$25/Month Mint Mobile Wireless Plan | 12GB of 5G • 4G LTE Data + Unlimited Talk & Text for 3 Months (3-in-1 GSM SIM Card)

Just got an email from Mint Mobile announcing the prices are going up "a few bucks" from $25 to $45, and the gigabites from 10 to 12. Do the math, the gigabites went up 20%, but their prices went up a ridiculous 80%. I knew it was too good to be true. Oh well I knew it was too good to be true. Time to say good bye to the green fox and start looking for a new provider.

I honestly hadn't given T-Mobile's network a shot since 2002 when I bought my Nokia 3650. It wasn't great back then...not was it years before when it was Voicestream. I have been with Verizon since 2003 and hadn't ever looked back regardless of my bills skyrocketing with grandfathered unlimited data and hotspot ($50/mo per line for data, $30 for hotspot, $70 for 1400 shared minutes, $30 for unlimited family texting plus $9.99 for each line to access the minutes and texting). My bills were north of $375/mo every month by the time I added one phone installment of $25/mo and insurance. I paid this for a LONG time knowing that if I changed plans I wouldn't be able to get my unlimited data and hotspot back. For 8+ years of this time I worked for AT&T and their terrible network and lack of unlimited plans never once lured me away from Big Red...even though I would have gotten half off as an employee.Regardless...my needs changed, I'm not travelling as much as I figured there was no point in paying that high bill when I used an average of 4gb of data per month now. In an ironic twist I moved somewhere with no Verizon signal on my property and only AT&T worked there. But I still couldn't get signal inside with team Blue...only if I went outdoors. I found out that their features such as WiFi calling only work with AT&T branded devices but I have been a Nexus/Pixel guy for years and wasn't about to change to an (in my opinion) inferior Samsung or Apple device just to use wifi calling.So I did my research, found that T-Mobile had poured a lot of money into low band spectrum that penetrates buildings better and travels further. So I looked into MVNOs like Mint and found MANY options, but the best for the price was Mint. I ordered a sim card to test out the service...and everything worked perfectly on my Pixel 2 XL. Wifi calling, visual voicemail with transcription, RCS messaging, etc. Granted, they still had no signal on my property so I instead put up a high gain omnidirectional WiFi access point on a pole outside my house and it covered all 3 acres without a hitch.So now I'm paying $35/mo for 8GB of data with unlimited talk and text that works in 95% of the places my Verizon worked at. PLUS I'm able to use all of the features of my phone that AT&T wouldn't support simply because they want to trap everyone into a 24-30 month installment plan on a new phone.Remember when we used to pay $200 for a top of the line phone with a 2 year contract and our cell bills were lower too? Well, I do. Carriers would subsidize the price and we would agree to pay for a while. Now we all pay $1000 for the phone and somehow our bills are astronomically higher than they used to be despite the fact that we talk less, text more, and use data most. They were more than happy to give me an 'aircard' with unlimited data back in 2009, but somehow it's not possible now in 2019 with more efficient networks and MUCH more spectrum than they've ever had access to? Gotta love that capitalism.Anyway, if you haven't given the magenta network a try in a while, try it again. It's made major strides. It's also the only network in the US that doesn't restrict features simply because you brought your own device. Maybe if enough of us make the switch to these smaller MVNOs the big MNOs will take notice and start treating customers better.

