OT. Consumer Reports ratings of phone services

[Dean Hoffman]

In order: Consumer Cellular, rating 89. Project Fi (Google), rating 88. Ting, rating 88. Republic Wireless, rating 86. Cricket, rating 84. Page Plus, rating 84. Boost Mobile, rating 82. Cellcom, rating 82. Tracfone, rating 82. Straight Talk, rating 81. Survey of almost 120,000 people in the summer of 2017. Value, data, voice, text, web problems, telemarketing call frequency, and customer support. The big guys scored a lot less. Verizon 73, Sprint 70, and AT&T 70. A difference of 5 points or less isn't meaningful for the survey. Consumer Cellular has deals for AARP members. I'm using Page Plus, mainly because they operate off of Verizon's network. That's useful in Nebraska.

[gfretwell]

These top rated "providers" really just seem to be brokers reselling services from the providers like Verison and ATT

[Dean Hoffman]

They are as far as I know. Mobile virtual network operator.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Only thing I can see is perhaps better customer service and lower price. If the tower is too far away, it does not matter what supplier you have.

ATT has worked ok for me for over 20 years so I'm not inclined to change.

[Dean Hoffman]

At 78. Net 10 and Great Call (Jitterbug) were at 78 too.

[trader_4]

Well, that's good, I'm on MintMobile, but they use TMobile. I see the answer to my other question was in your OP.

"Value, data, voice, text, web problems, telemarketing call frequency, and customer support. "

The MVNOs gained points on value, maybe for no telemarketing calls too.

[gfretwell]

I am sure it is all about price or Walmart would not be our largest retailer.

[rbowman]

Well, yeah... If Verizon offered a plan for people like myself that rarely use the phone, I'd roll the service into my existing data account. They don't so I use their network with a TracFone. I think some of those other companies also recognize unlimited weekend use and so forth just isn't a selling point for many people.

[rbowman]

If you have to deal with TracFone's customer service it isn't stellar but you can get most things done without interacting with a human.

AT&T is a latecomer for this market. Th upside is it kept the iPhone plague away for a while before they figured there was money to be made outside of GSM.

[rbowman]

It certainly is for me. I happily pay $75 a month for a straight data plan but if I could get by for 75 cents a month for a telephone I would.

[Bill]

I get by for about $7/mo with Tracfone. It even has (very) basic Internet functionality.

[rbowman]

My TracFone supposedly has a browser but it's never worked. No big deal. A 7" tablet is bad enough let alone a postage stamp sized screen. Every year I go for the $99 365 days and get more minutes I don't use. This year there was a deal so it was a little less.