6 ms·

> even though Mint uses the same exact network. It's the same network, but you get the capacity that's left over after everyone on T-Mobile has had their fill.

by pkulak 4y ago

> even though Mint uses the same exact network. It's the same network, but you get the capacity that's left over after everyone on T-Mobile has had their fill. Which is why I don't get why everyone is always so excited about these MVNOs. To me, it's like bragging about how cheap airfare is when you go standby: "It's the exact same planes!".

kaslai 4y ago
It's one of those things where if it works in your area, it works great. I've been on MVNOs for a decade now and the worst I've ever experienced was sometimes my data rate would drop to a couple mbps in crowded areas, but that's never been a material problem for me. I happily spend the $10-15/mo and get service that exceeds my needs. Sure it won't work for everyone in all cases, but you shouldn't discount MVNOs out of hand just because they are second class networks.
wtallis 4y ago
It's not hard to understand: many people simply don't need a high-speed unlimited data plan for their phones. Not everyone makes a habit of streaming video over their cellular connection.
- pkulak 4y ago
  Are we sure that no matter how de-prioritized you are, some data is always available, with reasonable latency? I was just at a large sports stadium last night, and I was able to message my wife to tell her I was on my way home while looking up the best bus to take. I remember that not being possible a few years ago, but I don't know if that's because networks in general have gotten better, or because I'm now paying quite a lot of money for Verizon post-paid. EDIT: Oh, and I totally forgot about tethering. That can be severely restricted on MVNOs. And, at least for me, I don't need it. Until I need it. Then I NEED it. haha
  - starkparker 4y ago
    Odd to mention how restricted tethering is on MVNOs, in the comments of a post about Mint Mobile, which included tethering in every plan.
  - wtallis 4y ago
    I haven't used a MVNO at a packed stadium, but I've never experienced complete bandwidth starvation even in large crowds. I've also never had any problems with tethering on a MVNO; I think the restrictions are only for the "unlimited" plans which don't make a lot of sense (may as well get service from the major carrier at that point). In my experience, if you're paying for x GB per month, you are free to use that via tethering without extra interference from the carrier.
  - officeplant 4y ago
    Tethering is less restricted on MVNO's because often they can't do anything to stop you anyway. I've been tethering on prepaid plans for over ten years now without issues, and without paying anything extra for it.
  - vel0city 4y ago
    I've used Mint at large venues. It really depends on the venue what your experience will be like. Usually I'll get at least a few megabits of speed at the venues near me, some places I've gotten practically the same speeds as any other normal time and place, and there have been times where its been almost completely dead data-wise. Usually SMS will almost always eventually get through even on the most slammed networks, and the times where its been effectively dead has died down a good bit since the roll out of 5G. I'll often just switch to the venue's WiFi though, which often gives me pretty good speeds. As others have mentioned, Mint (and many other MVNOs) has tethering included in all plans without any extras. It counts against your data allotment just like any other data, as it should be.
- gremlinsinc 4y ago
  I'd probably want one, if I didn't avoid leaving the house like the plague. as it is I use like 700mb of 4g, and life 70gigs of WiFi.
monksy 4y ago
It all depends on how much they oversubscribe their frequency band. As a Verizon, Tmobile, or Att customer you might be able to get 1gbps down .. but why do you need that on your phone? Why are they popular? It makes little sense to pay $90 a month per line. With MVNOs the price is about 20-30$/mo. (Options out there: StraightTalk, USMobible, Lycia, Mint, Visble, Ting, Google FI, etc) Some of these carriers are even getting in international calling and roaming at an affordable price.
- nebula8804 4y ago
  What about voice quality or prompt delivery of SMS? Its anecdotal but i've had serious issues having delayed SMS on the T-Mobile MVNOs. Voice calls appear have been more spotty but thats harder to measure.
  - ROTMetro 4y ago
    I did have to configure SMS manually on my Pixel to work with Mint and that cleared up any SMS issues. Have never had any voice call issues.
- unshavedyak 4y ago
  For MVNO on Verizon's network, any recommendations? I pay some absurd number for my Verizon plan in the Pacific Northwest because the mountains cause other providers (TMo, for example) to have no reception constantly. Verizon is basically the only choice. However i rarely use it, i spend 90% of the time on Wifi. I just want to be able to get texting/voice SMS/Phone/Data for emergencies (not just 911). So perhaps an MVNO is of interest to me?
  - monksy 4y ago
    Us mobile or visible
  - spennant 4y ago
    Visible
haswell 4y ago
I understand this argument, but in practice it has never been a factor in my daily usage of the service. I think the bandwidth improvements by providers over the years have made this a mostly academic concern. I live in a major metro area that should theoretically be impacted by sheer volume of use, and I’ve also spent significant time on the road traveling (recent 7K mile overlanding trip through 15 states is one example), and never once experienced a slowdown. Wireless networks are pretty fast these days, and if I’ve ever been throttled, I just haven’t noticed. YMMV, and maybe I don’t have use cases that are impacted by this, but after experiencing what I’ve experienced, I have no questions at all about my decision to move away from the big networks. I’ve used Mint and Xfinity Mobile (Verizon MVNO). > To me, it's like bragging about how cheap airfare is when you go standby: "It's the exact same planes!" The experience and cost of using cheap airfare/standby is pretty well documented and rather dissimilar conceptually to what’s going on with MVNOs. The cheap ticket experience isn’t just “same planes”, it brings with it a very real likelihood of failure and customers generally go in knowing this up front. If MVNOs were unusable as often as standby flights are unavailable, the business model would quickly cease to exist. I find the notion of bragging about any of this for any reason rather odd, but it’s hard to ignore the significant savings over time.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- yencabulator 4y ago
  > I live in a major metro area that should theoretically be impacted by sheer volume of use, Nah, those towers tend to be built & upgraded to have the capacity. Where you mostly notice the MVNO suckage is if you take the biggest road out of town, drive two hours, make a left turn, and then drive an hour away from everything. But then again, wide coverage has historically not been T-mo's strength anyway (they've improved a lot in last few years).
  - haswell 4y ago
    > Where you mostly notice the MVNO suckage is if you take the biggest road out of town, drive two hours, make a left turn, and then drive an hour away from everything. I covered this in the 2nd half of the quoted sentence. I spent over a month in places like that throughout the US, and didn’t have issues. I’m not saying issues don’t exist, but I never ran into the described suckage. Finding a spot out there with poor signal isn’t hard, but that’s a separate issue.

