
Ask HN: Now we're staying inside with Wi-Fi, have you changed your cell plan? - behnamoh
Some MVNOs are offering plans as low as $6&#x2F;mo. The only reason I&#x27;m keeping my cell is to make calls. Now I think by switching to a cheaper plan, I can save at least $30&#x2F;mo. Have you done this? If it&#x27;s not too much to ask, can you say which plans work better for calls?
======
docdeek
Posts like this remind me of the differences between cell phone data markets
relative to your country. I pay €15.99 a month for my cell plan (discounted
from €19.99 because the same providor does my home internet/cable TV/home
phone bundle) [0]. That gets me 100GB of data, unlimited texting, free calls
and texts to much of the world, and the same deal should I roam in many
countries, including those closest to home where I am most likely to travel
pre- and post-COVID19.

I’m sure it has something to do with the competition, the density of the
population and the impact of that on infrastructure, and the government
financial support for communication infrastructure rollout. Probably more
complex than that, but at €15 a month it’s nowhere near the top of a list of
expenses to cut right now.

[0]:[http://mobile.free.fr](http://mobile.free.fr)

~~~
rishabhd
Well, I had to leave for my hometown (post COVID19 lockdown in India) which is
a Tier 2 city where I don't any copper/ fiber connectivity in my area apart
from government backed BSNL which is a pain to get. To compensate, I have 2
provider plans which I shuffle for doing my work.

1) Vodafone : I pay around INR 588 (~USD 8) for an unlimited calling plan with
200 GB data per month, unused data is credited to next month. Speed varies
around 4 Mbps - 32 Mbps, throttles some websites such as BBC/ NYTimes and
torrents (no idea why). Streaming services work flawlessly.

2) JIO : I paid around INR 599 (~USD 8) for 84 days with unlimited calling +
168 GB high speed data (downgrades to 64Kbps post exhaustion). Speed varies
around 3 Mbps - 24 Mbps. Also throttles some websites as per Department of
Telecom (DOT) guidance.

I manage my servers, download abandonware games (which were cool in circa
2000s), code and use streaming services - so far so good. Other providers
provide similar offerings as well. The only challenge so far has been to keep
my cellphones constantly charged.

Edit : added country details.

~~~
mukuz
India has strict net neutrality. ISPs cannot throttle some services and allow
others. If you are talking about banning websites(torrent, porn) then that's a
different issue. That is enforced due to a court order.

I have a Jio connection. Torrents work at same data speeds as other downloads.
But the torrent websites are banned using DPI. So easy hacks like https
upgrade don't work. Hopefully wide adoption of encrypted SNI will hinder their
capability to ban websites.

------
Normal_gaussian
I'm in the UK, and have long been a "no contract" user. I've saved literally
thousands from buying the phone outright and using pay as you go variants [2].

I currently use giffgaff, who offer "goodybags" [1] which are essentially sim-
only deals that last a month for comparable or cheaper prices than contract
phones.

When the lockdown was announced I dropped from £12/mo to £0/mo. I have roughly
£8 credit on my phone and haven't used it.

[1] [https://www.giffgaff.com/sim-only-plans](https://www.giffgaff.com/sim-
only-plans)

[2] most phones are cheaper to own this way, even factoring in all sorts of
risk. The exceptions are phones specifically targetted to make the most of the
loan setup; from experience the top of the line iPhones have always been
cheaper on contract.

~~~
Maha-pudma
UK too. And same as you buy my phone's outright. My partner and child are with
me in a group plan with Smarty we pay (read I pay) £9 per month each for 30gb
data and unlimited texts and calls.

Can't beat this. I'm a keyworker so am still using my data same as my partner.

------
pcx
In India, after Jio's success, all operators have now killed the old pricing
structure or made it unviable. That structure provided us the ability to lower
our plans to bare minimum (low talktime, long validity). Now everyone is on
the subscription bandwagon which is atleast 6 times costly when comparing the
cheapest plans. But that's still ok I guess, for 200rs (~3USD) per month we
get 1.5GB 4G data per day, Unlimited calls and SMS. Sucks that they are
selling our data though.