I have to say that these is worst service that I have ever had. It's not the signal that is the problem, I have a fantastic signal strength, the only problem is, that I have no internet. I knew that mint mobile used T-mobile service towers which was good because I have a T-mobile 4G LTE phone that's unlocked. The problem is, in Central Kentucky, T-mobile cellular technology is over 16 years old in this area. I looked over T-mobile's coverage map and it states that it has 4G LTE service in this area with verified addresses showing. I went to each address to see if I could pick up a 4G or LTE signal and I did verify that there is no 4G or LTE in these area at all. I Scanned every tower and every cellular channel thinking that they were maybe transmitting on a none standard frequency but no, there is no 3G, no HSPA, no HSPA+, no 4G, and no LTE. The only thing they have out here is 16 year old 2G edge and that is it. If they had 3G UMITS out here, it wouldn't be too bad but with 2G you can pretty much say that you don't have internet because you don't. All you can do is talk, text and get emails. If you want to use the internet, expect it to be slower than a 14.4 modem with constant time outs. When October gets here, I'm switching back to AT&T and or Verizon because I know I will be getting at least 3G or faster speeds so I can get some work done. I switched from Straight Talk using AT&T to Mint Mobile because I was trying to boycott Walmart for their dishonest practices but I guess I will have to deal with them until I leave this area.Update 1-4-20I'm now using Cricket which uses AT&T Towers, and everywhere I go, I get LTE and please note that this is not a AT&T phone. It is an Unlocked T-Mobile branded Blackberry Z30. Unfortunately, having your phone stuck in LTE mode all the time runs your battery down very quickly. So I put the sim card in my old Unlocked T-Mobile Blackberry Torch 9810 and it works flawlessly. The battery will last for 2 days without having to be charged every day and the internet speed is faster than 3G. It's in HSPA+ mode everywhere I go and it seems to be just a fast as LTE without the constant battery drain.Before I switch from Mint Mobile to Cricket. I had to contact Mint Mobile to get my account number and pin number. They asked me why I was leaving and I told them that I could not get 3G, 4G, or LTE in this area . It didn't matter where I was in Central Kentucky, all I could get was 2G only -- The only place that I could get 4G was in Bardstown, Kentucky.. Would you believe that they tried to tell me my phone was outdated and I needed to purchase a new phone in order to receiver 4G in this area. Of course I know what a lie is, and they were lying. The Blackberry 9810 and Z30 where released before there time, they were future phones that Blackberry had to release ahead of schedule because of the pressure from Apple and Android. A lot of people don't understand why someone would want an old Blackberry phone. Well the answer is simple.. I don't care for features, I want rock solid security, that is my main priority because mine is used for business.

We ordered a 12 GB sim that cost $75 for 3 months. When the sim card arrived, the packaging said 12 GB but the sim itself was an 8 GB sim. We figured that out AFTER we had already installed the SIM. We called MINT to get the correct card. They said call AMAZON. So, we got a new card with 12 GB. When trying to swap out the card, we realized that it was not going to let us port our phone number over to the new card. SO, we called MINT. WOW!!! NO BUENO!! After 2 representatives and being on the phone for an hour we were told that if we upgraded to the 12 GB SIM we would lose our number. FINALLY, we got someone to understand the problem and finally upgraded the 8GB card to 12 GB. All-in-all, a VERY painful process. We've used Cricket for years and found that it is super easy to use. STEER CLEAR!!

Mint Mobile is, in theory, the ultimate phone network. You can pay less than $400 a year to get 12GB of high speed LTE data on T-Mobile's network. While I'd obviously prefer unlimited data, you can't beat the price that Mint offers, and the benefits of paying for a year of service up front (no worrying about money coming out of every paycheck, more like 1-2 paychecks a year).The speed and latency of the network has been on par with T-Mobile (my previous carrier) in my experience, I haven't yet experienced any kind of "deprioritization", and have only encountered slow speeds in tourist areas that I previously got slow speeds using T-Mobile.Granted, I'm less than two months into my service, but I'm very happy. Unless my speeds drop off (I will update my review if I notice this) or Mint jacks the prices up, I will likely be a happy customer for years to come.My only complaint is that Mint doesn't support WiFi calling on my current phone (OnePlus 7 Pro) nor any other OnePlus devices. I don't need WiFi calling, but it would be a nice feature to have. Mint's customer support wasn't able to give me a timeframe on when this feature would arrive either. I sincerely hope they support OnePlus devices in the future.