by pkulak 4y ago

kaslai 4y ago

It's one of those things where if it works in your area, it works great. I've been on MVNOs for a decade now and the worst I've ever experienced was sometimes my data rate would drop to a couple mbps in crowded areas, but that's never been a material problem for me. I happily spend the $10-15/mo and get service that exceeds my needs. Sure it won't work for everyone in all cases, but you shouldn't discount MVNOs out of hand just because they are second class networks.

wtallis 4y ago

It's not hard to understand: many people simply don't need a high-speed unlimited data plan for their phones. Not everyone makes a habit of streaming video over their cellular connection.

pkulak 4y ago
Are we sure that no matter how de-prioritized you are, some data is always available, with reasonable latency? I was just at a large sports stadium last night, and I was able to message my wife to tell her I was on my way home while looking up the best bus to take. I remember that not being possible a few years ago, but I don't know if that's because networks in general have gotten better, or because I'm now paying quite a lot of money for Verizon post-paid. EDIT: Oh, and I totally forgot about tethering. That can be severely restricted on MVNOs. And, at least for me, I don't need it. Until I need it. Then I NEED it. haha
- starkparker 4y ago
  Odd to mention how restricted tethering is on MVNOs, in the comments of a post about Mint Mobile, which included tethering in every plan.
- wtallis 4y ago
  I haven't used a MVNO at a packed stadium, but I've never experienced complete bandwidth starvation even in large crowds. I've also never had any problems with tethering on a MVNO; I think the restrictions are only for the "unlimited" plans which don't make a lot of sense (may as well get service from the major carrier at that point). In my experience, if you're paying for x GB per month, you are free to use that via tethering without extra interference from the carrier.
- officeplant 4y ago
  Tethering is less restricted on MVNO's because often they can't do anything to stop you anyway. I've been tethering on prepaid plans for over ten years now without issues, and without paying anything extra for it.
- vel0city 4y ago
  I've used Mint at large venues. It really depends on the venue what your experience will be like. Usually I'll get at least a few megabits of speed at the venues near me, some places I've gotten practically the same speeds as any other normal time and place, and there have been times where its been almost completely dead data-wise. Usually SMS will almost always eventually get through even on the most slammed networks, and the times where its been effectively dead has died down a good bit since the roll out of 5G. I'll often just switch to the venue's WiFi though, which often gives me pretty good speeds. As others have mentioned, Mint (and many other MVNOs) has tethering included in all plans without any extras. It counts against your data allotment just like any other data, as it should be.
gremlinsinc 4y ago
I'd probably want one, if I didn't avoid leaving the house like the plague. as it is I use like 700mb of 4g, and life 70gigs of WiFi.

