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T-Mobile Automatically Moving Legacy Plan Customers to New Plans

mk313 said:
No offense to US Mobile, but that not a real comparison. No one is paying $120/month & getting the same thing you are getting at US Mobile. The highest plan that T Mobile offers is $100/month, but that includes an upgraded phone ever year, Satellite connectivity, Netflix & Hulu included, $10 discount on Apple TV, 4k UHD streaming, unlimited hotspot, unlimited premium data, and texts & high-speed data access in 215 countries.

The price delta is a lot closer than that for most people. My T Mobile plan includes 5 phone lines, an ipad, a watch & backup home internet for $210/month. Excluding the first year promo, it looks like US Mobile is $32.50/phone line (if you pay for the full year up front), so I'd be at $162.50 for just the phones & watch Since that is free with the $32.50 plan on US Mobile. (If you don't pay in full up front, the USMobile plan for just 5 phones would actually cost me $10 more per month than I am currently paying T Mobile). But I still have to add in a tablet data plan & backup home internet. Neither of which US mobile offers (that I can see from their website). They do have a tie-up with Starlink, but you can't access the pricing without creating an account. The best priced Starlink plan that was available when I looked at this earlier in the year was $10/month but included no data.

So, for $47.50 more per month, I get home internet, and an iPad data plan. Plus T Mobile Tuesdays, and free hulu and netflix. And higher priority calling if/when the network gets congested. and the ability to not have to spend $2K on cell service up front, at the beginning of the year. Is that worth $47.50? For some people yes, for others not, but it's a lot closer than it looks at first glance.

And with Verizon's new $30/month plan, I'll bet it's even closer than that (but I haven't looked at the details). I'm not bashing USMobile, there seem to be a lot of happy customers in this chat, and without the MVNO's, I'm certain the Big 3 customers would be paying more than we currently are. But it's not quite a simple of a decision as painted out to be above.
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Some of us only have one line, we get screwed by all three networks.
 
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spazzcat said:
Some of us only have one line, we get screwed by all three networks.
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Verizon does offer a $30/month plan, which is super competitive with the MVNO's.

But again, I'm not against people using an MVNO. They offer some features, mainly price, but also things like unbundling where you can buy your amount of data separate from your call or text allowance, and the USMobile thing where you can select from multiple networks in real time, that are not part offered by the Big 3, and do appeal to a segment of the market.
 
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mk313 said:
Not really. Verizon offers a $30/month plan, which is super competitive with the MVNO's.

But again, I'm not against people using an MVNO. They offer some features, mainly price, but also things like unbundling where you can buy your amount of data separate from your call or text allowance, and the USMobile thing where you can select from multiple networks in real time, that are not part offered by the Big 3, and do appeal to a segment of the market.
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And even if going with first party, I would still choose one of their prepaid options.

The postpaid nonsense of always having random taxes and fees, and seemingly a different Bill all the time, is such BS and I want no part of that ever again.

I don’t trust any of these cell companies at all.
 
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mk313 said:
Not really. Verizon offers a $30/month plan, which is super competitive with the MVNO's.

But again, I'm not against people using an MVNO. They offer some features, mainly price, but also things like unbundling where you can buy your amount of data separate from your call or text allowance, and the USMobile thing where you can select from multiple networks in real time, that are not part offered by the Big 3, and do appeal to a segment of the market.
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Once you add a watch is the basically the same price and lose the ability to have ATT on my phone for an extra $10. But this is a move in the right direction for them.
 
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MVNOs are amazing ways to save money. But, as long as you're ok with the - "Hey I'm in a crowded area (mall/restaurant/outside) and I can't seem to get any data at the moment" now and then - it'll be perfect.

Due to my own needs - I need reception everywhere so I often run VZW primary and a MVNO T-Mobile secondary e-sim. I've used Mint, Visible (I know, Verizon), and now US Mobile. US Mobile is by far the best, easiest, greatest, awesome-est. I transferred relatives to it and they're really happy with it.

If I didn't have device paying relatives on my VZW family plan with big employer discounts - I'd move to US Mobile in a flash.


One BIG thing to note is - moving to an MVNO users will have to pay outright for their phones. No more Apple Card 2 year payments, no VZW subsidizing phones over 3 years with nice trade-in deals, etc. For a lot this is a big deal.
 
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BigMcGuire said:
MVNOs are amazing ways to save money. But, as long as you're ok with the - "Hey I'm in a crowded area (mall/restaurant/outside) and I can't seem to get any data at the moment" now and then - it'll be perfect.

Due to my own needs - I need reception everywhere so I often run VZW primary and a MVNO T-Mobile secondary e-sim. I've used Mint, Visible (I know, Verizon), and now US Mobile. US Mobile is by far the best, easiest, greatest, awesome-est. I transferred relatives to it and they're really happy with it.

If I didn't have device paying relatives on my VZW family plan with big employer discounts - I'd move to US Mobile in a flash.


One BIG thing to note is - moving to an MVNO users will have to pay outright for their phones. No more Apple Card 2 year payments, no VZW subsidizing phones over 3 years with nice trade-in deals, etc. For a lot this is a big deal.
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I did see that US Mobile does do trade in's for what looks like cash. So that at least helps offset the price a little. But I am just curious how good of a price they give you for said trade in.
 
