5 ms·

I'm on Visible, which is a Verizon MVNO.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dheera 4y ago
I use both Visible and Fi (= T-mobile) on one phone, I wish there were a way to fuse the networks and switch packets with millisecond-level failovers so I don't have to keep swapping the active SIM.
- atlgator 4y ago
  There are services that offer bonding like speedify but I don't think iPhone is supported for bonding multiple cellular connections. Not sure if Android phones do. Maybe someone has experience with it?
  - posguy 4y ago
    The iPhone isn't using bleeding edge 5G and doesn't let you lock to 5G Standalone, from what I have seen on Android using 5G Standalone (which nixes bonding with LTE) gets rid of most of the jitter that causes data connection lag. The IMS core that powers calling and texting on most cellular networks has not been upgraded to route calls and texts over 5G Standalone yet (or if so, it doesn't seem to work with the Pixel 6 or 7 on T-Mobile or AT&T), meaning most phones stay on 5G Non-Standalone which is a substandard experience.
    - joecool1029 4y ago
      > The IMS core that powers calling and texting on most cellular networks has not been upgraded to route calls and texts over 5G Standalone yet (or if so, it doesn't seem to work with the Pixel 6 or 7 on T-Mobile or AT&T), meaning most phones stay on 5G Non-Standalone which is a substandard experience. This is not true. T-Mobile has been allowing voNR calls on their network for over 2 years now on SA. It's up to to the handset to have it configured in modem firmware (it is configurable on Qualcomm chipsets through EFS). AT&T appears to be allowing voNR calls since around August of last year. As for the 5G NSA substandard experience, most phones on the market don't support SA carrier aggregation. Without that the experience sucks, This is a hardware feature you'd need a flagship phone built within past 2 years to support (new ones do 3CA, older ones do 2CA). Better to leave on NSA for these phones or stay on LTE until more spectrum refarmed to NR.
  - frankenbagel 4y ago
    Speedify lets you bond the cellular to the wifi. It doesn’t let you use the LTE AND 5g from you phone at same time. But it does let you join another phone’s hotspot so you can combine your cellular with the other phone’s cellular.
posguy 4y ago
What make and model is your phone? Visible is a deprioritized version of Verizon's cellular network, so when your on a busy tower you will see slower speeds than postpaid Verizon Wireless customers. Verizon also happens to have the slowest network over the last few years since they have the most customers using it (nearly 130 million users) and smaller spectrum holdings than the other two major cellular networks. Verizon also chose to deploy 5G service using spectrum sharing, so 4G and 5G speeds are very similar: https://www.zdnet.com/article/verizon-5g-dss-isnt-the-5g-you-want/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/verizon-5g-dss-isnt-the-5g-you... T-Mobile is using dedicated (and much larger sized) low and midband spectrum for their 5G connectivity, plus they have almost half as many customers, resulting in much faster speeds. That being said 5G is still in its infancy, 5G Standalone is really needed to lower your phone's power use (so its not connecting to LTE and 5G at the same time), reduce latency and jitter, and allow 5G to stretch further for a more stable connection.
- anderspitman 4y ago
  Thanks for the info. I'm on a Pixel 7. Honestly I'd like to try disabling 5G but haven't been able to find a way yet.
  - rabbbit 4y ago
    They added it! It was not possible when the phone was released, but one of the updates (December maybe?) added a toggle button in settings.
rootw0rm 4y ago
Same here, on Visible. The 5g sucks, and I can't even disable it on my S22. I made custom APN which removes 5g and it's just ignored =(
mdasen 4y ago
This is likely your problem. My first question is whether you're on one of the new plans or one of the old plans. This is actually important because the old plans are provisioned differently. The old plans use Visible's cloud APN while the new plans run off Verizon's. A lot of people have complained that Visible's was pretty terrible. The old plans were $25/mo if you had Party Pay. The new plans start at $30, but don't require any hoops. After that, I'd note that if you're not on the Visible+ plan, you are going to be on a lower QCI (Quality of Service Class Identifier) than most of the traffic on the network. So if others are using the network, you might experience slowness, lags, and hangs. Verizon's network isn't in the best capacity position in a lot of areas so this can be meaningful. Verizon's low-band 5G is also not great since it uses dynamic spectrum sharing rather than having dedicated 5G spectrum. If you're on one of the old Visible plans, I'd pay the extra $5 and get on one of the new plans. You'll need a new SIM card for it, but it's probably worth it to get off the cloud core that has generated a lot of complaints. If you're on the new $30 plan, it might be worth trying the $45 plan for a month and seeing if you get better results with the 50GB of premium data. After that, you should probably try T-Mobile or AT&T. You can try AT&T for free using their 14-day free trial on Cricket (https://www.cricketwireless.com/free-trial.html https://www.cricketwireless.com/free-trial.html, note that it's only 3GB of data) and you can test out T-Mobile for a whole 3 months if you have an eSIM device (https://www.t-mobile.com/offers/free-trial https://www.t-mobile.com/offers/free-trial). If you can, it's definitely worth trying an alternative carrier since they're now offering free trials (Verizon also offers one for 30 days: https://www.verizon.com/support/verizon-test-drive-faqs/ https://www.verizon.com/support/verizon-test-drive-faqs/). EDIT: as an aside, it's probably not that "higher frequencies used for 5G don't go as far or penetrate as effectively" simply because, unless you're on Visible+, you don't have access to any of those higher frequencies. Legacy Visible plans and the current $30 Visible plan only have access to low-band 5G using the same frequencies as LTE.
- anderspitman 4y ago
  Awesome, thanks!

