Current Events > Questions about phone companies like Mint Mobile

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I currently use T Mobile. Do these smaller, less expensive companies have the same service as the larger company they rent from? Is it reliable and fast? As far as I know, they pay larger companies (such as T Mobile or Verizon) to rent their tech thats already in place. Wondering if its worth switching. Ive been on T Mobile for well over 10 years now, on the same plan that no longer exists when T Mobile had promotions because it was almost being bought out by AT&T. Has great international coverage too, which is why I really like it. But if I could get the same phone plan for half the price... its tempting.

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I had cricket, which uses att towers. It was fine and my main issues were that the speed was capped and times it was just really slow, but not sure if that would have been because of bad service, or the fact that these mvno's just get lower priority.

I recently switched to the pre-paid att service that comes from att though and I'm liking it much better. Paying the same price for uncapped speeds and higher priority.

There should be some subreddit about this stuff at well if you want more info
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I've had Mint for over 6 months now and it's been pretty great, especially given the extremely low cost/data coverage ratio. Honestly don't have any real complaints about it *shrug*.

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emblem boy posted...

There should be some subreddit about this stuff at well if you want more info

Ill check that out. And thank you both for the info. Also, whats a MVNO?

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An mvno is what companies like Mint, Cricket, etc. are

MVNO stands for "Mobile Virtual Network Operator. An MVNO is an operator that does not have its own radio netwok. The MVNO relies on the radio network of another operator to provide mobile communication services to its users.
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ive had cricket in the past, they were great, no complaints at all from me
thinking of going with mint mobile
anything more than 30$ a month for a phone is too much for me

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Att has a monthly prepaid plan that's $65 a month for unlimited speeds and no speed cap. But they seem to have deals often where if you set up autopay, it's $20 off, so $45. It's what I'm currently using. They have lower ones as well I think.

As a side note, I have no idea what the technical distinction between regular att and att prepaid is
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https://www.reddit.com/r/mintmobile/comments/j830ys/_/
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I use USMobile which uses T-Mobile towers.

I can't get a signal in the house and have to go outside to make phone calls. But it's super cheap and I don't make that many phone calls anyway.
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Yes. These smaller companies basically lease the use of the cell networks from the big companies (they are required to lease them out legally) so there's going to be virtually no difference in coverage.

The problems are going to be mostly locked phones and billing.

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Tyranthraxus posted...

Yes. These smaller companies basically lease the use of the cell networks from the big companies (they are required to lease them out legally) so there's going to be virtually no difference in coverage.

The problems are going to be mostly locked phones and billing.

Can you go month to month and can you use your own, unlocked phone?

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Sportsaholic posted...

Can you go month to month and can you use your own, unlocked phone?

In most cases you can use an unlocked phone. You may have to pay full retail. Make sure it's GSM compatible.

As for what you have to pay, you'll have to discuss that with them. Check out their website to see what they offer.

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