P.S. Some of the ‘big’ carriers, now and then, offer much less expensive ‘plans’. Some event beat the prices in this article, if your ‘Data’ needs are limited.
I switched to Mint because T-Mobile was getting a little too monopolistic and it was a lot cheaper. Still cheaper but I guess I couldn’t escape the cartels in even the most modest sense. I also get pretty insane download speeds at my house (~750Mbps).
MVNOs are fantastic value once they get up and running in healthy competition. Australia has heaps of them and IIRC some of the cheapest mobile data charges in the world.
ETA: according to data from cable.co.uk, Australia ranks 15th cheapest, 68¢ per GB on average.
Australia, which are regarded as one of the most expensive country to live in, have the cheapest data plan in the world.
Not sure which way the wind blows.
You win some, you lose more 🥲
Canada: That’s gunna be hard no.
It is absolutely insane to me the level of monopoly three companies hold. To the point where entering the market is nigh but impossible.
But of course “three different entities battling it out doesn’t make a monopoly” but it does if they happen to work together juuuust enough to keep things in the shitty situation that currently exists for consumers.
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I was in the UK and got a SIM card for travel and when the person working at the store heard I visited from Canada, they said they heard we have the most expensive internet and mobile plans. I couldn’t believe how cheap it was there. In fact, the Sim card there didn’t charge roaming for almost every country, including the USA… Except it excluded Canada, North Korea and a few others lol.
Problem is, the smaller companies that the big 3 lease their infrastructure to here are often more expensive. There’s been multiple cases of Rogers et al. bullying the smaller companies and making their service unstable or decreasing speeds randomly. I’m sure I’s the same in the states as our regulatory board the CRTC essentially being a lobbying board lol.
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It is absolutely insane to me the level of monopoly three companies hold.
Fun fact: the “mono” prefix in monopoly means “one”. You can’t have three monopolies.
When three work as one, it’s essentially the same thing.
I use Visible for mobile and home internet. $25/month with unlimited data.
They even sent me a free 5G phone when mine was mysteriously no longer going to work with their network ‘upgrades.’ 'Course, they tried to get me to buy one first. :)
In similar news the home internet is similar. Fiber is so much better than cable and a lot cheaper
I use Visible which is pretty awesome. $25/mo for unlimited data, and it uses the Verizon network.
Fucking love Visible.
I got $10 CAD a month. 1Gb data, unlimited call and text.
I just need data for emergencies between places. Everywhere has wifi now.
Problem is, of course, that most of these discount carriers are owned by the big ones. Cricket is AT&T, and Mint is what, Verizon now?
Mint’s under T-Mobile now, IIRC
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Americans have long been conditioned to believe that when they buy a cellphone, the next step is to pick a wireless plan from one of the big carriers: Verizon, AT&T or T-Mobile.
The no-frill plans often have trade-offs, including slower download speeds, since Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile subscribers have priority access to faster network performance.
Yet in the past few years, so much has changed that I can now confidently recommend discount phone plans for most people, including white-collar professionals and Instagram-obsessed youths.
It lets you immediately activate an extra phone line without needing to insert a physical SIM card, which makes experimenting with an off-brand wireless service easier and less intimidating.
Consumers can sign up for discount phone plans by buying a physical SIM card from a website or retail store, though I recommend eSIM as the way.
Based on the results measured with the Speedtest app, Cricket and Visible had comparable performances, with download speeds of 154 megabits per second, on average.
The original article contains 1,293 words, the summary contains 164 words. Saved 87%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I love this bot so much
I’m on US Mobile paying $18 for 6gb per month. Was in Madrid, Spain for almost 2 years during the pandemic and paid €15 on Vodafone for even more. And it rolled over so I eventually had around 100Gb.
