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For tablets, at least with T-Mobile, for $25 you get unlimited data. You only get a limited amount of tethering data.
by raw_anon_1111 1y ago
For tablets, at least with T-Mobile, for $25 you get unlimited data. You only get a limited amount of tethering data.
- leakycap 1y agoT-mobile is so scammy, though. Have you been keeping up with all the lawsuits against them in the US?
- raw_anon_1111 1y agoAll carriers are scammy in their own way
- leakycap 1y agoSo, maybe don't do business with the worst of them? Of the big 3 in the US, T-Mobile is the one I'd avoid right now.
- raw_anon_1111 1y agoVerizon is overpriced and is the Comcast equivalent of cellular carriers. AT&T is about as bad
- leakycap 1y agoVerizon owns most of the value brands in the US and you made no connection between them and Comcast beyond mentioning them in the same sentence. AT&T is "about as bad" as what? You gave no information.
- raw_anon_1111 1y agoPrice, customer service
- leakycap 1y agoBased on the type of responses you are giving, I actually do believe you probably call your phone company's customer service regularly. So perhaps your criteria might be different. Have you heard of Consumer Cellular?
- raw_anon_1111 1y agoConsumer cellular rate plans are the same price as T-Mobile and they don’t have international roaming included.
- leakycap 1y agoThat joke jitterbugged right past you.
- raw_anon_1111 1y agoYou would be surprised how many people on HN will defend crappy products and servjce because of ideals - see Framework laptops, PinePhones etc.
- leakycap 1y agoYeah, those products people are passionate about and really like are total junk. We should mock them while not explaining any of our reasoning, thank you for showing the way.
- raw_anon_1111 1y agoI explain my reasoning on the Franework laptop for instance - they are bulky, shoddily made, loud, and poor battery life compared to even an M1 MacBook Air. From what I read, even for x86 laptops, they are for from the best and that’s a really low bar in 2025
- 1y ago
- apparent 1y agoMVNOs FTW. They know they're competing for price-conscious consumers so have to offer more value. The big 3 know most of their customers are going to go with one of the big boys, all of whom are expensive and not great.
- raw_anon_1111 1y agoMVNOs have slower data rates since they buy deprioritized traffic in bulk, don’t have the roaming agreements domestically and especially not internationally, and don’t offer unlimited high speed data.
- apparent 1y agoHm, not my experience. When traveling internationally there was an option I could have used, but I chose to use a local SIM card instead. The data speeds are just fine for me, and I haven't experienced any issues with roaming domestically. But then I don't even care about 5g versus 4g/LTE for the most part, so perhaps I'm just not noticing limits that affect others.
- raw_anon_1111 1y agoThat’s how MVNOs work, they buy data in bulk at wholesale prices. But they pay for lower QoS. There isn’t anything wrong with that. But they are getting jankier bandwidth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QoS_Class_Identifier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QoS_Class_Identifier T-Mobile comes with 5GB of high speed data per month to use for roaming in Canada and Mexico and lower speed data roaming almost anywhere else in the world.
- apparent 1y agoTrue, but don't you have to treat the device as a separate line? If the laptop had cellular I'd have another bill to pay.
- raw_anon_1111 1y agoTo be completely honest, I would be fine not having cellular data on my iPad and don’t think I would use more than 40GB of tethering ever if I took advantage if using WiFi every opportunity I could instead of not worrying about it. It’s just one of those things that it’s convenient not having to worry about WiFi when we travel and hotel WiFi depending on how busy they are is often pretty bad. But especially with a laptop, as often as we travel, I don’t think I’ve ever needed to tether to my Mac accept for brief periods of times when our condos shared WiFi went out (I work remotely). I wouldn’t pay for a separate line for a computer. I am sure others would. On another note, I did give my mom my previous iPad and kept the data plan so she doesn’t have to worry about WiFi when they take road trips.