monksy 4y ago

It all depends on how much they oversubscribe their frequency band. As a Verizon, Tmobile, or Att customer you might be able to get 1gbps down .. but why do you need that on your phone? Why are they popular? It makes little sense to pay $90 a month per line. With MVNOs the price is about 20-30$/mo. (Options out there: StraightTalk, USMobible, Lycia, Mint, Visble, Ting, Google FI, etc) Some of these carriers are even getting in international calling and roaming at an affordable price.

nebula8804 4y ago
What about voice quality or prompt delivery of SMS? Its anecdotal but i've had serious issues having delayed SMS on the T-Mobile MVNOs. Voice calls appear have been more spotty but thats harder to measure.
- ROTMetro 4y ago
  I did have to configure SMS manually on my Pixel to work with Mint and that cleared up any SMS issues. Have never had any voice call issues.
unshavedyak 4y ago
For MVNO on Verizon's network, any recommendations? I pay some absurd number for my Verizon plan in the Pacific Northwest because the mountains cause other providers (TMo, for example) to have no reception constantly. Verizon is basically the only choice. However i rarely use it, i spend 90% of the time on Wifi. I just want to be able to get texting/voice SMS/Phone/Data for emergencies (not just 911). So perhaps an MVNO is of interest to me?
- monksy 4y ago
  Us mobile or visible
- spennant 4y ago
  Visible

haswell 4y ago

I understand this argument, but in practice it has never been a factor in my daily usage of the service. I think the bandwidth improvements by providers over the years have made this a mostly academic concern. I live in a major metro area that should theoretically be impacted by sheer volume of use, and I’ve also spent significant time on the road traveling (recent 7K mile overlanding trip through 15 states is one example), and never once experienced a slowdown. Wireless networks are pretty fast these days, and if I’ve ever been throttled, I just haven’t noticed. YMMV, and maybe I don’t have use cases that are impacted by this, but after experiencing what I’ve experienced, I have no questions at all about my decision to move away from the big networks. I’ve used Mint and Xfinity Mobile (Verizon MVNO). > To me, it's like bragging about how cheap airfare is when you go standby: "It's the exact same planes!" The experience and cost of using cheap airfare/standby is pretty well documented and rather dissimilar conceptually to what’s going on with MVNOs. The cheap ticket experience isn’t just “same planes”, it brings with it a very real likelihood of failure and customers generally go in knowing this up front. If MVNOs were unusable as often as standby flights are unavailable, the business model would quickly cease to exist. I find the notion of bragging about any of this for any reason rather odd, but it’s hard to ignore the significant savings over time.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
yencabulator 4y ago
> I live in a major metro area that should theoretically be impacted by sheer volume of use, Nah, those towers tend to be built & upgraded to have the capacity. Where you mostly notice the MVNO suckage is if you take the biggest road out of town, drive two hours, make a left turn, and then drive an hour away from everything. But then again, wide coverage has historically not been T-mo's strength anyway (they've improved a lot in last few years).
- haswell 4y ago
  > Where you mostly notice the MVNO suckage is if you take the biggest road out of town, drive two hours, make a left turn, and then drive an hour away from everything. I covered this in the 2nd half of the quoted sentence. I spent over a month in places like that throughout the US, and didn’t have issues. I’m not saying issues don’t exist, but I never ran into the described suckage. Finding a spot out there with poor signal isn’t hard, but that’s a separate issue.