Optimum Mobile: What Are the Pros and Cons?
- Seamlessly connects from LTE/5G to WiFi hotspots to help you save data
- Provides usage alerts to help know when you reach data limits
- International travel add-ons available
- Good introductory rates for new customers
- Sells phones to meet variety of budgets
- Only available in select markets serviced by Optimum and Suddenlink
- Price costs $10 more each month without Optimum/Suddenlink subscription
Prepaid Phone Plans – No Credit Check
- Unlimited Minutes
- Unlimited Texts
- Hotspot 5GB Full Speed + Unlimited 600Kbps
- Unlimited Minutes
- Unlimited Texts
- Hotspot 15GB Full Speed + Unlimited 600Kbps
- Unlimited Minutes
- Unlimited Texts
- Hotspot 5GB Full Speed + Unlimited 600Kbps
- Unlimited Minutes
- Unlimited Texts
- Hotspot 15GB Full Speed + Unlimited 600Kbps
- Unlimited Minutes
- Unlimited Texts
- Hotspot 5GB Full Speed + Unlimited 600Kbps
- Unlimited Minutes
- Unlimited Texts
- Hotspot 15GB Full Speed + Unlimited 600Kbps
- Unlimited Minutes
- Unlimited Texts
- Hotspot 5GB Full Speed + Unlimited 600Kbps
- Unlimited Minutes
- Unlimited Texts
- Hotspot 15GB Full Speed + Unlimited 600Kbps
- Unlimited Minutes
- Unlimited Texts
- Hotspot 5GB Full Speed + Unlimited 600Kbps
- Unlimited Minutes
- Unlimited Texts
- Hotspot 15GB Full Speed + Unlimited 600Kbps
How Optimum Mobile Plans Work
Optimum Mobile first officially launched as Altice Mobile in September of 2019 and it is run by the cable operator Altice USA. In July of 2021, Altice Mobile was rebranded to Optimum Mobile. The brand is unique among all other MVNOs in that it does partially have its own network infrastructure. The company partnered with Sprint for the network build-out.
Through the partnership, Sprint used Altice USA’s broadband infrastructure to deploy more than 19,000 small cells around the greater New York City area which includes Long Island. Small cells are necessary to lay the groundwork for a 5G network. The partnership allowed Altice to gain access to Sprint’s wireless network while maintaining the ability to run its own underlying core network infrastructure.
When T-Mobile and Sprint merged, Altice’s contractual agreement with Sprint expanded to include T-Mobile. The updated contract granted Altice USA’s Optimum Mobile brand access to T-Mobile’s 4G LTE and 5G networks for a period of 7 years, 3 more years than what Altice had with Sprint alone.
The company also has a roaming agreement in place with AT&T.
Optimum Mobile Offers 3 Basic Phone Plans
When Altice Mobile first launched, only an unlimited plan was available. It launched for $20 and was by far the best outright wireless plan deal around. Since then the service was expanded to include more plans. In September of 2020, two plans with a limited amount of data were launched starting at $12/month but later increased to $14/month.
Optimum Mobile gives a $10/month discount on all phone plans to those who also subscribe to either Optimum or Suddenlink internet packages. The plans are shown on the company’s website already including this discount. The plans are displayed the same way here.
A quick look at Optimum Mobile’s three phone plans reveal the following options and price points:
- Free for new lines – 1GB high-speed data. Free for one year then renews at $14/month, maximum of 5-lines allowed on plan
- $14/month ($29 w/o Optimum or Suddenlink subscription) – 1GB high-speed data
- $22/month ($32 w/o Optimum or Suddenlink subscription) – 3GB high-speed data
- $45/month ($55 w/o Optimum or Suddenlink subscription) – 20GB high-speed data
No multi-line discounts except for on the $45/month plan. Subscribers can manage multiple lines under one account. A maximum of 5 lines is allowed under a residential customer’s account. A business account can have a maximum of 10 lines. Taxes and fees cost extra.
If a customer runs out of high-speed data on the $14 or $22 plan they can add more. Data top-ups are priced at a cost of $6 for 1GB and last for up to 30 days. The top-ups are not available on the $30 plan.
