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T-Mobile Just Ripped 8 Million Customers Off Their Grandfathered Plans – and Raised Their Bills
(www.gadgetreview.com)
this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2026
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T-Mobile raised our rate last year which is bad enough by itself after promising not to, but they also seriously reduced the quality and availability of their customer service. Why stick around for that? We switched to a much cheaper prepaid company (~1/3rd T-Mobile's current price) and couldn't be happier.
Edit: Was thinking about the other problems we had with T-Mobile and forgot to mention one big problem... Incoming calls routinely would not ring and voicemails left just vanished. This happened for months. Multiple friends (and a couple of doctor's offices) mentioned it often enough that we realized we had a problem. T-Mobile's great customer service could find nothing wrong and refused to look at the lost calls that originated from other TMO customers.
We have been grandfathered into a Simple Choice Plan for ~13 years and just switched over to whatever their comparable current plan is, and only saved $10 (woohoo). What'd you go with? I was looking into prepaid with Tmo but they've been in quite the steady decline for a while now.
I’ve been very happy with Visible. They’re owned by Verizon and in the long term, it’s the best value I’ve been able to find. They have a 2 week free trial period and frequently have awesome deals during Black Friday and in the Spring. Even without a discount though, plans start at $25/month with a plan that is probably enough for most people. Their highest tier (of 3) is $45.
Moved off T-Mobile for Visible after getting sick of their constant data breaches and haven’t been this happy with a cell carrier since Jump On-Demand was a thing.
The only real catches are:
Support is basically a chatbot and social media teams. However, human support reps do exist if you’re insistent enough, and I’ve only needed them maybe once in the past 3 years or so
Plans are for smartphones (and smartwatches with an existing smartphone line) only. No tablets or other devices.
Been on Visible for quite a while as well. I have never needed to contact support so can't speak on that. The only complaint I have is the app will force you to log in and authenticate every month (or used to idk I haven't been on it in a while)
I've loved visible ever since I joined like 7 years ago. Unlimited 5G, $25 a month. Works great international when I need it, but it's an extra $5/day with my plan when I use it
Oh neat! Can't say I've heard of it, and for a while there I was very much leaning towards Mint, until they were bought by Tmo. Ryan should have fought for it, Deadpool style 😆
Really liking what I'm seeing. I'd def rather spend $70/mo than the ~$110 I am now. I personally just can't justify it for how little I use my phone, literally Lemmy, Newpipe and Fennec, with a side of fin account apps.
Check them out again around Black Friday! If you’re ok paying annually they usually have some pretty deep discounts then.
My first year was on a Black Friday discount and I got their high end plan (usually $45 a month) for $225 for the whole year (made it cheaper than the low end plan)! It renews at like $450 but that’s still so much cheaper than other carriers in the long term.
Sounds like you have multiple lines on TMo. Visible is a 1 line per account setup but with inner circle you can pay them all together and get another $5 a month off.
The ATT reps at Costco HATE me because they can’t offer a good enough deal to switch 😂
Mint works pretty darn well. It's still using t-mobile towers, but is a whole lot cheaper.
We have a Mint plan and yeah it’s been fine. Only issue we have is it gets deprioritized in large, crowded events like concerts.
If you have any government assistance programs ) Medicaid, SNAP, etc.), look into the Lifeline program for potentially free cell service:
https://www.fcc.gov/lifeline-consumers#rules
I switched to Mint a couple years back. It's fine.
What's the new carrier? I want to ditch T-Mobile they are ripping us off. I was thinking about switching to Mint mobile.
Edit: Thanks for the heads up and suggestions. I'll avoid Mint and take a look into US Mobile.
US Mobile. No significant complaints after 10 months.
We switched to US Mobile last October and I've kind of been a bit shocked at how good and responsive their customer service is to be a MVNO prepaid utilizing Indian call centers.
