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Visible Brings Back $25 Unlimited Plan

Christian

For much of 2023, Visible offered its standard unlimited plan for $25 per month. The deal was framed as a promotion or limited-time offer, but Visible pushed back the promotion’s end date a number of times.

In July, Visible ceased extending the offer. The cost of the standard plan shifted to its supposed normal price of $30 per month. As of today, the $25 per month rate is back, and it’s no longer being framed as a limited-time offer.

Will Visible+ Come Down To $35/Mo?

For most of the time Visible offered its standard plan for $25 per month, the company also offered the premium Visible+ plan for $35 per month (a $10 discount from the regular price of $45).

As of today, the Visible+ plan still comes with a $45 price tag. Through August 31, there’s a promotion running where customers who bring their own device and use a coupon code can get the plan for $35 per month. I wonder what we’ll see happen when that promotion ends. I’m a big fan of Visible+, and I’d be pleased if it becomes broadly available at $35 per month.

Rocket Launching

Astound Mobile Launching On T-Mobile’s Network

Christian

Update: Some more complete info about plans and pricing is available on Astound’s website.

Internet service provider Astound Broadband announced it will launch an MVNO running over T-Mobile’s network. Astound Mobile will heavily rely on infrastructure from Reach.

Like the other carriers operated by cable companies, Astound Mobile will limit its offerings to the company’s internet customers. Rollout of the new service across Astound’s customer base will be gradual:

The service will be exclusively available to Astound home internet customers who are eligible residents in Massachusetts and Corpus Christi, Midland-Odessa, Temple, and Waco Texas in June. The company plans to continue to launch Astound Mobile in its remaining markets by the end of the year.

Today’s announcement was fairly vague about Astound Mobile’s offerings:

Astound will offer two ‘pay by the gig’ plans and two unlimited talk and text plans. Customers can choose a plan whereby they only pay for the data they need or they can expand to an unlimited plan with data allotted to each user.

Poking around Astound’s website, especially in legal details and disclaimers, I found a few hints about plans for Astound Mobile. I also found a few contradictions, so all this should be treated with a grain of salt.

Astound Mobile’s Plans

One disclaimer gives clues about the data allotments on the four plans:

After monthly threshold is reached, 1.5GB & 3GB plans data will be capped; Unlimited & Unlimited Plus, speeds reduced to 768 Kbps.

Since it’s possible to reach a threshold on the unlimited plans, I expect Astound will follow the industry norm of labeling some plans “unlimited” in a somewhat bogus fashion. To Astound’s credit, 768Kbps speeds are far more usable than the 128 – 256Kbps throttles often seen on other MVNOs’ “unlimited” plans.

On another page, I found a somewhat different description of Astound’s plans:

The 20 Gigabyte plan offers high-definition (‘HD’) streaming; the 1 Gigabyte and 3 Gigabyte plan offer solely non-HD streaming.
Combining these two disclosures, I presume the threshold after which Astound throttles speeds is 20GB on one or both of the unlimited plans. I’m unsure what to make of the discrepancy around the size of the plan with the smallest data allotment. Will turn out to be 1GB or 1.5GB?

Devices

On one page of legal details, Astound emphasizes this text:

Astound Mobile does not provide Mobile Devices – Customers must bring their own Mobile Devices to use Astound Mobile Services.

However, “Device financing (through third party)” is listed as a feature in an FAQ item on Astound Mobile’s web page about coverage.

Other Details

Astound’s website gives a few more details, though I wouldn’t treat any of this information with confidence:

  • International roaming outside of the US, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands appears unavailable.
  • WiFi calling is listed as a feature on the coverage page.
  • A legal document explains that only Astound Broadband Internet customers are eligible to sign up for mobile services, but subscribers are not “required to maintain the Astound Broadband Internet plan to continue Astound Mobile Services”.
Abstract image representing the internet

Fixed Wireless Availability – Accuracy Issues

Christian

Earlier today, I tried to order Verizon’s 5G Home Internet. According to Verizon’s website, my address was eligible for service.

