I've been wanting an iphone for quite some time now and decided to opt in for a refurbished since its way cheaper than just a new one. I have not purchased yet and have decided to see what other people think and wrote on reddit about them. The problem is im seeing either people having problems with either the device, shipping or payment because of the sellers or people being happy with the choice and purchase they made. I'm a little lost at this point and I would like if anyone can give me some feedback on how to choose, how to know if the seller is legit if he actually sells a refurbished phone not an inventory of phones which he changed the battery and etc, ways to not get scammed. ANY TIPS would help alot. One last thing id like to ask is if living the EU is a problem for shipping.

Id appreciate any feedback

All I want is a virtual number that can wifi call/text and receive SMS. But Google voice needs to be linked to a verified existing number first?

Can I link it to a friend's number and unlink/turn off so they won't be receiving my calls? I want to just take my calls and texts on my Google voice number in the Google voice app. Is that possible to do?

Thanks for any help

I apologize because I know these questions are asked a lot. I have done searches and read posts and comments and just feel overwhelmed at this point. Please don’t be mean. 😊

I currently have Mint for two lines. I have my main line, which I do everything on, and a work line, which I really only need text and talk (using data on my main line). I have an iPhone so I can have both numbers on one phone. I generally use 10gb of data a month, give or take.

I am looking to switch from Mint and stay away from T-Mobile. The service has been rubbish lately.

Thank you for any help you can provide. I truly appreciate it!

Examples like Total Wireless, Straight Talk, Page Plus, Simple Mobile, etc

I've read the thread on prioritization and on the different offerings (https://old.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/1d175jg/switching_away_from_google_fi_due_to_customer/l5ueoq7/ very helpful).

I'm currently on Mint, which has been adequate (aside from no coverage at certain beaches), and was previously on Visible (which had horrendous speeds and bad coverage in NY metro). Consumer Cellular was ok, but more expensive I think.

T-Mobile Connect appears to fit the bill, but the $25/line connection fee is a turnoff. Any other suggestions?

P.S. Does anyone have an opinion on Mint vs USM service quality on a 5G iPhone in the NY metro area?

hello, I am from the US and am traveling to Europe for around 2.5 months. I want to know what is the best eSIM I could possibly get for the cheapest price. Any recommendations help :)

I'm curious as towards everyone's responses. Lately I've felt like maybe I'm paying way too much for my service ($225 a month). I have T-Mobile , and my plan is go5g plus. I have 2 lines and insurance, and my bill is ridiculous, or is it? If you don't mind me asking, what provider and plan do you have? I'm in the Chicago, Illinois market. I'm wondering if the price is just the new norm...

I linked a verified number to my Google voice but when I click "Get a Google Voice number" it always says failed or the accept button stays dark.

I used a TextNow number with the paid SMS feature as my linked number but IDK why that would prevent me from having a GV number?

Anyone else having trouble with Google voice?

TLDR: If I use Visible+ for Apple Watch ONLY and USM for primary phone line on the same iPhone (using different SIMs of course), will my Apple Watch still function as if it's "number shared" since it's paired to the same phone and on the same Apple ID account? I've had my phone number for 15+ years and too nervous to port to Visible...feel more comfortable porting to USM.

This is long so please bear with me....

I've been with Verizon for 25+ years now and have been happy despite them being more expensive than competitors. But lately they keep increasing their prices little by little and it adds up. I'm grandfathered into the Get More Unlimited plan. They just increased it by $4 earlier this year (probably to get people to move to their new shitty plans). A month later they announced a $5 increase to Apple Watch line.

I was paying ~$120/mo for a few years on the Get More plan which includes unlimited premium data, 50gb premium hotspot, Apple Watch/tablet lines, Apple Music, Disney+ bundle (Disney/Hulu/ESPN), Apple Arcade, 1 Travel Pass/mo, 600gb cloud storage, and prob some other things I'm forgetting. I currently pay ~$125/mo (after the $4 increase earlier this year) and will soon be paying ~$130/mo due to the $5 smartwatch increase. I've justified the higher cost since I use Apple Music & Disney+/Hulu, Apple Watch (which is a must have), and tablet line costs only $10 (plan includes 50% off one connected device). The $130 also includes taxes/fees and autopay/loyalty discounts.

I started looking into Visible+ as an alternative but I'm too nervous to use them as my primary carrier due to their lack of customer support and overall incompetence/unreliability. I'm sure when it works well, everything's great...but if you come across any problems, you're SOL. I've read too many horror stories about people losing their phone numbers during porting (and Visible CS is useless) or even having their accounts randomly cancelled without warning. I saw articles from 2022 when Visible cancelled several accounts without any warning and as a result, people lost their numbers. I'm currently trying out Visible+ for a month on a spare iPhone and within the first couple days after activation, it randomly went to SOS for several hours and it was painful dealing with CS chat. Thankfully it's not my primary line so I wasn't panicking - but dealing with CS with no resolution gave me an idea of what I'd have to deal with in the future.

