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Earlier I suggested that NET10 was the best ATT MVNO and one of the best MVNO's period in terms of pricing and features provided. I had used the service myself for 6 months and can say, not surprisingly, LTE and H+ coverage were excellent.
One thing not so excellent though is that AT&T seems to give data preference to it's direct prepaid and postpaid subscribers as opposed to those who subscribe to their network via an MVNO. I noticed this personally, and have read of others reporting this as well. This "data dropping" is not always obvious as your phone will signify in it's status bar that it is connected. In fact it took me a while to realize it myself. The problem became apparent when day after day all of my push notifications/messages would be delayed. Sometimes as long as 45 minutes, regardless of what server was pushing something to my phone.
Sometimes you'd have to start the app, such as Hangouts, or Gmail in order for your phone to connect to data and have a message pushed. Obviously, this isn't particularly good if you are awaiting urgent information or conducting business. I would also notice the problem when I would try and connect to the web via any one of my browsers. The first time I would try and load a webpage I would often get offline errors. Fortunately though, in situations where I needed a sustained connection like when streaming audio (which you technically are not supposed to do on NET10), I never experienced data drops or audio buffering problems. Sometimes when driving though, if one of my gps apps required a reroute, I would experience a little longer of a delay than when I was on ATT in updating the map and recalculating the route. This wasn't particularly good when I required a quick reroute to be able to take a quick turn. Fortunately, I can also report that on the voice side of things I never experienced dropped calls, so those of you that require good voice coverage need not worry on NET10.
How relevant is this still?
I still feel the same way about the T-Mobile plan and I still use it today. Net10 however may be a different story now. I’m due for another update article as the game has changed a lot since this was originally written.
The data dropping issues etc that are described are still relevant and this can be a function of MVNOs in general. It is often listed in their fine print. Postpaid customers will get their data prioritized over a prepaid/MVNO provider during times of heavy network congestion. Based on reader feedback it seems a majority of people either don’t have or rarely run into this problem however.
Thanks! Since most people don’t have that issue, AND due to the nature of MVNO’s I can give this a whirl and it’s low risk 🙂
Curious what geographical location you from? I’m in south OC and I’m thinking the infrastructure has the bandwidth so I… would have to bet if I had to, that I wouldn’t run into it.
I’m looking for a 2.5gb-3 plan, for is overkill, 3g speeds are fine. Cricket seems cheapest at $35/month (auto-pay). Kind of wish there was lower but that seems to be it.
I might consider using Google Hangouts VOIP if the data is reliable enough… instead of getting a number.
If you have any specific thoughts on this, cool, if not, I’ll take it that I’m thinking in the right direction 😉
North East, but I don’t want to be too specific at this time.
Hangouts works great for me.
Are you looking for an ATT based MVNO then, or one from any carrier? If you’re planning on being ATT based, Cricket will likely be your best bet for that particular amount of data. Tracfone could possibly work for you if paying in advance longer is an option. You’d in essence have to custom build a plan for yourself and see if it works out for your needs.
With the holiday season getting closer, some MVNOs may put their service on sale to try and gain more customers. Some did this last year, but there is no guarantee they’ll do it again this year. Just something to keep an eye out on.
Cool, no need to be more specific.
AT&T yes because I have AT&T service right now and it’s coverage is great on my OnePlus (GSM Unlocked).
Yeah, I know preset plans are the bane of most people so I usually won’t fit under a preset since I talk ~100-200 minutes as month, 15 mms texts (the rest are Google Voice), and 2.5gb data…
However when I’m trying to do that on Tracfone they don’t list data? I know their cards say “For Talk/Text/Data” but I can’t find anything about the data there… so I can’t evaluate them. They’re losing a customer that way :
Cricket might be it then.
Tracfone is organizationally a mess. They have several different websites with different information. I did make an attempt to try and explain them. Since I initially wrote the article, they started offering service via ATT as well.
https://bestmvno.com/tracfone/with-support-for-byop-tracfone-wireless-provides-great-value-as-verizon-mvno/
Off hand, there is one thing I don’t know. They do sell a $50 data card with 4GB LTE data. I’m not sure if an airtime card is required or not, if not that would average to $25/month plus taxes. They do have a 60min airtime card that lasts 90 days for 19.99. With a smartphone, that becomes 180 minutes, with 180 text and 180 MB data (pay as you go plans). That with the data card might work out to be a little cheaper than Cricket depending on if you have to pay taxes or not. To me, Cricket would still seem like a better deal, but that also depends on if you can get service with just a data card.
Appreciate the replies! Cricket it probably will be. Phone # and MMS is worth the difference in $2-7 a month.
I’m on that t-mobile plan as well, but just moved, and t-mobile has terrible reception around here. Data almost useless, but man, I love this plan and I can’t find anything comparable, MVNO or otherwise.
Yeah, that’s pretty unfortunate, particularly since you really like that data like me. Do you have a phone that works on all networks? If so, you could try FreedomPop, or RingPlus’s Surf and turf plans if they’re available to you. There’s also chit chat mobile.
Awesome! I’ll check those out. I have a Nexus 4 I purchased from Google, so I’m golden for any GMT provider.
Thanks!