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SouthernApple said:
We're moving elsewhere tomorrow.
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But where? Back when it was ATT and Verizon and all the others, T-Mobile was the best overall deal for heavy data and long-distance and messaging and travel users. T-Mobile was the other company. Then, the mergers, the final nail in the coffin obviously Sprint+T-Mobile, and, now, there is no other company. Since then, we've all been waiting for this moment. Here it is.

I've heard US Cellular is good for mainly cell use, but, what about comprehensive plans?
 
spazzcat said:
You have different options, you can switch between the three networks anytime and if you are the main plan you don't get charged to make the change. The other option is to have two or all three networks active on your phone. But I believe with iPhones you can only have two esims active at a time. So I have Warp (VZ) and Dark Star (ATT) on my phone. So if I am in area that ATT works better then my data goes through Dark Star vs my primary network with is Warp.

Edit: You pay $10 extra for each network you have active. So, I pay $54, $44 (Warp) + $10 (Dark Star).
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I see... So in the first scenario — you need to manually switch the carrier, as you would when roaming? And the way you have it set up is that both networks run simultaneously, hopefully all for one phone number 🙂
Yup, iPhone is only 2 active eSims. I also noticed that Warp includes a wearable, which is nice.

Thank you, this clears some of the confusion up for me. Have you used this service internationally?
 
gleepskip said:
US Mobile is the answer here. You can use Verizon, T-Mo, or AT&T networks.
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I held onto a grandfathered AT&T plan, then a grandfathered T-Mobile plan. I switched to US Mobile just over a year ago, and regret not doing it sooner! I’ve had 0 issues. I also take advantage of the free month of international service each year. I’m using the same network. But, I’m paying drastically less. And, I get a free watch plan. When I went to pay my yearly renewal I was nervous, but it was still cheap. I don’t understand how it can be so cheap, but glad it is 🤣🤣
 
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alexandr said:
I see... So in the first scenario — you need to manually switch the carrier, as you would when roaming? And the way you have it set up is that both networks run simultaneously, hopefully all for one phone number 🙂
Yup, iPhone is only 2 active eSims. I also noticed that Warp includes a wearable, which is nice.

Thank you, this clears some of the confusion up for me. Have you used this service internationally?
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Not who you replied to, but will share my experience. I’ve used it in Asia and South America with no problem. Plus, you get 1 free month international per year. Any additional time is cheap.
 
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rjp1 said:
Not who you replied to, but will share my experience. I’ve used it in Asia and South America with no problem. Plus, you get 1 free month international per year. Any additional time is cheap.
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Thank you. Don't you get 20g/month and free calls/messages when roaming internationally?
 
alexandr said:
Thank you. Don't you get 20g/month and free calls/messages when roaming internationally?
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The 20gb is for your free one. After that you have to pay for a top up. I’ve been in Japan, Brazil, and Argentina this year - the only issue I had was that I had to restart my phone when I got to Japan for the service to work initially. That’s literally been my only issue, and it is so incredibly minor that it feels weird even saying it was a problem.

The only catch is that depending on which of the 3 networks and what country you go to - it may be data only service. This wasn’t an issue for me, because I didn’t mind the break from spam calls, and I just used FaceTime audio to talk to family and friends. You can check which are data only here: https://www.usmobile.com/international-roaming-phone-plans
 
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rjp1 said:
The 20gb is for your free one. After that you have to pay for a top up. I’ve been in Japan, Brazil, and Argentina this year - the only issue I had was that I had to restart my phone when I got to Japan for the service to work initially. That’s literally been my only issue, and it is so incredibly minor that it feels weird even saying it was a problem.

The only catch is that depending on which of the 3 networks and what country you go to - it may be data only service. This wasn’t an issue for me, because I didn’t mind the break from spam calls, and I just used FaceTime audio to talk to family and friends. You can check which are data only here: https://www.usmobile.com/international-roaming-phone-plans
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T-Mo has a similar feature, which I've been using quite a bit, but it slows down after 5gb. However there's only been a couple of times when we went over that. Glad to hear it works in Japan, as we're planning another trip there. And you're absolutely right — restarting the phone is no reason to complain!
 
kagharaht said:
I also have T-Mobile Home Internet at $50 a month. No Data Caps. Unlimited. That deal alone is worth staying for now.
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That would be worth it if it worked for me but with only 1 bar of signal at my home it is worthless (yes I tried it before they realized how bad it was and discontinued offering the service in my neighborhood). Unfortunately my neighborhood is in a dead spot for cell coverage from any carrier.
 
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alexandr said:
I see... So in the first scenario — you need to manually switch the carrier, as you would when roaming? And the way you have it set up is that both networks run simultaneously, hopefully all for one phone number 🙂
Yup, iPhone is only 2 active eSims. I also noticed that Warp includes a wearable, which is nice.

Thank you, this clears some of the confusion up for me. Have you used this service internationally?
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You have different phone numbers as they are on different networks. But I don't share my other network number.
 
chewbaka said:
I suspect this wouldn’t work… I bet they need everyone in cities to pay the same rate as in the boonies to subsidize nationwide service, otherwise no one in rural areas would be able to afford service.
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I'm thinking of carriers with only regional coverage, like US cellular when it existed.

There are no regional carriers where I live.
 
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