A few minutes after placing my order, I received an email explaining that my order couldn’t be completed. Here’s an excerpt:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for choosing Verizon. We were unable to complete the order you recently submitted.

We are sorry, but after further review, it was determined that we are unable to provide home internet service at your address at this time. Prior to qualifying service for any specific location, Verizon evaluates a number of factors to ensure we can provide new and existing customers the best possible experience.

The availability of home internet products may change in the future so we encourage you to stay updated on your eligibility status by visiting https://www.verizon.com/5g/home/ . You can click the “check availability” button and sign up for alerts to stay in the know on when eligibility in your area may change.

According to the FCC’s Broadband Map, my address is eligible. According to the initial screening system on Verizon’s website, my address is eligible. Yet Verizon has some secondary system that quickly and automatically rejected my address. I’m unsure why these different systems are out of sync.

The bit about staying updated on eligibility via verizon.com/5g/home/ isn’t helpful. The info on that page was wrong. That’s why I got far enough to get my rejection email.

Fixed Wireless Availability Conundrums

With fixed wireless services like Verizon 5G Home, network congestion needs to be carefully managed. Perhaps Verizon is regularly tweaking the availability of 5G Home Internet based on how much spare capacity the network has in different areas. While tweaking of that sort wouldn’t explain why one of Verizon’s systems clears my address while another rejects the address, it could explain the mismatch with the FCC’s data.

With the FCC only collecting availability data twice per year, recent changes in availability may not be captured. I’m not sure that explains my experience, but it’s a meaningful limitation of the FCC’s Broadband Data Collection, regardless.

It may be rare for a cable internet provider to suddenly decide a region is oversubscribed and reject new subscribers. However, that kind of behavior will be more common for internet providers using technologies that aren’t resilient in the face of congestion (e.g., fixed wireless and satellite). With fixed wireless and satellite internet gaining market share, this problem will become more relevant.

The Coverage Critic Coverage Map

Christian

Earlier this year, I quietly released an interactive coverage map that shows the strength of cell signals from the three nationwide networks (Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile). I’ve now polished the map to a point where I’m ready to make an official announcement.

If you want to cut to the chase, try the coverage map now. The rest of this post details how the map works, its limitations, and improvements I’ll release going forward.

Map Structure

The information surfaced in Coverage Critic’s map is richer than what’s typically found on carriers’ own maps.

Here’s what the map looks like when representing T-Mobile’s coverage in Vail, Colorado:

Screenshot showing Coverage Critic's coverage map in Vail, CO

Each hexagon is the size of a few city blocks. Darkly shaded hexagons indicate where T-Mobile’s network is predicted to have a strong signal. Lighter shades indicate weaker signals. No coverage is expected in areas in white.

Compare Networks

Map users can toggle between different networks and technologies with a single click.

Screenshot showing menus coverage map users can click on to toggle between networks or technologies.

After selecting a specific hexagon, users are presented with details about coverage within the hexagon:
Coverage map screenshot showing details about coverage in a hexagon
With a few more clicks, users can compare coverage within the hexagon across the major networks:
Screenshot from the coverage map showing details about a hex

Zoom Levels

In rural and remote areas, the map can be informative from a zoomed-out perspective. However, in dense cities, the zoomed-out view becomes chaotic due to a plethora of cellular antennas and tall buildings that block signals.

In big cities, I recommend initially entering an address or the name of a neighborhood. The map will automatically zoom to the selected spot at an appropriate zoom level.

Screenshot of the geocoder users of Coverage Critic's coverage map can use to zoom in on specific areas.

Data Sources

The base data underlying the maps comes from the FCC’s Broadband Data Collection program. I adjust the data from the FCC based on the results of in-house testing.

For the moment, the adjustment procedure is relatively simple, but I have more ambitious plans in the works. In the future, I’ll share more about my in-house testing and my intention to incorporate data from third parties.

Limitations

The map shows predicted signal strengths rather than on-the-ground measurements of signal strength.

