Two and a half months ago I switched the two lines for my wife and I from Consumer Cellular to Mint Mobile, signing up for the 5GB plan. In less than two weeks, I get to decide to purchase a yearly plan for $15/month or change to a different carrier.
Lots of talk here about U.S. Mobile, so I was wondering if there would be any advantage to switching there.
While we currently have only one bar of T-Mobile service at our home, as everything with our iPhone 12 Pro Maxs’s is done via home wi-fi/internet, that has never bothered me. We don’t travel much, and service appears to have been fine when in our local city, so whatever priority level our service is, it seems to working OK.
In addition to service-related things, you could think about how you feel about changes to your carrier and plan. If you find dealing with changes stressful, you might want to choose the carrier that offers the most stability. For example, a startup or small company has a higher chance of shutting down or getting acquired than a division of a “Big 3” carrier. Or a carrier that is dependent on a single cellular network provider could change its network provider more often than a carrier that offers multiple networks.
Maybe not. One unusual feature of US Mobile that I appreciate, though, is network switching: You can choose on the fly whether you want your US Mobile connection to use the cellular networks provided by T-Mobile, AT&T, or Verizon. This is helpful to me because I spend part of the year in a location where another carrier’s network is faster and has better coverage. It doesn’t sound like this would apply to you, but I mention it here for others who might be following the topic.
What about physical SIM vs eSIM? I’ve read some stories about problems with, and correcting those problems, with eSIM. Of course, those may be a small minority …
I note that U.S. Mobile offers where one can select different carriers and different priorities within each carrier. I see none of that when going through the process of purchasing two lines “by the gig” with a shared 10GB pool of data.
Go to their Plans site: https://www.usmobile.com/plans
Then click on the More Plan Details link right below the Get Started button. That table shows that even with By the Gig plans you get to switch networks (first 2 free, then $2 per switch). The table also shows which QCI you end up for each carrier for every plan, even By the Gig. There’s a selector at the top left to choose network. The key for that is Dark Star = AT&T, Warp = Verizon, and Light Speed = T-Mobile.
Yes, when you start a line, you select which network to start it on. At least for eSIMs it works that way. I never had them send me a physical SIM.
They have a dedicated app that you can use to switch networks on the fly along with other stuff like configure your line, check your billing/payment info, and track your voice/text/data use. IMHO the app is actually really well made.
I get all the way to the “give us your credit card number” page and it has yet to ask me which network I wish. I guess I’ll find out if they ask me after.
My recollection of the initial sign-in process from a month or two ago is that you buy access to a line first, and then you either port a phone number to it or add a number to it after buying the access. At that point, you also get to choose the wireless network.
I’ve had my husband’s account on Mint for a couple of years and it works fine. Seems to get coverage every place we’ve been and I like the paying once a year. He’s not a heavy user and other than photos doesn’t have a lot of data usage.
I’m currently a T-Mobile subscriber, which comes with some very nice benefits, specifically “T-Mobile Tuesdays” with special food (like pizza!) offers, and occasional useful gifts that can be picked up at their local store.
If I switch to US Mobile and still choose T-Mobile (since it looks cheaper), are those benefits still given by T-Mobile?
You would lose those benefits and any extra benefits that T-Mobile provides beyond the cellular network itself, since technically you would be a US Mobile customer, not a T-Mobile customer.
For data, you could try one of several speed testing apps. I’ve been using Speedtest by Ookla out of longstanding habit, but there are others. I haven’t looked into any tools that measure cell signal in general.
As @Simon said, measurements can very a lot based on location. For example, I frequently visit a place on the waterfront. Signal is very good at one end of the driveway, but very weak close to the water, a distance of perhaps 200 feet. It’s relatively inexpensive to activate two networks at once and switch between them, so you might wish to try that for a month to see if you notice a difference. I seem to recall a help topic or a blog post at US Cellular’s website that discussed the subject.