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

I use both Visible and Fi (= T-mobile) on one phone, I wish there were a way to fuse the networks and switch packets with millisecond-level failovers so I don't have to keep swapping the active SIM.

atlgator 4y ago
There are services that offer bonding like speedify but I don't think iPhone is supported for bonding multiple cellular connections. Not sure if Android phones do. Maybe someone has experience with it?
- posguy 4y ago
  The iPhone isn't using bleeding edge 5G and doesn't let you lock to 5G Standalone, from what I have seen on Android using 5G Standalone (which nixes bonding with LTE) gets rid of most of the jitter that causes data connection lag. The IMS core that powers calling and texting on most cellular networks has not been upgraded to route calls and texts over 5G Standalone yet (or if so, it doesn't seem to work with the Pixel 6 or 7 on T-Mobile or AT&T), meaning most phones stay on 5G Non-Standalone which is a substandard experience.
  - joecool1029 4y ago
    > The IMS core that powers calling and texting on most cellular networks has not been upgraded to route calls and texts over 5G Standalone yet (or if so, it doesn't seem to work with the Pixel 6 or 7 on T-Mobile or AT&T), meaning most phones stay on 5G Non-Standalone which is a substandard experience. This is not true. T-Mobile has been allowing voNR calls on their network for over 2 years now on SA. It's up to to the handset to have it configured in modem firmware (it is configurable on Qualcomm chipsets through EFS). AT&T appears to be allowing voNR calls since around August of last year. As for the 5G NSA substandard experience, most phones on the market don't support SA carrier aggregation. Without that the experience sucks, This is a hardware feature you'd need a flagship phone built within past 2 years to support (new ones do 3CA, older ones do 2CA). Better to leave on NSA for these phones or stay on LTE until more spectrum refarmed to NR.
- frankenbagel 4y ago
  Speedify lets you bond the cellular to the wifi. It doesn’t let you use the LTE AND 5g from you phone at same time. But it does let you join another phone’s hotspot so you can combine your cellular with the other phone’s cellular.

posguy 4y ago

What make and model is your phone? Visible is a deprioritized version of Verizon's cellular network, so when your on a busy tower you will see slower speeds than postpaid Verizon Wireless customers. Verizon also happens to have the slowest network over the last few years since they have the most customers using it (nearly 130 million users) and smaller spectrum holdings than the other two major cellular networks. Verizon also chose to deploy 5G service using spectrum sharing, so 4G and 5G speeds are very similar: https://www.zdnet.com/article/verizon-5g-dss-isnt-the-5g-you-want/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/verizon-5g-dss-isnt-the-5g-you... T-Mobile is using dedicated (and much larger sized) low and midband spectrum for their 5G connectivity, plus they have almost half as many customers, resulting in much faster speeds. That being said 5G is still in its infancy, 5G Standalone is really needed to lower your phone's power use (so its not connecting to LTE and 5G at the same time), reduce latency and jitter, and allow 5G to stretch further for a more stable connection.

anderspitman 4y ago
Thanks for the info. I'm on a Pixel 7. Honestly I'd like to try disabling 5G but haven't been able to find a way yet.
- rabbbit 4y ago
  They added it! It was not possible when the phone was released, but one of the updates (December maybe?) added a toggle button in settings.

rootw0rm 4y ago

Same here, on Visible. The 5g sucks, and I can't even disable it on my S22. I made custom APN which removes 5g and it's just ignored =(

mdasen 4y ago

This is likely your problem. My first question is whether you're on one of the new plans or one of the old plans. This is actually important because the old plans are provisioned differently. The old plans use Visible's cloud APN while the new plans run off Verizon's. A lot of people have complained that Visible's was pretty terrible. The old plans were $25/mo if you had Party Pay. The new plans start at $30, but don't require any hoops. After that, I'd note that if you're not on the Visible+ plan, you are going to be on a lower QCI (Quality of Service Class Identifier) than most of the traffic on the network. So if others are using the network, you might experience slowness, lags, and hangs. Verizon's network isn't in the best capacity position in a lot of areas so this can be meaningful. Verizon's low-band 5G is also not great since it uses dynamic spectrum sharing rather than having dedicated 5G spectrum. If you're on one of the old Visible plans, I'd pay the extra $5 and get on one of the new plans. You'll need a new SIM card for it, but it's probably worth it to get off the cloud core that has generated a lot of complaints. If you're on the new $30 plan, it might be worth trying the $45 plan for a month and seeing if you get better results with the 50GB of premium data. After that, you should probably try T-Mobile or AT&T. You can try AT&T for free using their 14-day free trial on Cricket (https://www.cricketwireless.com/free-trial.html https://www.cricketwireless.com/free-trial.html, note that it's only 3GB of data) and you can test out T-Mobile for a whole 3 months if you have an eSIM device (https://www.t-mobile.com/offers/free-trial https://www.t-mobile.com/offers/free-trial). If you can, it's definitely worth trying an alternative carrier since they're now offering free trials (Verizon also offers one for 30 days: https://www.verizon.com/support/verizon-test-drive-faqs/ https://www.verizon.com/support/verizon-test-drive-faqs/). EDIT: as an aside, it's probably not that "higher frequencies used for 5G don't go as far or penetrate as effectively" simply because, unless you're on Visible+, you don't have access to any of those higher frequencies. Legacy Visible plans and the current $30 Visible plan only have access to low-band 5G using the same frequencies as LTE.

anderspitman 4y ago
Awesome, thanks!