~~~
takee
Those are some insanely cheap prices for 1.5GB a day! I pay $40 for 1GB a
month here in the United States. How is this even possible? Are the service
providers here really taking in such a fat margin?

~~~
abdullahkhalids
Speaking for Pakistan with somewhat higher rates, I think there are a couple
of reasons.

1\. Actual competition between providers, rather than implicit collusion.

2\. Much higher population density across most of the country.

3\. Interestingly, lack of rule of law, which means the whole subscribe-to-a-
cell-phone-package that is actually out of your budget but the only option
available doesn't work here. People will just run away with the phone. A vast
majority of people buy a phone separately and pay upfront for it, and choose a
connection provider of their choice. And jump providers whenever they see
someone with a better price.

------
pmorici
I like Ting [0] a lot it's only $6 per line and they only charge you for what
you use. Even in months where I have heavy usage the total bill for two lines
typically ends up in the $60 range. US based phone support. Easy to use and
understand website. Can't say enough good things about it.

The also offer fiber Internet if you are lucky enough to live in one of the
handful of cities where they offer it.

[0] [https://ting.com/](https://ting.com/)

~~~
harshreality
Ting doesn't really look like a good deal except for extremely low usage, like
for a secondary phone or if you do everything connected to wifi and not using
mobile talk or text.

1 line = $6, 1-100 minutes = $3, 1-100 texts = $3, 101-500MB = $10.

Total, with that low usage, is $22/mo with Ting.

Compare against some cheap MVNO like Mint Mobile where you can get unlimited
talk and text, 3GB 4G for $20/mo prepaid for 6 months, or $15/mo prepaid for 1
year. Which is very similar to T-Mobile Connect (their new prepaid thing). I
don't know if "T-Mobile Connect" is technically a separate entity that's a
MVNO running on T-Mobile's network, or whether it's a genuine 1st class
service on T-Mobile's network. Even if T-Mobile Connect is a MVNO, I would
probably choose it if I were reevaluating plans today, except... the last time
I used T-Mobile's website it was horrible, and Mint's is very simple and
clean.

Google Fi would be more, but if you go over 100 minutes or 100 texts, the Ting
price goes up, while the Fi price is unchanged. More than some cheap MVNO, but
Google Fi has some special features that might make that worthwhile for some
people.

~~~
pmorici
I don't like Mint because it is gimicky ie: introductory rates, and you have
to remember to commit to a new X month contract every X months. Use Ting's
billing estimator to look at what your real usage is and see what it would
cost. The real sweet spot is if you have multiple lines with medium usage
since they pool usage and you aren't paying for an "unlimited" plan for
multiple lines.

------
supernova87a
As part of the agreement with SEC(?) to be allowed to merge with Sprint,
T-mobile agreed to offer low-priced plans, I suppose to help low-income or
access-disadvantaged Americans get cheaper cellphone access.

$15/month (incl 2GB): [https://prepaid.t-mobile.com/prepaid-
plans/connect](https://prepaid.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans/connect) Not as
cheap as some barebones MNVOs but seems attractive and by a reliable-enough
carrier.

Personally, I have my parents on the Google Fi $20/month plan ($15 for 2nd
line) which charges $10 per GB of data, so at this time they're not using
almost any data. It's cheap enough to be not worth it to switch right now.

~~~
oldsklgdfth
Switched to the Tmobile connect plan last week, in part with trying to keep
bills low.

Despite being a longtime Tmobile customer they issued me a new number. Mild
inconvenience.

------
bad_user
I'm from Romania and I pay €14 for 75 GB monthly data, 300 international
minutes, unlimited national minutes/sms.

It's cheap enough that I don't mind paying for it while indoors.

I would've switched to Prepay actually, as here you get even better deals with
Prepay, but I've got a older and easy to remember phone number that I don't
want to lose. And technically I could recover a Prepay number in case I lost
the SIM, but with no contract in place I would depend on the benevolence of
the operator.

------
thirstythong
I wrote a post about downgrading to T Mobile connect.
[https://link.medium.com/kU4juJLIB6](https://link.medium.com/kU4juJLIB6)

------
matt_s
I've been using US MVNO's for years and buy lightly used smart phones. When
you look at a 10 year time span, it is much cheaper than essentially leasing
your phone and upgrading every 2 years.

Customer service is different with all the MVNO's we've used. They don't have
sophisticated billing systems or the hated phone trees. Ting had the best
customer service but also didn't have great coverage and when you go over data
for your plan it was a little expensive.