All plans include the ability for the subscriber to use their phone as a mobile hotspot. Unlimited international texting and calling add-ons are available starting at $20/month. Customers can also add international talk, text, and data roaming to their plans starting at $10/day for a daily pass or $40 for a weekly pass. International add-on rates vary based on where a customer is traveling and where they need to call. Travel passes DO NOT include unlimited talk, text, or data.
Altice phones also use Suddenlink and Optimum WiFi hotspots for further expanded coverage. Subscribers should be able to automatically connect from LTE/5G networks to WiFi hotspots to get the strongest signal available at their given location.
Optimum Mobile’s Phone Plans Come With Fine Print
Unfortunately, Optimum Mobile phone plans come with quite a deal of hidden and not so hidden fine print.
For starters, Optimum Mobile is advertising the $45 plan as an “unlimited GB” plan. But as detailed above, the plan only has 20GB of high-speed data. Most consumers in the know, including myself, would argue that unlimited GB means unlimited high-speed data. But Altice elected to take a lax approach here with the meaning of the word unlimited. Technically speaking, all plans do include unlimited data. Once each plan’s monthly high-speed data allotment runs out, data speeds are reduced to 2G or about 128Kbps for the remainder of the customer’s billing cycle. But at that speed, video streaming is just about impossible and loading websites will be extremely slow if they can even load at all.
Although the plans all support mobile hotspot, data speeds when a plan is being used for hotspot tethering are limited to a maximum of 600Kbps. Video streaming on all plans is also limited to a maximum resolution of 480p which should be about 1Mbps.
According to Optimum Mobile’s terms of service, those on the 4G LTE network can expect data download speeds in the range of 4 to 47 Mbps and upload speeds of 1 to 20 Mbps. If a customer has 5G service, download data speeds can be expected to be in the range of 30 to 75 Mbps and upload speeds between 3 and 15 Mbps.
Unfortunately, Altice Mobile’s phone plans are not available to everyone nationwide. Altice only serves subscribers in markets that are also serviced by either Suddenlink or Optimum cable. Less than two dozen states have access to those services including parts of New York, California, Texas, Ohio, New Jersey, Kentucky, Kansas, Nevada, and Oklahoma among several others. Altice Mobile doesn’t really explain the location limitations on their website. However, once you pick a plan to begin the signup process, they’ll let you know if you are eligible to subscribe or not.
Although Altice’s phone plans are not available to everyone nationwide, service is available across the country. The primary network used for service is now T-Mobile. AT&T is used for roaming. Domestic data roaming is limited to 2G data speeds.
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I’ve had them since they were known as Altice Mobile, I am on their $45 a month plans and have had no problem with the speed, the customer support. I’ve passed my monthly limit and speeds have been very adequate.
I joined from the start because ATT screwed me over after 25 years of loyalty and the $20 a month they were offering sounded great. It’s definitely had some quirks over the years. But so did ATT and any other mobile service. I use mostly wi-fi since I have optimum service but cell service has been fine. Main issue is when you’re in motion it doesn’t switch towers smoothly; sometime I have to update the connection but I feel like this is from piggy-backing off other towers.
I’ve always been pleased with Optimum’s customer service(been a customer since Cabelvision). However I’m less pleased with the CS from the mobile side and even on the cable side; since they started as Altice the service has gone down. In the actual stores; service is better. And ATT customer service is even worse.
Terrible service. I constantly get made fun of and lose service. Would not recommend for cell service.
I have been a optima customer for a 10 months now.
A
Optimum mobile
Right now with their prices, just use any of the other providers - you’ll get better in everything,
Discount if you are already optimum or suddenlink internet customer.
service drops off, have to reboot phone to get back on cellular. if you use 2 factor authentication you will have problems. many missed texts and duplicate texts.
Optimum/Altice, you want to be harassed? join Altice Mobile, you will be billed months after cancelling. Ive contacted the BBB 3 times to complain. There seems to be no way to speak to the corp headquarters where a person can actually assist a consumer.
I have been with Altice Mobile for the past 3-3 1/2 years and have phone them to be reliable and the prices are extremely reasonable. I reside in the NY Metro area so signal strength has never ben a problem with me. Pricing for their phones are very reasonable and any time I’ve needed to contact them for any problems that may have arisen, and that is very few, they have been resolved quickly. I switched from the Big over-priced (V) and thankful that I did.