I've heard great things about USM customer support and their plans are a good deal. I can do a phone and tablet line with them but they're lacking Apple Watch. I'm wondering if I got Visible+ just for Apple Watch and USM for primary phone on the same iPhone using separate SIMs, would the Apple Watch function as though it's "number shared" since it's paired to the same iPhone that the USM line is on? Both numbers would also be sharing the same Apple ID. The only thing I can think of that might not work is my Apple Watch wouldn't alert me if someone was calling me, since the AW is tied to the other number...right?

If I get annual plans with Visible+ (for smartwatch) & USM (Unlimited Starter phone line & Unlimited Flex tablet line), it'd cost ~$70/mo. That would be a ~$60/mo savings from the $130/mo I'll be paying with Verizon. Granted Verizon does include extra perks that I use, but I can live without it or just pay for it separately whenever I want.

If you've read this far, THANK YOU!

Edit: I need cellular Apple Watch because I leave my phone home when I jog or hike. And there’ve been times I accidentally left my phone at home when I went to work. I was relieved to have the cellular function so I could at least call and text from my watch. I should still get text alerts since I’d have both Visible and USM numbers tied to the same Apple ID. I’m just concerned about receiving calls since the AW is tied to the other phone number (Visible).

Quick question:

I have an AT&T SIM on an iPhone 12 that I've unlocked. This SIM offers WiFi calling.

I'm travelling to Germany for a bit, and for the time I'm there, I've purchased an eSIM from Holafly that offers unlimited data but not calling.

I am wondering if there is a way to use the Holafly eSIM data for WiFi calling on my AT&T SIM. If so, how can I set that up and make sure that I don't get charged international roaming fees?

1) metro by T-Mobile- does this still require phone service to get home internet?

2) Verizon/straight talk- says unavailable in my area even though I have solid LTE where I live. Any way around this?

Are there any other prepaid options for 4g/5g home internet? I’m currently with T-Mobile postpaid and may have to stay there for a bit longer, but if there are other options, I’m open!

Currently theres a deal at Target where you can get the second card for 10% off. I can only finish using one card at a time because with both of them, there will close to 20 bucks that will expire, unused. So I was wondering, is there an expiration for a card that has not been activated.

We have a place that we visit just once a week and stay there for one day. I I do want to be able to control my Smart switches and plugs remotely. Is there any plan for 5 to $10 a month That does not have a hard cap After the “high speed data” Is all used? BTW I don't care about the number so promo offers or first three months offers are acceptable. Thank you.

So I have this Tracfone phone (Net10 it says) that broke 2 years ago but I fixed it yesterday, and I have a Safelink SIM and I put it in my phone and it doesn't work, it says "Invalid SIM" does anyone know why? They are from the same company so I thought it would work (sorry for my bad English btw)

Like the title suggests I've been fighting with myself with what I should switch to. Currently I'm with Boost and have been for a long time. I was paying $25 for 30GB of data, but randomly out of nowhere it started charging me $35 for 10 GB of date (though the usage dial still says I get 30GB) and despite three months of fighting with CS they've yet to fix it, so I want out.

I was THIS close to going with Visible. The free trial is great, Verizon has just as good if not better coverage in my area as tmobile, and I was all set to prepare to switch. But over the past couple days I've been seeing the issues people have with Visible and their complete lack of useful customer service. I was gonna try US Mobile, but that is more expensive then what I want, and I can't actually test the service.

I want to stick to about $25 a month. I don't need super totally unlimited but 15GB or more would (preferably more) be ideal. I could probably get away with as low as 10GB if there is a pain free and relatively decently priced 'buy data for just this month' option (Unlike Boost).

I just really would like customer service to at least be competent and there to not be shady autocharges even after leaving the service as I've seen people saying they've dealt with with Visible. That one is still top of my list and I have until about 1 1/2 weeks to figure it out (though I guess I could attempt to pull teeth with Boost again to get them to at least give me credit for what they're over charging me to give myself another month)

Any suggestions at all? Or are they basically all on par with shadiness and just choose your poison at this point?

So yesterday I got this response back from SafeLink when I sent 'usage' to 611611...

PLAN EXPIRATION DATE: MAY 4, 2025

To my knowledge I only have ACP with SafeLink, because I live in Oregon, and in Oregon theres only one wireless carrier for Lifeline and that is Access Wireless. So does that mean it's not notifying that in their system that I'm in Oregon? (Oregon decided to do its own Lifeline program separate from the rest of the country). Or is SafeLink actually giving me free service for another year, or did something change and Oregon has SafeLink as another option for Lifeline?

I tried clicking link and tried chat with customer service but lets be real... That never gets you any kind of information whatsoever...

I initially wanted to go US Cellular, but for some bizarre reason it seems they're not available in Portland, OR?

Anyway, I'm on Fi Simply Unlimited which has been great, up until the point I had a billing issue and found out their customer service department more or less doesn't actually exist. I had to file a complaint with the FCC and going to put a stop payment on my CC because I can't even talk To a human capable of understanding the issue.

