absurd no matter how you slice it. And the other two are charging the same so you really have no choice anymore except the smaller carriers that run off the same networks.
I'm at $50 with Verizon, 5g, how are you paying that much?? Is that like the top tier ultra wideband whatever?
I have 2 lines on Verizon for like $35/ea, but we're also on a family plan with 5 lines, and I buy my phones online outright instead of through Verizon. My mom and brother pay like $60/$70 because they buy their phones on payment and can't figure out why my bill is so cheap.
I use Telia but have considered switching to Fello.
Currently Verizon, because my work pays for it. Previously Visible. Because it’s cheap.
Tmobile mainly because I use their home internet service which is actually very good in my experience, hell I even use it to play online games and never felt any lag. I pay $120 for unlimited service for my phone + home and never felt the need to switch for now. Oh and they also offer a yearly free MLB subscription on the side which is awesome.
Hallon because it is cheap and it works.
Ooredoo cause idk my parents and everyone uses it ig
T-Mobile, but I'm thinking about switching to T-Mobile.
Honestly though - I have the $30 prepaid T-Mobile plan with unlimited data, 100 phone minutes, and unlimited text. But I'm thinking about switching to Mint Mobile, because it's just T-Mobile anyways, and I can just pay for the whole year and get the same + unlimited minutes for $15/mo instead.
Mint because it's $15 a month for unlimited data as long as you renew when they have a sale. You can also refer people and get bonus credits.
Cricket here. The service is relatively cheap, they offered a bunch of phones for cheap/free (with a new account), and I've never had any issues with the quality of the service/signal. I like not being locked into anything. The monthly bill hasn't changed in years, and that's nice too.