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Visible Party Pay Improvements

Christian 1 Comment

Visible, a flanker brand of Verizon, offers just one plan: unlimited minutes, texts, and data for a base price of $40 per month. In 2019, Visible launched a feature called Party Pay. With Party Pay, customers can join together in parties to get lower rates:

  • 2-line party – $35 per line each month
  • 3-line party – $30 per line each month
  • 4-line party – $25 per line each month

Unlike conventional family plans, Visible bills each member of a party separately. Additionally, Visible doesn’t try to limit parties to family members. Visible subscribers are allowed to form parties with strangers and over the internet.

Previously, Visible capped parties at a maximum size of four people. Today, Visible dropped that cap. It’s a great change. Managing a Party Pay group used to be clunky. If one person dropped out of a full Party Pay group, the remaining members would have to either pay more or scramble to quickly re-fill the party. Now, large parties can be formed online. If someone drops out of a party, monthly prices for those left in the party won’t change as long as at least four lines remain.

I might start my own Party Pay group that’s open to anyone, but if you’re looking for a group now, consider joining this big one that’s actively seeking members.

Other changes at Visible

Visible recently released a handful of other updates:

  • e-SIM is now supported for subscribers with compatible iPhones.
  • Visible brought back a referral program. If you refer a friend, you get a month of service for only $5.
  • Calls from the U.S. to Mexico, Canada, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico are now free.
  • Visible launched a new community forum platform.
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US Mobile’s Plans Get Even Better

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In October, US Mobile launched two plans that I thought were some of the best bargains on the market. Both plans included unlimited minutes and texts. At the time the plans were launched, a $30 per month plan included 10GB of data each month, and a $15 per month plan included 2.5GB of data each month.

In December, U.S. Mobile sweetened the deal. Without raising prices, U.S. Mobile boosted the data allotment on the $15 plan to 3.5GB and the allotment on the $30 plan to 30GB.

Today, U.S. Mobile is at it again. The $15 plan now has a data allotment of 5GB. Two amazing new plans are also available:

  • 12GB – $20 per month
  • 18GB – $25 per month

While US Mobile’s prices are outstanding, potential customers should know that US Mobile tends to have higher fees than most low-cost carriers. After taxes and fees, the final cost of these US Mobile plans will usually come out about $5 per month higher than the plans’ base prices.

The plans are available over either Verizon’s network (“Super LTE” in US Mobile’s words) or T-Mobile’s network (“GSM LTE”). You can find more details about the plans on US Mobile’s website.

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Dawson On Measuring Speeds

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Doug Dawson of CCG Consulting shared an excellent blog post this morning titled The Fantasy of Measuring Speeds. He gives an excellent overview of why two people who live in the same city might experience different speeds despite subscribing to the same plan offered by an internet service provider.

Dawson argues that lots of important information is thrown away when we pretend that a single measure of speed can explain the quality of a service a provider offers. Internet services don’t even offer individual customers a fixed speed:

What’s the right speed on a broadband network? The speed that can be obtained at 4:00 in the morning when the network is empty or the speed at 8:30 in the evening when the network is bogged down with the heaviest neighborhood usage?

If you’ve never done it, I suggest you run multiple speed tests, back-to-back. I am on a Charter cable network and I ran speed tests for any hour recently and I saw reported speed varying by as much as 50%. What speed is my broadband connection?…The FCC is about to embark on a grand new scheme to force ISPs to better define and report broadband speeds. It’s bound to fail. If I can’t figure out the speed on my cable modem connection, then the FCC is on a fool’s mission.

The trouble with the FCC’s approach is that the agency wants an ISP to report actual speed by clusters of homes – today it’s by Census block and soon it will be polygons. But this is a waste of everybody’s time when nobody can even define the speed for an individual home.

I strongly recommend the full post.

While I largely agree with Dawson, I take a more optimistic stance. Transitioning from collecting data at the census-block level to collecting data at the level of polygons may bring incremental improvements. I’d like to see that transition, even if it won’t solve underlying issues with the FCC’s approach.

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Verizon Sweeps In RootMetrics’ Late 2020 Assessment

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RootMetrics recently released a teaser of its results from network testing in the second half of 2020. As is usual in RootMetrics’ assessments, Verizon came out as the big winner. In all seven of RootMetrics’ primary scoring categories, Verizon either took first place or tied first place.

I didn’t find a lot of big surprises in the information that’s come out so far. While AT&T has been winning the top spot for speeds from some evaluators, Verizon had the highest median download speed in RootMetrics’ assessment.

RootMetrics’ full report on network performance in the second half of 2020 comes out on February 3. That report might include some interesting updates on the status of 5G deployments.

