I agree. Enabling locks against unauthorized porting and SIM changes is an important tool for securing your phone line. I encourage everyone to check for them and to enable them if their carrier allows.
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Just wanted point out here that both NYT Wirecutter and the WSJ BuySide are now recommending US Mobile as their best cell plan provider.
One observation after switching my line from Verizon to US Mobileās Verizon network: I havenāt been measuring my signal, but I am certain that my signal through US Mobile has been less consistent than when I was a direct Verizon customer.
Although I now sometimes get 5G UW signal in my home neighborhood (which I never received locally before), I get only one bar of LTE signal and spotty Internet access noticeably more often than in the past.
That said, I am very satisfied overall with the quality of the US Mobile service and am pleased that I made the switch.
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Interesting. Assuming that this isnāt just coincidence, I can think of a few possibilities:
- Verizon contracts can roam across other carriersā 4G/5G networks, but their MVNO contracts donāt. Or they donāt support roaming across as many third-party networks.
- Verizonās towers reserve some bandwidth for Verizon-contract customers, or they set priorities, so when a cell gets congested, the MVNO connections suffer first.
There may be other reasons as well. But since I donāt work in the mobile telephony industry, I can only speculate.
Thanks for the above folks. Looking to move my daughter (in Boston studying) from Mint Mobile to US Mobile so curious as to how folks are finding it. She still has her Irish mobile account for her all-too-brief stays at home and for her parents anxiety relief, but her US number is her main number over there.
Thanks, @shamino. I had considered those points, including the possibility of simple coincidence. Both are plausible, and I would assume they contribute to the issue.
The most surprising thing is the sudden, almost immediate appearance of 5G UW coverage at my kitchen table. Iāll often noodle on the web while having a coffee in my kitchen, which coincidentally tends to get the weakest signal in the house. Within hours of switching, I was getting 5G UW in the kitchen, albeit not consistently. Prior to switching, the only times I had ever gotten 5G UW signal were when I was near the windows in skyscrapers in places like NYC and Boston or on particularly well covered highways in/around big cities. Iāll be taking a trip to rural Maine in a few weeks, which will be an interesting test. Iāll be visiting places where āno serviceā is common, so weāll see if I get that message more often.
To re-emphasize, I am pleased with US Mobile. The annoyance of occasionally slower Internet access is outweighed by a bill that is only 30-40% of what my old Verizon bill was. I canāt say that Iāve run into any real issues with voice calls.
I wouldnāt expect any major call/signal differences between those two carriers in Boston, even though they use different underlying networks. All of the major US networks are very strong in that area, so it would come down to pricing and āextras,ā like data and hotspot fetaures.
Itās worth pointing out that every MVNO negotiates a certain priority on the host network for its customers. This quality of service class (QCI) determines what peak performance customers can see depending on what type of traffic they are generating and how many other customers are competing for bandwidth on that tower within that specific network. A very simple rule of thumb is low QCI means higher priority. Emergency voice lines for example are 0.5. In the case of US Mobile, customers on Verizon (Warp) or AT&T (Dark Star) get QCI 9 (or 8 on the better plans), whereas their customers that opt for T-Mobile (Light Speed) are guaranteed QCI 7.
I used to be on T-Mobileās network with US Mobile because that is the network I originally switched from. I didnāt notice any changes (QCI 7), but I also never liked that T-Mobileās coverage could be a bit spotty at work. So I switched to using US Mobileās Verizon network where I still am now. Noticed better coverage at work but no difference in areas where coverage on both was good. After a few months I switched to US-Mobileās high-end plan and that took me from QCI 9 on Verizon to QCI 8. I honestly never noticed any difference at all even though here in Berkeley, especially when school is in or itās commencement, the networks get very crowded, you see bars drop, and thereās certainly lots of prioritization going on. Heck, carriers even bring trailers to town to run auxiliary cell transmission sites from so their networks stay up at all.
Around here in everyday use I do see 5G UW a lot, but this is also in a very urban and highly populated area (and back when using T-Mobile on US Mobile it was a lot of 5G UC exploiting the mid band spectrum they acquired via Sprint merger). If you go out to the sticks (try Highway 6 in NV or around Uvalde TX), it stops showing up at all and at some point youāll be happy to get just one or two bars of LTE. 
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I am a new customer to US Mobile and our two iPhone 12 Pro Maxās are showing green bubbles when sending and receiving Messages between our phones. Her phone is on Dark Star and mine is on Light Speed.
I have turned iMessage off on both phones, then back on again to reset iMessage.
I have turned OFF āretry as text messageā, so to force the phone to NOT use SMS.
I have restarted both phones hoping that might make a difference. No change.
What settings do I need to change to get the blue bubbles back?
I suggest calling US Mobile customer service, or using their online chat, before expending more time troubleshooting it yourself. It may be an erroneous setting on their end.
In the same place in Messages settings, verify that all numbers and emails that you want to use are checked.
It sounds a little silly, but Iād also try restarting your iPhone.
@bob_sternās advice to contact support is solid, too. In fact, I have a different issue with US Mobile on my iPhone, and I am going to contact support, too, if my next idea doesnāt work.
Thanks for the tip; however Iāve been on online chat for over 30 minutes and no luck yet.
Yup, restarted phone several times after each preference change. No luck yet!
One time, when my phone failed to send a message using iMessage because of a poor data connection, it switched to SMS and continued to use it for subsequent messages. I think I got it to switch back by trying to open a new conversation with the same recipient and selecting their blue phone number or Apple ID. It didnāt actually start a new conversion; it went to the existing one with the personās ID in blue this time.
OP Here: Turns out the problem was the Mint physical SIM still being in the phone. Even though everything Mint was turned off in cellular preferences (data and voice), for some reason it was interfering with the US Mobile eSIM.
Removing the Mint SIM and restarting the phone solved the problem.
Kudos to Zanyzaeem here on the forum spending two hours chatting with me to solve the problem!
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