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T-Mobile Completes Acquisition of Mint Mobile
- poopsmithe 2y agoCongratulations Ryan Reynolds!
- oluwie 2y agoHe made enough money to now buy 3 football teams!
- rqtwteye 2y agoI had a good ride with Mint for several years now. I am definitely very worried that enshittification starts now. I see the $15 promise but what happens with the other plans? I have 15GB for $20 which is perfect for me. I don't care for Mexico or Canada roaming.
- terkel 2y agoI switched from T-Mobile to Mint. This makes me sad. I've unwillingly returned to the company I previously left due to poor service, incorrect charges, and extensive time spent with customer support.
- amiantos 2y agoKind of weird, because Mint has always been using T-Mobile's network, and cuts costs by having terrible support. Mint is just a middle-man, a reseller of T-Mobile's network. For the record, I have been a Mint customer for going on 3+ years now, pay for my plan annually and I love it. But, I switched from T-Mobile, because I knew they were still the T-Mobile network, and I understood from research online that the price trade off is potential de-prioritization, and their support wasn't very good. But that doesn't really matter to me because I hardly ever need support.
- LeoPanthera 2y agoWhat (US) network is the HN crowd using these days?
- abawany 2y agonot sure I count as the HN crowd but I've been happy with Verizon and its owned MVNOs for a while (particularly Visible). The service is generally rock solid and the voice quality is imo better than the other 2 carriers. Also, Verizon seems uninterested in customer imprisonment atm - any device bought from them automatically unlocks 60 days after purchase. CS can be spotty esp. since they also seemed to have gone down the path of outsourcing - previously it used to be US-based afaict and very competent ime.
- jncfhnb 2y agoMint :|
- silisili 2y agoI'm the cheapest of the cheap. I use project genesis because they were giving away 21 months of service for free if you did some basic tasks for a couple weeks. I'm on month 6 or so of completely free, unlimited data/talk/text. I hope they last long enough for me to see it through. Edit: What I would use without PG, which is what my wife is on, is US Mobile. 10GB/mo for $15.
- terkel 2y agoMint
- neverokay 2y agoI’m curious why the US and EU have taken on big tech but have never really gone after these carriers for much of anything. Meta or X can’t breathe in the direction of another social media company without an antitrust suit.
- lotsofpulp 2y agoHow many different businesses can put up cellular towers all over the country? The US has 3, and had 4. Seems like a pretty big cost to add more redundancy.
- scarface_74 2y agoYou realize that Mint Mobile is already using T-Mobile’s network? How much competition would Mint Mobile actually be for T-mobile?
- neverokay 2y agoOnce they own Mint, Mint just becomes their lowest tier plan. You can keep moving the lowest tier price up to the point the standard T-mobile package becomes attractive. Mint no longer works independently in applying pricing pressure. The pressure that made T-mobile even buy Mint (however little pressure) is now gone.
- mgiampapa 2y agoMint as an MVNO never worked independently in applying pricing pressure. It was always beholden to the minimum cost of one of the big 3. New MVNOs will launch, others will fail. The only thing I've learned from this is to try and invest in anything Ryan Reynolds is selling.
- gowld 2y agoMint paid T-Mobile for spectrum. T-Mobile could have raised prices that Mint pays, even if Mint is a competitor.
- 2y ago
- LUmBULtERA 2y agoI think it’s funny that their email could only point out two good things: free scam call tagging and roaming in Canada. Meanwhile concentration increases and increases…
- goalonetwo 2y agoMint is great. Have been with them for 5 years. Has been flawless. I have 30$/month unlimited plan. Yeah, this looks like it will start the enshitification process. Not sure where to go next. Don't really want to go back to a 100$/month bill.
- dheera 2y agoVisible has a $25/month unlimited plan
- goalonetwo 2y agoThanks! Will look it up. I was worried as it seems a lot of those ultra low cost carriers are heavily throttled. Never saw that with Mint.
- chasil 2y agoBoost also offers $25 unlimited on AT&T, 30gb high speed. They also have a 2gb plan for $10.
- dheera 2y ago> They also have a 2gb plan for $10. Seems like a good option to have a second number that you hand out to stupid 2FA businesses and banks that isn't your real number. Set the ringer for that number on mute or hook it up to a throwaway phone that sits somewhere plugged in and forwards SMS to your e-mail or some such.
- chasil 2y agoThe cheapest option that I know for this is Red Pocket's "phone plan" on eBay for a total yearly charge of $30. They are at the bottom of this page: https://www.redpocket.com/plans/annual https://www.redpocket.com/plans/annual Numeric PINs are issued by eBay - use them within a month (or less), or they expire and there are no refunds.
- paxys 2y agoI don't understand the latest turn in the MVNO business model. The big carriers operate their gigantic networks and sell spare capacity to smaller players to make extra money. These small operators sell service to customers who want lower costs and don't mind the fewer features and congestion. So everyone is happy and making/saving money. Then in the last ~10 years the big carriers all go "nah" and start acquiring these MVNOs (MetroPCS by T-Mobile, Cricket by AT&T, TracFone/Straight Talk/Total by Verizon, Visible by Verizon, now Mint by T-Mobile). So...what was the point of the whole thing? The carriers just spent billions of dollars for each of these acquisitions to gain back the customers that they gave away in the first place?
- SigmundA 2y ago"I like money"
- unclad5968 2y agoCustomer acquisition would be my guess
- choilive 2y ago> The carriers just spent billions of dollars for each of these acquisitions to gain back the customers that they gave away in the first place? Yep exactly. My guess is they are going to be positioning their "primary" brand as a premium offering and push the MVNO they just bought as a "value/discount" brand. Toyota & Lexus. Same company, same car platforms, different features.
- BurningFrog 2y agoTheory I just made up: The big carrier doesn't know what to do with all their extra capacity, so they let startups buy it. Once a startup has figured out what to do with the capacity, it makes sense for both parties to merge. Everyone makes a profit, and life goes on! You can think of it as a way to outsource innovation.
- paxys 2y ago> Once a startup has figured out what to do with the capacity But...they didn't really figure out anything new. They just sold the same service for cheaper. If T-Mobile had a $15/mo unlimited plan then there would be no reason for anyone to use Mint Mobile. And TMo could have saved the $1.5B.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- WirelessGigabit 2y agoI switched away from Mint because of a nightmare after losing an iPhone and having to pay for a new eSIM. You only get 2 eSIMs per year. And wiping an iPhone via iCloud erases the eSIM. So my phone died, and I couldn't track it. I wiped it remotely. As I had some issues with restoring backups I exhausted my 2 eSIMs in 1 year. I paid it, and ported out once my plan was up. Now on Visible, with unlimited eSIMs.