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Does T-Mobile Have The Best 5G?

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T-Mobile has started bragging about having the best 5G speeds in Opensignal’s latest report. Here’s an excerpt from today’s press release from T-Mobile:

New independent data from Opensignal, based on real world customer usage from millions of device measurements, shows T-Mobile customers now get the fastest 5G download speeds, fastest 5G upload speeds AND a 5G signal more often than anyone else.

I’ve been critical of selection bias issues inherent in Opensignal’s methodology. I continue to think there are serious selection bias issues with Opensignal’s latest 5G metrics. Still, I don’t think my qualms are significant enough to dismiss T-Mobile’s apparent lead in 5G speeds and 5G coverage. T-Mobile is killing it. Here’s another bit from today’s press release:

With the first and largest nationwide 5G network, T-Mobile’s Extended Range 5G covers more than 280 million people across nearly 1.6 million square miles – offering 2.5x more geographic coverage than AT&T and nearly 4x more than Verizon. With Sprint now part of T-Mobile, the Un-carrier is widening its lead, using dedicated spectrum to bring customers with capable devices download speeds of around 300 Mbps and peak speeds up to 1 Gbps. The Un-carrier’s Ultra Capacity 5G already reaches more than 1,000 cities and towns and covers 106 million people.

Early in its 5G rollout, T-Mobile relied on low-frequency spectrum around 600MHz. While this spectrum was great for coverage, it had lousy speed potential. In 2020, T-Mobile put a lot of effort into bragging about how it led the nation in 5G coverage. While the bragging was technically accurate, the whole thing was bullshit in practical terms. 5G delivered with T-Mobile’s low-frequency spectrum was often slower than a typical 4G connection.

Recently, T-Mobile started rolling out large-scale 5G deployments using mid-band spectrum. T-Mobile’s mid-band 5G now covers about a third of Americans. Mid-band 5G actually delivers speeds that are substantially better than consumers are used to with 4G.

Verizon is still crushing the competition in terms of coverage with ultra-fast, millimeter wave 5G. However, Verizon’s achievements with millimeter wave don’t have much value for consumers yet. Even Verizon’s millimeter wave coverage is lackluster, and practical applications for ultra-fast cellular speeds are rare.

While I think T-Mobile legitimately holds the top spot for 5G coverage and average 5G speeds, I also think Verizon will overtake T-Mobile as 5G rollouts reach more mature stages. In my view, the interesting thing to watch will be whether T-Mobile or AT&T ends up with the second-place spot in the 5G competition.1 T-Mobile’s spectrum holdings and financial position may give the network a significant edge over AT&T.

More Data Coming To Mint Mobile

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Mint Mobile just announced that it will soon offer more data on some of its plans. The carrier’s prices won’t change.

Right now, Mint offers 3 plans with fixed data allotments (all the plans include unlimited minutes and texts):

  • 3GB per month – As low as $15 per month
  • 8GB per month – As low as $20 per month
  • 12GB per month – As low as $25 per month

Starting January 28, the monthly data allotments will increase between 1GB and 3GB:

  • 4GB per month – As low as $15 per month
  • 10GB per month – As low as $20 per month
  • 15GB per month – As low as $25 per month

I assume the data increase will be available to both new customers and existing customers, but I haven’t confirmed. As far as I know, there will be no changes to Mint’s unlimited plan.

Ryan Reynolds, an owner of Mint, shared a video about the upcoming change:

FCC Politics & Media Bias

Christian 2 Comments

I’m a big believer in a free and open internet. I’m also wary of unchecked corporatism. Yesterday, many people who share my views were rejoicing as Ajit Pai, the FCC Chairman, stepped down. As Pai left his role, journalists published a bunch of hit pieces about Pai and the last several years of the FCC’s work. Despite having plenty of sympathies with the journalists, I was rubbed the wrong way.

Vice’s article was emblematic of what bothered me. The article’s title started with: “Gigantic Asshole Ajit Pai Is Officially Gone.” Vice went on to give a long list of everything it could construe as a failure of Pai’s FCC term. Not an ounce of effort was put into expressing anything positive.

I would love to see journalists shedding more light on the FCC’s actions. However, I’m concerned with how popular media outlets’ coverage of the FCC gets mixed up with broader political conflicts. We should keep what happened yesterday in mind if the same media outlets that published hit pieces yesterday are only willing to say positive things about the Biden-era FCC and the next FCC chairperson.

If you have suggestions for where to turn for nuanced commentary on the FCC, please chime in with a comment!