While signal strength is a decent proxy for service quality, it’s imperfect. As the map evolves, I’ll account for additional factors that affect performance.

Known Issues

The map has a few major issues:

  • Coverage data is unavailable in Michigan and Alaska
  • Verizon’s LTE coverage is not correctly represented in portions of the Northeastern United States
  • Coverage information is sometimes missing around bodies of water and state borders

Upcoming Improvements

At the moment, the map draws on FCC data that reflects networks’ coverage as of mid-2022. A newer data set, reflecting coverage at the end of 2022, was released yesterday. As I build a new version of the map incorporating the latest data, I’ll also resolve some of the issues.

Additional networks, including US Cellular and Dish, will be included in an upcoming version of the map.

Acknowledgments

The map relies on the work of an awful lot of other people. I’d particularly like to thank the FCC’s Broadband Data Task Force, the folks that build and maintain the H3 geospatial indexing system, and contributors to OpenStreetMap.

I’d also like to thank my audience for helping me get this far. I’m enjoying the experience as Coverage Critic evolves into a more useful product.

Photo of a mirror

Reflectons on Verizon’s myPlan

Christian

Today, Verizon launched revamped plans with a new approach called myPlan. While existing subscribers are, for the moment, able to stick with their old plans, new postpaid subscribers have just two options for unlimited plans:

  • Unlimited Welcome – The Basic Plan
  • Unlimited Plus – The Premium Plan

Previously, Verizon offered six different plans with varying features.

Add-Ons

With many of Verizon’s old plans, services like Disney+ or Apple Music were bundled in by default. Verizon’s new plans unbundle these services. Subscribers can instead pick and choose (or entirely opt-out of) various perks priced at $10 per month. Some of the perks are access to third-party streaming services. Other perks involve add-on features Verizon offers to enhance subscribers’ plans.

A few examples:

  • Disney Bundle (Hulu, Disney+, ESPN+)
  • Apple Music Family
  • 100GB Mobile Hotspot Add-On
  • 3 TravelPass Days (for international roaming)

Elsewhere, I dive in the weeds comparing Unlimited Welcome Vs. Unlimited Plus. For now, I only want to comment on the shift in Verizon’s approach.

Are The New Plans Good For Consumers?

The reactions to Verizon’s new plans have been pretty negative on Reddit and Twitter. If you try to make a myPlan subscription that’s more-or-less equivalent to some of Verizon’s old plans, you’ll likely end up with a higher price tag than those attached to Verizon’s old plans. Commentators are largely correct that the new structure of Verizon’s plans conceals a price increase.

Still, there’s something praise-worthy about Verizon’s shift. Things were getting out of hand with six different plans. Normal consumers couldn’t easily make sense of the offerings and compare all the different features. The plans didn’t even have a straightforward hierarchy from the lowest-cost plan to the most premium plan.

There’s something odd about cell phone services automatically bundling in a bunch of vaguely related third-party services or add-on features (many of which won’t be used by the typical subscriber). I prefer this new scenario where people who want something can pay a reasonable price to add it on, and others can opt-out.

Transparency Update

Christian

I’m not unbiased. I have conflicts of interest. Throughout Coverage Critic’s history, I’ve tried to be transparent and let my audience make their own judgments about whether I should be trusted.

Old Approach

Previously, my transparency page usually listed both:

  • Names of companies I had financial relationships with
  • Details about the terms of those financial relationships

Here’s how I once described the relationship I had with the wireless carrier Ting:

Ting offers me a $25 commission for every new line of service activated.

Initially, Coverage Critic’s financial relationships with cell phone services all followed standard payment structures that were matters of public knowledge. For example, Ting ran an affiliate program that offered the same $25 per line rate to other website owners.

When I started Coverage Critic, it made sense for me to participate in carriers’ standard arrangements. From the perspective of cell carriers, my audience was too small to justify the time or effort involved in individualized negotiations.

New Approach

With Coverage Critic growing in popularity and influence, I’ve reached the scale where I can sometimes negotiate my own arrangements rather than taking whatever standard deal a company offers.

