Thinking of switching cell plans, Verizon prepaid or Google Fi

pete6032

Diamond Member
Dec 3, 2010
7,656
3,203
136
Anyone have Verizon Prepaid or Google Fi? Verizon prepaid seems to be $40/month for unlimited talk, text, and 5GB of 5G data. I never use more than 5GB of data so this seems like a very good deal. Google Fi is $30/month for unlimited talk/text, plus $10/month per GB of data, so its a bit more expensive.
 

[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
15,241
13,521
146
Switch to Visible and join my party line so I can save $10/mo

$25/mo, VZW networks, unlimited everything, including tethering.
 
Reactions: bigi
Nov 8, 2012
20,828
4,777
146
I really don't see any major advantages to any one plan/provider.

In general I pay about $120 after taxes for 3 lines, Unlimited talk/text with 8GB of data that rolls over to the next month for any remainder.

Is $30 ea. (So $90 MINIMUM) really all that much better? Plus you have to constantly be evaluating - OH SHIT my wifi was accidentally off while I watched that YouTube video, it's going to cost me $20!
 

ISAslot

Platinum Member
Jan 22, 2001
2,886
103
106
I am happy with my verizon plan. I also get a $5 credit (for some reason?) so the total comes to $37.85 with taxes and whatever.
 

repoman0

Diamond Member
Jun 17, 2010
4,689
3,701
136
I’m on AT&T prepaid and really happy with it. $40/month for 15GB and I’m pretty sure it’s $30 after autopay discount. Can also prepay for a year for $300 now, but I don’t have that option as an existing customer for whatever reason. They recently finally turned on their spam call filtering for prepaid accounts as well. Service seems faster and more reliable than I had with T-mobile or the tower leasing plans like Red Pocket.
 

[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
15,241
13,521
146
Do you ever have speed issues?
Not that I can tell, I'm not an avid user of my phone though, and nowadays of course I'm 99.9% on wifi.

I will say when driving I use youtube music and never have buffering issues, and none of the other two on my party plan have complained.
 

JEDI

Lifer
Sep 25, 2001
29,391
2,736
126
Switch to Visible and join my party line so I can save $10/mo

$25/mo, VZW networks, unlimited everything, including tethering.
if you dont need unlimited and your phone # is on google voice:
mint mobile (owned by the guy who plays Deadpool)
usually on sale @ bestbuy for $30 for 3month prepaid sim (aka $10/month) @ 10gigs/month, includes hotspot.

renewal is $20/month so buy a new sim every 3 months.
you dont care about phone # supplied by Mint since your # is on google voice. just use the google voice app.

only surcharge is the e-911 fee of .75 when you buy the sim.
 
Reactions: [DHT]Osiris

lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
57,940
8,195
126
Someone here linked to RedPocket, and it got my interest...


I currently have Boost as my home internet connection, and I'm pretty happy with it. Sprint is decent around here, but it may or may not work for you. With RedPocket, you can pick which provider you want.
 
Dec 10, 2005
25,005
8,272
136
I've used Fi for the last few years and it's been fine. Costs me <$30/mo, since I work from home and barely use data. It's also been great when I've had a few international trips - fixed data costs, free overseas text messaging, reasonable voice call rates (though, I try to limit this) and no need to remember to enable stuff on my account - just auto connects.
 
Reactions: Captante

JM Aggie08

Diamond Member
Jan 3, 2006
8,219
840
136
We've been on Fi since 2016 -- never going back to anything else.

Coverage has been great, prices are low, and it's FANTASTIC for international travel. Nothing better than hopping off a plane in Japan and being able to immediately use your phone/data - at no additional upcharge for being out of the country (except for voice calls). Can't beat vanilla android devices either -- no crappy bloatware and immediate patches/updates from Papa Google.
 

Fritzo

Lifer
Jan 3, 2001
41,908
2,141
126
With all the benefits of Verizon's subscription plans, not sure why you wouldn't just go that route. Their Play More Unlimited is $45, unlimited everything, 5G access, and you get Disney+, Hulu+, and ESPN+ for free.
 

[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
15,241
13,521
146
With all the benefits of Verizon's subscription plans, not sure why you wouldn't just go that route. Their Play More Unlimited is $45, unlimited everything, 5G access, and you get Disney+, Hulu+, and ESPN+ for free.

Because you need 5 fucking phones on the plan to make it $40? Don't forget the fun caveats at the bottom! Thats right folks, just spend a few thousand dollars over the course of two years and you too can have the pleasure of spending a few hundred a month on phone plans! yay!

My plan starts, <STARTS> at $40, unlimited everything, with 5G access, and it goes down from there to $25.
 

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zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,103
30,059
146
Fi costs me ~ $27 per month but I never really use data. I also find the network-network-wifi switching to not work very well, at home or when out somewhere else. It really gets annoying if you're in public and it finds public wifi that it wants to access but you don't want it to access--though this is probably more true when trying to make calls through WhatsApp.