Verizon Prepaid’s New Ultra Wideband Plan

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For a while now, Verizon has offered a prepaid plan with unlimited minutes, texts, and data. Yesterday, Verizon Prepaid launched a second and more expensive unlimited plan. While the old plan had a base price of $65 per month, the new plan has a base price of $75 per month. Both plans are eligible for loyalty discounts and a discount for automatic payments. Together, discounts can decrease the monthly cost of either plan by up to $15 per month.

Verizon’s new plan includes two features that aren’t included with the old unlimited plan:

  • 10GB per month of regular mobile hotspot data
  • 5G Ultra Wideband access

Ultra Wideband 5G

Verizon splits its 5G service into two buckets: 5G Nationwide and 5G Ultra Wideband. 5G Nationwide is Verizon’s widely available 5G service. While the 5G Nationwide coverage profile is solid, the speeds 5G Nationwide delivers are not especially impressive. 5G Ultra Wideband is outrageously fast, but the service has extremely limited availability.

All of Verizon’s prepaid plans give subscribers with compatible devices access to Verizon’s 5G Nationwide service. The new prepaid plan is the only one that offers 5G Ultra Wideband service. Given 5G Ultra Wideband’s terrible coverage, not many people will benefit from the added feature. I suppose the tiny minority of people that live or work where 5G Ultra Wideband is available might have a rationale for paying extra to get Verizon’s latest plan.

Hotspot access

Verizon’s cheaper prepaid unlimited plan does not include mobile hotspot access by default. However, subscribers can add a 10GB per month hotspot allotment for an extra $5 each month. Subscribers on Verizon’s new unlimited plan will get a 10GB hotspot allotment at no extra charge. Additionally, subscribers on the new plan can use an unlimited amount of mobile hotspot data when connected to Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network.

Is the new plan worth it?

For most people, it will be hard to justify the extra $10 per month that Verizon’s new plan costs relative to Verizon Prepaid’s old unlimited plan. If you need hotspot access, I’d recommend just using the old plan with a $65 base price and adding the $5 per month hotspot feature.

In the off chance you happen to spend a lot of time covered by Verizon’s Ultra Wideband service, the more expensive plan might be justifiable. However, the choice still might not be a no-brainer. While Ultra Wideband delivers impressive speeds, it’s rare for consumers to see many real-world benefits from the added speeds. 4G LTE and 5G Nationwide deliver speeds that are sufficient for most people.

Spectrum Is Expensive

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The FCC’s C band auction recently closed with a total of about 81 billion dollars in bids. This was by far the highest-grossing spectrum auction in U.S. history. Previously, the largest auction garnered about 45 billion dollars.1

In the C band auction, about 280 megahertz of spectrum in the 3.7-3.98GHz range was reallocated to cellular companies. Spectrum in this frequency range is particularly appealing to operators of cellular networks. The spectrum offers great characteristics, combining a potential for covering large areas with a potential for delivering fast speeds.

The amount of money committed in the recent auction drives home a point that I think most casual observers miss: spectrum is an enormous expense for cellular networks in the U.S. With the auction closing at about 81 billion dollars, U.S. networks are spending over $250 per person in the United States in a single auction.2

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Let’s Retire The CDMA/GSM Distinction

Christian 2 Comments

Understanding cell phone compatibility across networks can be tough. A common understanding has emerged: some cell phones are CDMA devices while other phones are GSM devices. According to the common understanding, GSM phones work with GSM networks, and CDMA phones work with CDMA networks. The common understanding has never been entirely accurate. For many years, a CDMA phone sold by Sprint wouldn’t necessarily work on Verizon’s CDMA network. Similarly, a GSM phone sold by AT&T wouldn’t necessarily work with T-Mobile’s GSM network. Beyond that, plenty of phone models have supported both CDMA and GSM.

Although the common understanding of the CDMA/GSM dichotomy wasn’t ever entirely right, it was at least useful or directionally accurate for many years. Not anymore. Networks are phasing out 2G and 3G technologies. All of the major networks in the U.S. today are dominated by 4G LTE technology. LTE isn’t GSM or CDMA. LTE is its own thing.

MVNOs typically can’t explicitly name their host networks. As a result, MVNOs often use the CDMA and GSM acronyms to label their networks. An MVNO that offers service over AT&T and Verizon’s networks might refer to the AT&T service as “the GSM service” and the Verizon service “the CDMA service.”

Just this week, the carrier Tello launched service over T-Mobile’s network. Tello is calling the T-Mobile network the “New GSM Network.” While I understand Tello’s rationale, I worry Tello is continuing a trend that ultimately confuses consumers about cellular technologies and phone compatibility.