I’m hoping to preserve my editorial integrity without sacrificing too much of Coverage Critic’s revenue. My new approach isn’t perfect, but I think it strikes a good balance.

Here’s the gist:

  • Any company is eligible for exposure on my website. Financial relationships aren’t required.
  • Outbound links directing to companies’ websites are mostly reserved for carriers offering me financial terms that I deem adequate.1
  • Companies lacking financial relationships will be named, discussed, recommended, etc., but my visitors will have to navigate manually to these companies’ websites.

Over the next year, I anticipate I’ll opt out of some companies’ standard programs that I currently participate in. In some cases, that’ll lead to me forming new agreements with better terms. In other cases, I expect I’ll be unable to form new agreements. That’s fine too.

New Transparency Page

Sharing the details of arrangements I negotiate isn’t as easy as sharing the details of standard arrangements that are already public knowledge. Both the companies Coverage Critic partners with and I have strategic interests in keeping the details of our financial arrangements private.

On my new transparency page, I no longer list details about the commission rates companies pay me. I simply list which companies I have financial relationships with and which I don’t.

I considered continuing to publicize commission rates I receive whenever I take a standard deal that’s already a matter of public knowledge. However, I worry that would create an illusion of transparency rather than genuine transparency.

In a sense, the custom arrangements I negotiate (and want to withhold details about) are the most interesting. That said, I’m not trying to hide the rates in the standard deals. You can see an archived copy of the old, more detailed transparency page here.

Reflections

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.Richard Feynman
I take Feynman’s point seriously. I welcome pushback from anyone who thinks I’m fooling myself. Please reach out if you ever think financial relationships are hindering the quality of my recommendations or making Coverage Critic a less useful site.

I took a stance of extreme transparency when taking that position was costless. It’s not lost on me that I’m pivoting to a less transparent approach at the same time that Coverage Critic reached a scale where reduced transparency could benefit me.

Cartoon image illustrating a loss of a wireless connection

MobileX Data Outage

Christian 2 Comments

I’ve been trying out the new carrier MobileX. It’s founded by Peter Adderton, who previously founded Boost Mobile.

MobileX looks awfully promising. I’ll have more to say about that in a later post. But despite MobileX’s promise and great pricing, I’ve been holding off on recommending the service until it matures. I’m wary of brand-new carriers. Typical consumers are probably better off with carriers that have had enough time to work out the kinks in their systems.

My hesitations were validated when MobileX experienced a data outage on Thursday. I don’t think the issues lasted all that long, and standard calling and texting continued to function.

I first became aware of the outage with this tweet:

I appreciate MobileX’s communication style. It doesn’t match the vague corporate-speak that’s usually seen in the telecom industry. The company followed up on the initial tweet with this one:

I didn’t notice exactly when my data service ceased working, but service was back about an hour after the first tweet came out.

Xfinity’s Flailing Attack On T-Mobile Home Internet

Christian

Recently, I’ve been hearing a radio ad for Xfinity that attacks T-Mobile Home Internet. The ad’s message is roughly: “T-Mobile Home Internet is lousy. Pick Xfinity instead!”

The ad encourages listeners to visit xfinity.com/tmofacts. On that page, Xfinity’s supposed advantages are split into three categories: speed, reliability, and entertainment. Let’s go through them one by one.

Speed

Xfinity claims, “T-Mobile is 10-36x slower than Xfinity.”

I have no idea where those numbers come from. Ookla’s last report put Xfinity’s median download speed at 226Mbps. Speeds 10x to 36x slower would be 6 to 26Mbps.

I couldn’t find Ookla speeds specifically capturing T-Mobile’s home internet products, but Ookla’s last report gives numbers for mobile networks more broadly. On modern chipsets, T-Mobile had a median download speed of 151Mbps. Looking only at 5G connections, T-Mobile had a median download speed of 217Mbps.