Chris Toomey
get what you pay 4
2.customer service dont bother calling , you R on your own once you make that switch
3.think twice before switching phone service because you will be so F-ing madd if you do
1.) I was curious to know what some texts do not come into my phone at the end of the day til the next morning.
2.) When trying to delete a voicemail, it consistently keeps coming back into my cell and it may take 3-5 tries to delete the voicemails and I believe this is what fills up my voicemail periodically when I cannot consistently delete old voicemails.
3.) There are times when calls are dropped especially in my home and was wondering what can be done to increase my location signal strength?
I have been a customer from day 1. Is there an SMS text gateway yet?
What about taxes, fees, and sign up costs? How much does it REALLY cost?
Terrible phone (Voice) service!
I drop calls all the time when I have 2 or three bars. My office is in Times Square NYC – I only get 2 bars of cell service there and dropped every single phone call I was on yesterday. Any voice service provider that can’t manage to generate a signal in the middle of NYC is not worth having. Additionally, the exact location where my home is also seems to be a dead zone – in the exact shape and size of my house…but the minute I walk into my back yard I have three bars of service again. I went with Altice because of their low prices and promises to be expanding their network, but I am regretting it. This really is one of those situations where you get what you pay for. They don’t charge a lot because the service sucks. Coming from Verizon, I was hoping to find a new type of voice provider that actually cared and was trying to do better. Now I know better.
This is the WORST experience I have ever had with ANY company.
Cheap phone service – you get what you pay for. This is a cable company. Think of how long it takes for a cable company to provide customer service. Now imagine you have a minor issue with your phone service. If you are with Altice, you will spend 6+ hours in a chat forum trying to resolve the issue.
I unfortunately went through this experience. They didn’t setup my voicemail account correctly. When I contacted Altice, it took over 6 hours just for them to escalate the problem to their technical department. They needed another 4 days to actually fix the problem.
Reception has been meh at best. I have 4 bars of signal and many times callers can’t hear me or say I’m breaking up
No option to reach a live support agent
Do a very bad job with account setup - it's all manual but they haven't figured out how to make it work
do i have to buy my own phone or will they also give out phones?
Although they SOUND like a great deal and company, they are LIARS which I also call CON ARTIST. They talk a good talk but don’t walk the walk. At the first of July, I joined up through Suddenlink for the $20 a month mobile phone service and had to get one of their phone. I’m a widow, single, on small income so you can see I was interested. They sent me a Samsung galexy S10 and after setting up sim and connecting had problems. I could call out but WHEN SOMEONE CALLED ME, I COULD NOT ANSWER THE CALL.
That started eight days of frustration and finally, I asked them to stop my service because they would not replace the phone or even repair it. After 2 days of trying to get a return label, a kind Suddenlink agent told me how to get the return label. I sent it back but “my bad” didn’t get a tracking number. They CLAIM THEY HAVEN’T RECEIVED THE BROKEN PHONE. Now, it’s August 31 and Altice is telling me I owe them 185.00. I only had the service 8 days! WHAT? There you go! BUYER BEWARE.
I’m over $100 and I don’t even know how many hours into a 2 month “free trial”. Don’t go there. The only help is by “chat”-can you believe a phone company that doesn’t use voice? They lied about the lines they use (they said Verizon-I needed that). I’m very frustrated as you can tell. I know better than to listen to a hard sale pitch, but I though, oh it may be worth the effort. I can only blame myself. If you are reading this, you are a step ahead.
Anyone used the mobile service?? Pls share ur experiences. Thanks
does not work as advertised no calls received no texts received number still not carried over customer service is just clueless
maybe in the future they get it together..bad experience now gotta go back a shop for a new service just a hassel
I moved to this on 9/6/19 and am not having any problems. The only thing I haven’t figured out is the SMS gateway format to send an email to text, e.g. [email protected] for AT&T and [email protected] for Sprint. Regular text messages are working fine.
I have tried to open a mobile account for the past week, your system doesn’t work,!!!!
I also went to the local store 5 different days and they cannot get me an account either , can someone find out what is wrong with your system,!!! Is there anyone out there that knows what they are doing and can fix the sign in system!!!!!!!
I have been an optimum customer for 20 plus years