I see ads all the time for shit like consumer Cellular, mint mobile, stuff that rents time on Verizon towers and sells you a plan for like half the price.
I’m trying real hard to de-Xfinity myself but the cellular plan is the cheapest of all the major companies. Yes, I know they also piggyback off the Verizon network, but at least they have 24/7 support
I’m using Visible unlimited for $30 a month. As soon as I signed up Verizon bought them, but it’s been fun for a couple years now.
Visible is wholly owned by VZW, and runs a whole $30/mo inclusive of tax and such.
Best compromise I’ve found between network and not getting screwed or being surprised with outages.
I use us mobile with two phones and like 30gb each and it’s about $50 total. I’ve had no problems with them and I’ve driven cross country. They are an mvno that runs off Verizon. I def recommend them.
Edit: I still recommend using a provider for home internet. Just cancel everything else besides internet (no home phone or cable tv) and try to find the best deals. I know that’s not easy for a lot of areas though.
I’ve been on US Mobile for several years. You can choose between the Verizon, T-Mobile or AT&T networks. I’m on the Verizon SIM. Yes, you are deprioritized. No, it’s not an issue.
I’ve been very impressed with US Mobile’s support, though I’ve only needed it a couple times.
I’ve been on Google Fi for 3 or 4 years and it’s been pretty much flawless. I’ve traveled to Mexico and Spain with it, and there’s a sort of calibration period of like 30 minutes before you have service in another country, but that’s literally the only time I’ve been without service for any period of time. My wife and I are on it and use very little data, so covering both phones is typically about $60/month. We usually have 5G service around our home in northern VA.
Proof of bill cost:
I’ve been using Google Fi since 2016. When I worked from home, my bill was $25-$35/mo. I work outside the home now and my bill has been higher, so thanks for the reminder I should probably look into switching.
WFH bills:
Working outside the home:
Lol happy to help! Yeah, nowadays it’s easy to hit a gig in data usage without even realizing you’ve used any at all. I wish the unlimited tier were cheaper. It feels like we have gotten to a point where we should be able to use GPS or do a Google search without considering a cost. Kinda feels like if anything, they should be paying us for allowing into our pocket this ever changing billboard that scrapes our metadata. But that’s unrealistic to get anyone else onboard with, so I’ll settle for free connectivity to knowledge in exchange for advertising and spying on me.
I’m super happy with jmp.chat
I was hesitant to try it, but once I ported my number over, it’s the best service I’ve ever used.
It’s $5/month, and your phone calls and texts are forwarded to an XMPP account. Voice mails are transcibed and sent as a text, with the included audiofile. It works over the internet, so you can have multiple phones with the number, and you can use your computer for the service as well.
For data, I use jmp.chats data only esim. It’s $7/year + $5/gig but the data never expires.
I’m assuming it only works over the internet, right? they’re not a cell carrier
They offer SIM cards, or you can use it with any other carrier. And for the record, I’ve used visible wireless, mint mobile, cricket, and boost and they all work great. They’re just MVNO’s that ride on the big 3 carriers networks. Whatever has good coverage in your area will be fine. I haven’t used a major carrier in over 10 years.
That is what the data Sim is for that I mentioned above.
I’ve been a jmp user for years. Love their service.
Yeah, they’re fine. I use RedPocket for my daughters phone because it’s like $120 for a whole year of phone service. They’re often better than the ‘pure’ networks because they can fall back to AT&T when T-Mobile is down, etc. Often times they aren’t only on a single network. Hell, Mint was doing so well that T-Mobile ended up buying them (probably to dissolve them, honestly)
I’m currently using Mint Mobile for internet on my laptop, No issues related to the carrier. Their customer site doesn’t seem to like Firefox much though.
One heads up for anyone looking to use a Mint Mobile sim in their laptop, you will need a modem and software that can send/receive sms. Mint really likes using sms for verification.
I’ve had Mint Mobile for 3 years. Have had no issues, same for wife and roommate. Thought a friend that live 30 min away can’t get it to work for them. Even though T-Mobile (the network Mint uses) works fine for them.
The connection to the network is fungible.
If the phone number you give everybody is a voip number, like Google voice…
Then it doesn’t matter who your cell phone carrier is. Buy the cheapest one, month to month.
Visible is a good option. Just don’t move your phone number. Leave your phone number on VoIP. Don’t give anybody the phone number of your phone.
A couple reasons, first it’s the easiest to move your phone around if you don’t have to move the number, second nobody can track your location by looking up your phone number if they don’t have your physical phone number. VoIP does not map to your phone
yeah I’ve been doing that, only my alarm company and my bank have my real phone number and that’s only because they won’t accept voip. I got spooked about sim-swapping a while ago
You can use Google fi as a non-voip voip number. It just costs $20 a month.
It’s not frugal, but it’s the most secure way to do it
what exactly is Google Fi? I’m reading the website and I still don’t understand. are they a cell carrier?
Mvno. Mobile virtual network operator.
It’s like Google voice, but you also get a SIM card and data with it.
The phone number you have on it, does not show up as a VoIP number, shows up as a normal mobile number. Even if you only access it via messenger and not via SMS.
I used them for a while but it’s really worth considering the full privacy implications of using Google for cell service. Also, since it’s tied to a Google account if that account is suspended for any reason, like a YouTube comment or some file uploaded to drive that they don’t like, your cell service is also affected.
I use the T-Mobile Connect prepaid plan now, but I’ve heard very good things about Mint Mobile and for a long time I used Ting Mobile before it was bought by Dish Network.
Edit: btw i run a community !t_mobile@lemmy.ml If anyone has any interesting topics.
Visible works well for me
Have used various MVNOs for years with no real issues. US Mobile has been pretty good and can use TMobile or Verizon and soon AT&T.
As a primary internet source I could not recommend Visible. The de-prioritization was very noticeable and the coverage wasn’t great. (Even Verizon is piggybacking on some carriers in some areas - and in those areas Visible isn’t supported.)
I kept it around for a while for large file downloads - it was slow but I didn’t have to worry about data caps. Eventually I dropped it when I got a Starlink.
Just switched to US Mobile after doing the 30 day trial.
Bill from AT&T prepaid was $65 before tax.
Now I’m $29 total. On their GSM(T-Mobile) network I was pulling 250 down.
how does the trial work? is it legitimately free? do you have to use your own phone?