Our current provider (Visible on Verizon network) doesn't even have a phone
number to call, just text or social media for support. If you get 4 people
together you can have "unlimited" data for $25/mo in US. On previous MVNO our
usage never approached the level where "unlimited" became slower.

------
fermienrico
Use Ting. Pay for what you use. [https://ting.com/](https://ting.com/)

~~~
supernova87a
What I dislike about Ting is that as soon as you rack up even 1 text message
(which you are bound to, by annoying text message services who spam you), they
charge you the next tier. The worry about hitting the next tier (voice, data,
text) was very annoying and I abandoned them.

~~~
fermienrico
my bill is like $18/month. That's still a lot lower than $70 plans that people
hardly use.

------
bdcravens
If Xfinity Mobile is an option for you, and you're already an Xfinity customer
(if not, there's a $10 fee I think), you can get service for $15, if you have
a supported phone (iPhone, Galaxy, or Pixel; they also sell phones by standard
lease plans, but I assume that would defeat the purpose). They only bill for
data. They're on the Verizon network; I switched from Verizon to them for a
while. The service was good, but I needed the unlimited data that Verizon
provides, and apparently Verizon speed caps their MVNOs, as the speed on the
same phone was substantially less. (I still have a backup phone on Xfinity: it
(Galaxy Note 10) speed tested at around 4Mbps; my Verizon iPhone XS Max was
15-30Mbps.)

------
jmknoll
Not really covid-related, but switched to Mint Mobile last fall and have been
pretty happy with it. $20/month for 8GB I think (I’ve never run against the
limit so I’m not sure off the top of my head). I’m in NYC and rarely leave the
city, so I can’t speak to consistency of coverage in other areas, but I’ve
never had any problems. The only real complaint I have is that their
international coverage is unusably bad. It’s pre-paid, and pay by the MB So
manages to be prohibitively expensive and also unreliable. I normally just
pick up a cheap temp SIM card when I arrive in a country, but I understand
that some people this is too big an inconvenience, or not a possibility.

------
cbanek
I cut down on my cell phone plan a long time ago. I used to pay about $70 a
month, then I went to the AT&T prepaid service. It's $35/month ($30 if you do
recurring billing) and you get unlimited calls and texts, and 2 GB of data per
month, which is more than enough for me. Tethering also works great. I've also
heard a lot of people like ting, but then you're paying by the minute,
although the base price is much cheaper.

(I also got a really great deal on an iPhone SE for signing up for $149. 6
months you have to keep the plan and then you can unlock the phone. If you're
looking to upgrade your phone, try to swing that too!)

~~~
Southland
You should look at their plans next time you top up because I have the 2gb
data plan unlimited calls and texts and it's $15 a month for me with a promo.
No auto pay needed.

I used to use the unlimited data $65 a month plan then I downgraded since
being quarentined

------
itsdrewmiller
I'm using Visible with three strangers
([https://www.reddit.com/r/VisiblePartyPay/](https://www.reddit.com/r/VisiblePartyPay/))
to get unlimited everything (including one device tethering) on the Verizon
network for $25/mo. I downgraded from regular Verizon which was like $90/mo
and other than some setup hiccups haven't noticed a difference.

------
rjbwork
I use google fi so it's just automatically cheaper. Previously I could pay up
to 80/mo for unlimited data, 20 base, 10 bucks per gig, free thereafter up to
15 gigs, throttled after 15 gigs.

I've been paying between 20 and 30/mo for it.

------
sicromoft
Mint Mobile (a T-Mobile MVNO) has unlimited talk & text with 3GB data (and
unlimited throttled data after that) for $15/mo. (I'm not affilliated, just a
happy user -- if you want a $15 credit, DM me for a referral code.)

