Mint Mobile

[kevm14]

https://www.mintmobile.com/plans/

I think they are a T-mobile MVNO.

Only catch is an MVNO probably doesn't get to use roaming agreements (like with AT&T, and possibly Verizon for LTE) so it could be an issue. The best thing is this is all prepaid so no tax and no contract. Well, that's not the best thing. The best thing is the pricing.

$15/mo gets you 2GB LTE, and unlimited talk and text.
$20/mo gets 5GB. Same unlimited talk and text.
$25/mo gets 10GB. Same again.

That is incredibly cheap. I am paying something like $88/mo for 2 lines and to think we could be paying $30...that is huge.

Anyway, just passing this along before I forgot about it. I may look into doing a burner phone and a T-mobile experiment (again) as you may recall I did that a few years back when I was considering jumping to them from AT&T. The service was fine but AT&T lowered their pricing so I didn't feel like switching. This, on the other hand, is super cheap.

At least, I thought they were a T-mobile MVNO but they have a page where you enter the IMEI and it tells you if your phone is compatible. Both my phone and Jamie's phone are, up to 4G LTE, according to them.

https://www.mintmobile.com/byop/

Considering I think we share 2GB now (with rollover), we'd get 2GB each for $30/mo, which is technically more data than we get now. Also that would be a monthly savings of around $58, meaning the annual savings is $700. Even if I needed new phones, I could easily buy phones for both of us well within $700 and still start saving by the end of the first year. And we may not need new phones.

Other perks:
- WiFi calling and texting on compatible Android phones
- Hotspot
- Speeds reduced after cap, which I do recognize as a T-mobile thing
- Includes calling to Mexico and Canada. That's impressive though not useful at all for me.

Maybe I should give this a try and if it really works I could just switch our numbers over and dump AT&T. We could use a bit of a windfall right now...

[Adam]

You do need a new phone.

[kevm14]

Already got my unlock code from AT&T (automated). It requires a non-AT&T SIM to complete the unlock process though. So I guess I have my code for if/when I do Mint. I wonder if they just put me on AT&T service. Or maybe our phones have enough bands to make it work on T-Mobile.

[kevm14]

Bands supported on Jamie's Lumia 640.

Bands supported on my Lumia 1520 (AT&T RM-940).

Good info on running an AT&T 1520 on T-Mobile:
https://forums.windowscentral.com/nokia ... d-4-a.html

I think I was able to turn on an HSPA band which should improve reception on T-Mobile (1700MHz). The 940 had all its bands already turned on.

Also our phones support band 17 which is a subset of band 12 on the 700MHz range. It seems like having band 17 will provide some level of compatibility with band 12, but not as broad...not sure what that means in practice.

[kevm14]

You do need a new phone.

Didn't see this. I ran both of our IMEI numbers and their system says we both support up to 4G LTE. According to that WPCentral thread:

AT&T uses LTE Bands 2@1900, 4@1700 and 17@700 MHz
T-Mo uses LTE Bands 2@1900, 4@1700 and 12@700 MHz

This, combined with the band screenshots seems to suggest they will work. The world of LTE is different than the other protocols but AT&T is a GSM network fundamentally which should maximize compatibility with T-Mobile.

[kevm14]

1520

640

Aside from the band 12 thing, we also don't support any of the new 600MHz stuff. But they probably don't resell that to MVNOs anyway (pure conjecture). And this is an MVNO so technically service may be worse than native T-Mobile due to the roaming agreement thing that typically holds only for native T-Mobile service. I tried to price T-Mobile plans on their website but it specifically asks me to call. WTF is that? Like I have no idea what the specific offerings are. How much better could we do than $88/2 lines after tax and everything?

Given that the MVNOs are prepaid, the best thing to do is not cancel my AT&T service and order a Mint SIM with a month of service and just try it. Maybe I will just do that.

[Adam]

Native T-Mobile at my house.

[kevm14]

Can you find out what band that was operating on? With Android, I am sure you can...and the point is I am sure that is T-Mobile native bandwidth, but I am curious about the spectrum.

[kevm14]

Oh I guess there are fees/tax after all. But it is negligible.

For 3 months of 2GB at $15/mo, that is $45. With tax/fees it is $49.19, which comes to $16.40/mo. That changes nothing.

[kevm14]

Ok so T-Mobile lists all their bands which is handy. And it is up to date.

https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-4988

For LTE:
Band 2, 4, 66, 5, 12, 71

And our phones will do Band 2, 4, 5, and band 17 may provide some functionality on their band 12, with a narrower bandwidth.

For 4G/HSPA+:
Band 2, 4

Our phones also support that.

For 3G/HSPA:
Band 2, 4

Same.

For 2G/EDGE:
Band 2

Same.

It is obvious we wouldn't get the full use of T-Mobile LTE but that is very region-dependent. It depends on what each tower is actually using. Their disclaimer even says so:

*Not all LTE frequencies are available in all T-Mobile coverage areas.

We probably wouldn't support wideband LTE, as a guess (which is likely where that 107 Mbps number came from). But it all looks generally supported to me.