I'm now on a Pixel 4A 5g, and previously Nexus 5X. The newer Pixel doesn't seem to handle Fi any better than the Nexus did....but I did get $150 off the Pixel, new (I preordered it when it became available), just for already being a Fi member. So, that's OK.

There's a lot of plans that are better than Fi, and it seems to me the only reason to use it is on a phone designed for Fi...but as in my experience, I still wouldn't recommend that. The only thing is that Fi seems to do best right now is that it is pretty cheap/free when travelling internationally.

In fact...a lot of my calls now are through WhatsApp; so even with the new Pixel phone, maybe my impressions of Fi are really issues with WhatsApp, haha.
 
Last edited:

manly

Lifer
Jan 25, 2000
11,787
2,741
136
Switch to Visible and join my party line so I can save $10/mo

$25/mo, VZW networks, unlimited everything, including tethering.
People usually join existing groups on Reddit.

Someone here linked to RedPocket, and it got my interest...


I currently have Boost as my home internet connection, and I'm pretty happy with it. Sprint is decent around here, but it may or may not work for you. With RedPocket, you can pick which provider you want.
I've been on Red Pocket for 2 years, but I may switch to T-Mobile prepaid next year. Red Pocket mostly sells annual plans on eBay.

I can't complain too much about Red Pocket, but there are a couple things to be aware of. They might be the only MVNO/carrier left in the U.S. that throttles SMS/MMS. Although like virtually all cell phone plans (except for the bare bones Tracfone or Ting plans) offering unlimited talk and text, they have a uniquely poor definition of unlimited texting. People who do group texting (hence MMS) routinely have messages throttled, and some perhaps even dropped. I don't do a ton of group texting but every so often, my Message app takes a minute to send a simple SMS text to a single recipient. It's somewhat infuriating because you never quite know for certain if message delivery is reliable. I understand network throttling during heavy congestion (which doesn't occur often anymore like years back), but SMS data is send side-band and costs network carriers virtually nothing.

The other beef I had was that on Black Friday, they advertised an annual renewal for $205 (regularly $240). So I added a credit card to my account and it quoted a total price of $209.xx. I would have been fine if they charged me immediately and tacked the renewal onto the end of my account (which had a few months remaining). Instead, what they did is wait until late February to charge me full freight. It's still a good value (monthly limit 8GB data) but not what I consented to.

Keep in mind that Red Pocket is a pretty bare bones carrier. If you contact them via online chat, it's obvious you're dealing with overseas reps who don't have much power to do anything. They do have phone customer service during regular business hours, and at least some of that is U.S. staffed. I think their corporate HQ is actually in greater Los Angeles. But be realistic with your expectations; the profit margins on these plans are razor-thin and if things go wrong, you kind of have to live with it. I use AT&T cell towers and besides the SMS problem, have been pleased with the actual cellular service.

They have a "social media" rep on the SlickDeals forums who ignored my inquiry, so that makes me strongly consider porting out next February. Finally Red Pocket has been around for a while, but low-end carriers do sometimes go out of business. Although there's usually an orderly buy out/transition, it would suck if that happened too quickly for customers to port out their number.
 
Reactions: lxskllr

repoman0

Diamond Member
Jun 17, 2010
4,689
3,701
136
I can't complain too much about Red Pocket, but there are a couple things to be aware of. They might be the only MVNO/carrier left in the U.S. that throttles SMS/MMS. Although like virtually all cell phone plans (except for the bare bones Tracfone or Ting plans) offering unlimited talk and text, they have a uniquely poor definition of unlimited texting. People who do group texting (hence MMS) routinely have messages throttled, and some perhaps even dropped. I don't do a ton of group texting but every so often, my Message app takes a minute to send a simple SMS text to a single recipient. It's somewhat infuriating because you never quite know for certain if message delivery is reliable. I understand network throttling during heavy congestion (which doesn't occur often anymore like years back), but SMS data is send side-band and costs network carriers virtually nothing.

I did not know they did this until your post. This drove me out of my mind when I used them. I had dropped messages all the time, and it took me forever to figure out why half my group texts made no god damn sense. Thought it was just garbage service ... it’s almost worse that it’s on purpose.

I bought the one year ebay plan and didn’t make it six months. It was such a PITA getting my number back from them too. Although now I kind of want to get a new local Mass number anyway and ditch my PA number that seems to be in the hands of about 20 spam call centers.
 

Captante

Lifer
Oct 20, 2003
30,316
10,814
136
Fi can be a pain if you have a problem that requires any thought at all on the part of CS to solve.

Phone-service wise however I've had zero problems with the tech even using my old Galaxy s7 which wasn't really compatible. My current s20 is fully compatible and works great plus I ended up paying $100 for it after all the promotions. (fully unlocked)

Also I grabbed a Fi Motorola G Power (2020 ver) using another promo which will ultimately see me @ plus $9.99 with a spare phone.

I like Verizon service BUT its freaking super-expensive for what you get.
 
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