~~~
behnamoh
Hey man, how could I dm you?!

~~~
sicromoft
My bad. I've updated my HN profile with my email address.

------
PopeDotNinja
I'm using Google Fi for the international coverage & traveling indefinitely,
albeit not so much since March. I could get cheaper local plans, but buying
local sims is not always easy or convenient.

------
eappleby
I use Tello and love it! I’ve been working from home for a while and switched
a few years ago. I also use Google Voice for my home phone number and connect
it to an ObiTalk box, which connects to my modem, so almost all my calls are
over WiFi too. I could probably get away with their cheapest plan, which I
believe is $6 (for the same network as T-Mobile or Sprint), but even without
going the cheapest, my bill is always under $10.

------
dkersten
Yes, I switched from a bill to a prepay option. I only really used my phone
for internet anyway, so will only need to top it up if I’m not home (which
currently is only to go to the shops or for exercise, where I don’t need
internet/phone). My current prepay option gives me unlimited download for 30
days for less than the monthly cost of my previous bill, so it’s quite
reasonable if I do find I need it.

------
econcon
I am not paying for my cellphone, I see everyone is on WhatsApp already and I
call them on WhatsApp.

That said I live in India. I already pay for fiber gigabit connection at home,
so spending extra on mobile is not worth it for me.

That said, most of job is done on email/WhatsApp and I rarely need to call
anyone.

And if need comes, I'll just recharge my mobile through internet and get it
going within 5 minutes.

------
vkoskiv
I still prefer having a solid secondary option in case my home network has an
outage. (One occurred a few weeks ago) I'm currently paying 18.90€/mo for
50/50mbit/s 4G + texts and calls that I never use. My home connection is a
complementary 100/100mbit/s, but as I mentioned, it does go down sometimes.

------
kccqzy
I pay $26 on a T-mobile family plan. That's after the AutoPay and KickBack
discounts. (The KickBack discount applies if you use less than 2GB of data.) I
find it cheap enough not to care much; it's less than half an hour's worth of
wages. It's supposedly unlimited data, but throttling may happen after 50GB.

------
analog31
My whole family is on TracFone. They're 15 bucks a month. I suppose we could
get it cheaper, but it's worked for us, for a long time. When the lockdown
began, I ordered new Internet-only service for the family, and we're going to
finally ditch our land line.

------
millsmob
Not an option in rural Australia. My home internet connection (ADSL2 over
copper) gets between 1 and 1.5Mbps down on a good day!

I plug a 4G USB dongle into a WiFi router. This gets me to about 4 or 5Mbps if
the weather is good and I put the router on the roof. _sighs_

------
IceDane
I pay around $15/month for something like 40 gb of data and free calls and
texts. It's so cheap I didn't bother lowering it, and it so happens that my
WiFi is shit enough that using 4g is sometimes better in some places of my
apt.

------
vaibhavthevedi
Even though I am 99% using the WiFi, I have to stay on a plan in my mobile
just to receive and make calls. As people still prefer normal calling than
using internet based calling features.

------
bredren
Thought of this today. I pay a huge bill. Time to downgrade.

------
ntnlabs
My cell plans are crowded as I have every provider in our country. From 100GB
data only for 10€ to full fledged plan for more than 60€. COVID changed
nothing.

------
D13Fd
Yes. I dropped from unlimited family plan to 4Gb/mo across three devices. It
saved a good bit. It’s nice that it’s easy to switch plans these days.

------
nodesocket
I am on T-Mobile and Magenta plan at $70/mo. Honestly I don't even think there
is a cheaper plan.

~~~
cosmie
Not sure how easy it is to switch from postpaid to prepaid plans, but there's
T-Mobile Connect[1]. Unlimited talk and text, plus 2GB of data for $15/month.

[1] [https://prepaid.t-mobile.com/prepaid-
plans/connect](https://prepaid.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans/connect)

~~~
vinay427
That's actually a great deal for most people, and I'm really glad to see them
finally matching their better MVNO prices.

However, it's worth noting that at least from what I can tell it doesn't
include Canada/Mexico coverage, as well as the limited free data in most other
countries, that most of their other plans include. That has often proved
beneficial to my family (who travels internationally with some regularity),
especially as buying a SIM card in most countries is increasingly difficult.

------
axaxs
I've used Mint for years. 20/mo for more data than I'll ever use. Not one
complaint.

------
paulcarroty
Sure, use "pay as you go". Can't even remember when paid for cell last time.

------
gHosts
No, but I have given my microwave a tin foil hat.

If the wife makes tea, it fries my wifi connection.

~~~
uoaei
I don't think it's safe that your microwave is emitting radiation strong
enough to disrupt your Wifi signal. The shielding may be compromised, and
substituting aluminum foil introduces the potential of scattering toward
people and animals.

------
donnanorton
I had the cheapest plan available, so I had nothing to change.

------
sasasassy
Yes, I've changed to a plan with a lower internet cap, at €3/month.

------
2038AD
I was already on the cheapest plan so I'm good :)