Next in the speed section, we get this bit:
Text that reads as follows: Storms, mountains, cars — being inside — can slow down your speed T-Mobile says: 'Weather, the surrounding terrain, use inside a building or moving vehicle' all affect speed and performance.
I’m not sure what Xfinity is getting at with the point about cars. I tend to use my home internet at home.

Reliability

Xfinity draws attention to how T-Mobile prioritizes subscribers on mobile phones over home internet subscribers.

Customers may notice reduced speeds in comparison to customers with a higher priority during network congestion.

It’s a fair point.

Entertainment

On the anti-T-Mobile side, we find this:
Text that reads: Watch TV on T-Mobile's terms Use Hulu Live and Sling Live TV? Not anymore T-Mobile says: "Not compatible with some live TV streaming services" including "Hulu Live and Sling Live TV".

Do you use Hulu Live or Sling Live? Me neither.

On the pro-Xfinity side, there’s a pitch for Xfinity’s Flex TV box:
Text that reads: Entertainment: Stream all your favorites with Xfinity We'll even give you a free 4K streaming TV box

Xfinity used to offer subscribers a free Flex TV box. It’s $5 per month now. The page needs an update.

Takeaway

Props to T-Mobile. Xfinity feels threatened.

Handshake

T-Mobile To Acquire Mint

Christian

Today, T-Mobile announced plans to acquire Mint Mobile. The deal is expected to close later this year.

T-Mobile’s acquisition will involve the entirety of Mint’s parent company, Ka’ena Corporation. Ka’ena also owns the carrier Ultra Mobile and the cellular wholesaler Plum. The acquisition price isn’t set in stone, but it could be up to $1.35 billion.1

For the moment, Mint’s founders will stay with Mint. Ryan Reynolds will also continue his role in Mint’s marketing.

My Take

In the short term, I don’t think this acquisition will change Mint too much. I doubt the quality of Mint’s customer experience or overall value will plummet shortly after the acquisition.

It’s hard to predict what this acquisition will mean in the long run. As years pass, the lines separating Mint and T-Mobile will probably fade. Mint might gradually lose its distinctive low prices. As a result, the wider cellular industry may become a bit less competitive.

For the moment, I expect I’ll continue to recommend Mint—though with a bit more hesitation than I had previously. I’ll note that my friend Joe Paonessa has a more negative take on today’s announcement:

Time will tell.

Man holding phone while putting money in piggy bank

Visible Promo Brings Back $25/Month Rate

Christian

From today through March 31st, Visible is running a promotion that brings is the Visible Base Plan down to $25 per month (the same rate that was previously available with Visible’s retired Party Pay program). During the promo, Visible+, the carrier’s premium plan, is also being discounted from $45 per month to $35 per month.

As I understand it, customers that take advantage of the program will continue to pay the reduced rate indefinitely.1 More about the promo can be found on Visible’s homepage. Here are the terms mentioned there:

Offer disclosure: Offer Ends 03.31.23; subject to change.

New members or existing members upgrading from the Visible Unlimited Plan qualify to receive $10/mo off the Visible+ Plan or $5/mo off the Visible Plan. Promotion will automatically apply to qualifying members, reflected as either a $10 discount off the normal rate of the Visible+ Plan or a $5 discount off the normal rate of the Visible Plan.

Promo is not transferable, not redeemable for cash and has no cash value. Member must maintain service on the Visible+ Plan or Visible Plan to maintain promotion; no value will be provided to the member if an account is terminated or migrates to an ineligible plan.

Promo applies to service charges and the member is responsible for all applicable taxes and fees. Promo may not be combined with any other service promotion, such as VIP/VBPP discounts and Connection Protection Program. Promo is stackable with the Choose Your Own Gift Card program and the Bring a Friend Program.

Void where prohibited, taxed, or otherwise restricted. Visible reserves the right to change or terminate this offer at any time, with or without notice, including for any violation of Visible’s terms of service. If Visible, in its sole discretion, determines that a member has engaged in abuse, misuse, or gaming in connection with this offer, or that the member intends to do so, Visible reserves the right to disqualify the member from this promotion.