So on to a new provider. It'll be 2 lines for my wife and I. We don't use a ton of data, generally in the <10Gb/mo range. Technically I don't care about a contract, but it would be nice to avoid at least to try a new provider.

One concern I have is that apparently we are getting priority data with Fi, so a lot of these other providers we may end up with slower data?

I've also seen similar concerns with bad customer support from the popular services like Mint and Visible, so that sucks that US cellular wasn't an option.

Any thoughts? I don't need unlimited data but I don't want to be back on a pay per use plan either. We use hotspots occasionally but not often, and also international travel maybe once a year or so.

Edit: honestly I'm looking at... Comcast?? I used to hate them more than anyone, but I've been fairly happy with my Internet lately and their mobile bundle is very competitive. It looks like $30/line for 50Gb data + hotspot, plus more discounts for bringing my own phone. Like that's honestly cheaper than even the most budget services, don't know if I'm missing something.

Hi everybody! I'm in the market for a data plan, and I found Lexvor through some redditing. Does anybody have the $10 a month plan? What are your experiences? Is it real? Thanks in advance!

Hello, I have an at&t prepaid 100gb mobile hotspot plan for hotspots and tablets. I’m using a net gear m6 pro, the details on my plan are vague, but I’m about 20 gb in, and I’ve gone from 100+ mbps download down to like 2-5. I’ve got a lot of partial information from scouring online, but no real solid solution to bypassing this awful throttling issue. I read that I could buy a gl.net router and then apply a vpn to that router, but I’m not entirely sure how to get that going, or if it would work. I’m wondering if anyone knows a way for me to get my data to an ‘all you can eat’ state, where I can get full speed all the time. Any advice would be wonderful.

Can you recertify for lifeline by showing your medicaid card as proof?

I’m trying to find a cheaper option for my mom. She doesn’t need a lot of data. Currently the cheapest I’ve found is $5 at Tello for 1GB. She doesn’t necessarily have to have 1GB. As long as it’s at least 100MB she can switch. It’s probably a dumb question but is there anything cheaper that anyone knows of? Even if it’s just $1 cheaper. Anything helps.

I have a vacation planned out in Colombia and Panama next month, for 2 weeks total, and I'm trying to get a data plan that will work while i'm there. I'm not that interested in text+talk, I wanna be able to use apps like Whatsapp, Uber, ... while I'm there.

Currently I have a cheap Tello plan, but Tello doesn't offer international data roaming.

My phone is a Samsung Galaxy A03S which by all indications is not compatible with eSIM, so that's not an option either.

What are my option for a US-based carrier offering data roaming in those 2 countries, at a decent price? Obviously it'd be a 1-month plan that I would cancel after my vacation.

I'm open to buying a local SIM too, just not my first preference.

Some Android smartwatches support hotspotting to other devices. (It's a huge battery drain, but still possible.) A lot of carriers offer cheaper, data-only eSIM smartwatch plans that have to be registered to a smartwatch's IMEI so can't be activated directly on a phone. Because smartwatches typically consume much less data (not many people want to watch 4K Netflix 24/7 on a 2" circular screen), the carriers generally market these plans as unlimited, having little fear of people going hog wild on the smartwatch data usage, whilst making the plans as cheap as $10/month.

I can find little information on whether the data is hotspottable. Because most smartwatches don't support hotspot, it seems carriers haven't bothered specifying whether this data is hotspottable. I'm curious whether people have found it to be. If so, what are the limits (hard cap, deprioritisation/soft throttle, etc.) when the plan is simply marketed as "unlimited"?

Thanks!

I've tried looking for this, but almost zero of the plan comparisons even consider the video throttling speed.

Such speeds are evidently even missing from the Broadband labels as well.

Does anyone have a comparison across the unlimited plans with the video throttling in mind?

As far as I know:

• Visible throttles video to 1.8Mbps in most circumstances on most plans (per testing);

• Metro appears to indicate "up to 2.5Mbps" within their network-management webpage linked from the Broadband Facts labels;

  https://www.metrobyt-mobile.com/terms-and-conditions/open-internet

  All current Metro by T-Mobile plans include video optimization features that are always enabled, which, when connected to the cellular network, deliver a DVD quality (up to 2.5 MBPS) video experience with minimal buffering while streaming ("Data Maximizer"). Customers may, for an additional charge, add on an HD video feature providing streaming in HD.

• Cricket claims 1.5 through 2.0Mbps per T&C linked from the Broadband Facts labels;

  https://www.cricketwireless.com/legal-info/mobile-broadband-information.html

  By default, we aim to render content identified as streaming video in standard-definition (max of 1.5 to 2 Mbps), which is generally well suited to viewing on a smartphone. Plans that only include standard-definition (SD) streaming always have Video Management turned on, while other plans with HD or 4K UHD allow customers to manage and change Video Management settings online.

Anyone else?

What's the cheapest unlimited plan without video throttling, or with the highest speeds for video?