Also, US Mobile partners with all three major carriers, so you can pick your network! They have to use different names because of copyrights but here is the translation: AT&T = Dark Star, Verizon = Warp, T-Mobile= Light Speed
Their unlimited plans all come with hotspot and start at $25 monthly regular price but they always have promos for new customers and you can prepay for a year of service and get unlimited for as little as around $16 a month. They ALSO always seem to have fantastic prices on the current model Google Pixel base phone and Pro XL, if you're an Android person like me.
Btw, even though I've been happy with my service through US Mobile I began the process to port my three numbers to Mint Mobile today. This is because they're offering three months of unlimited for $15 per line, per month. US Mobile has a promo for $16 a line for four months BUT two of my lines had already received that promo so their system would not let them reapply the discount. Also, this may seem trite but US Mobile is now partnering with (f)Elon Musk's Starlink and, even though I'm sure it's a losing battle, I do not wish to willingly float that turd of a human being a dime of my money. But, anyway, I had to pull the plug on Mint Mobile because they stuck a bullshit 'recovery' fee ($23.25) and a few bucks sales tax ($3.93) of $27.18 total onto the last payment screen when I was trying to set up three new lines. So fuck Mint Mobile!!! I cannot abide shifty mother fuckers. I'll pay their goddamn recovery fee when Ryan Reynolds knocks on my door and offers to blow me.
Dark Star... Hmm...
It was even blown up once before with the breakup of Ma Bell.
Seconding US Mobile, been with them for 2.5 years and they're only getting better and better.
Dreading the day T-Mobile buys them...
we keep looking in their direction but the boss doesn't really wanna change. got some small concession from vzn a little while ago but still more than double what usm would cost.
what would get her to switch would be finding a carrier that actually worked at her house. vzn doesn't, tm doesn't, need to find someone around here with at&t to try but there really isn't anyone around here that does use them.
Doesn't US Mobile offer all the of the major networks? I've also been looking at them recently, and my understanding is that the three networks they offer are (despite their silly codenames) in reality just verizon, t-mobile, and at&t. You can pick which one you want to use and even switch between them without too much hassle.
Yep, they do charge you to switch between networks though, and charge you a fixed fee for each additional line on top of your service, so it works well if you have just one phone or device.
I added my iPad to them about a year ago because they were a super carrier and didn’t expect my to have my main line on them just for a data plan. They worked so well I moved my main phone from att to them. Love the service
I have been ok with US Mobile, but they kind of get pricing when you add devices or need more data. Mint has been pretty solid for me though, and I have heard Visible is pretty awesome.
I thought TMobile bought Mint?
They did, but even beyond that, the other alternatives mentioned in this thread are MVNOs that still use T-Mobile's network (usually with a lower priority compared to direct customers, not usually an issue unless there's congestion). You're still paying T-Mobile, just indirectly. MVNOs buy in bulk and try to offer options that split that bulk usage up in ways different to the big carriers to target smaller more specific demographics.
Isn't this really hard to avoid in the US because of the existing infrastructure? All of the towers are owned by one or two companies, and the rest have to rent them out.
Actually, many towers (maybe even most now with how dense small cells need to be) are not actually owned by the carriers. They are owned by independent companies and leased to the carriers, or the carriers lease space on an existing pole or building to mount their panels. If you've ever looked at a cell tower and seem multiple levels of panels... that's almost surely not owned by a carrier. It's most likely owned by something like American Tower Corporation, Crown Castle, or SBA Communications, and they lease physical space on that site to various carriers and other users. Line-of-site microwave connections also make use of towers quite heavily to relay direct wireless connections.
A lot of churches also lease space on or even inside their steeples/stowers.
And then there's also the small cells that can get installed basically anywhere... and often get installed on things like light posts which are owned by local governments.
Damn everything is a monopoly here..
Anti-Trust is some bullshit invented by damn socialist commies to keep the money from trickling down. \s
Phreeli https://www.phreeli.com/
Mint Mobile. Uses the t mobile network. 20 bucks a month unlimited text/talk 15gb data
They just upped it to 17gb a month as well. Been pretty happy with them, even though I think T-Mobile bought them out.
There’s also https://www.phreeli.com/
I'll have to keep them in mind!