Boom Mobile Restructuring

I've been on Verizon's own-branded prepaid service for years, and it's been fine for me. https://www.verizon.com/prepaid/plans/phone-plans/

Verizon also operates Simple Mobile as a subsidiary. https://www.simplemobile.com

I've been happy with Visible for years now. I've only ever had one problem, during international travel, and they have taken steps to address the issue I had.

Here's a second vote in favor of vanilla Verizon branded prepaid service. I have no particular loyalty to Verizon, but it seems hard to beat their prices and I've never had a problem with coverage. I've been on a "$40" per month plan with 5 GB of mobile data per month for years. "$40" translates to "$25" with $15/month discount for longevity of account and having autopay on, which then translates to a real $30/month after all the taxes and fees.

It doesn't look like my particular plan is available anymore, but their "$45" per month plan with 15 GB of data per month probably translates to a real $40/month after discounts and adding in taxes and fees (not sure if new accounts can get a full $15/month discount anymore, the website seems to say $10/month).

Visible customer for several years. Very happy with the service. It's wholly owned by Verizon, less worry about it going away.

Last time I checked they don't offer iPad plans though if that is something you need.

@Simone Have you looked at other options recently? Verizon’s Visible is currently charging $25/month (including taxes/fees) for “unlimited” data (I guess they throttle video) and hotspot. Several of the others seem to be in the range of $15/month for 5 GB.

+1 for Visible

I hadn't really shopped around but I looked at some because of the comments here. I've never seen a plan that includes taxes and fees so that's kind of surprising, but Visible's plan does seem to be a great deal. Simple Mobile also seems to have a "$25" per month plan for 15 GB of monthly data, but taxes and fees are on top of that, though this too seems slightly better than Verizon. Mint Mobile's deal is "$15" per month for 6 GB of monthly data, also better than my current Verizon plan.

Though, in practice I've never gone above 5 GB of data usage per month, so it's only really the price that matters, but it does look like there are some better options.

I've never really understood why the top brands have other brands though, and that's weirded me out a bit.

> I've never really understood why the top brands have other brands though, and that's weirded me out a bit.

Prepaid users are a very different customer base but in many ways, just as lucrative. MetroPCS was one of the first really big MVNOs and when T-Mobile acquired them in the early 2010s (at the same time John Legere was making a push to distinguish as a real competitor to AT&T and Verizon) they realized they could have both upmarket and downmarket customers.

What’s changed in the last few years is that there are often fewer restrictions or caps on the MVNO plans, with regards to prioritized data and caps and speed, but the price is often much, much lower.

The downside is that you usually have to judo around a bit or prepay a year in advance to get the best deals.

I have two phones in a post-paid Verizon account and I pay over $200 a month. But for my work phone, I did a $15 a month promo on Mint Mobile but it’ll be up in January. So if I want to stick with Mint and not pay like more than double in price (which defeats the whole point), I’ll have to port out to Visible or Total Wireless or someone for a month, then port back in to get the $15 a month if you pay a year in advance promo. If I wasn’t more affronted by having been forced to get a work device that work won’t pay for, I wouldn’t bother and would probably just give Verizon another $40 a month. But because I’m angry, I’ll go through the hoops to save a few hundred dollars.

But I’m (and most of us in this comment section) aren’t the target audience for prepaid plans anyway.

It would be great if you could get prepaid pricing on a post-paid cadence, but with the exception of Visible who I think will let you lock in for two years at the start, it’s not really a thing.

Don't risk another fly-by-night operation, stick with Verizon proper or the Verizon subsidiary (Visible).

I was curious about Visible so I took a look, comparing to my current Verizon prepaid plan ($45, but actually $35 with auto pay):

- Visible plans all have “unlimited” data vs. my fixed amount. Not really an issue for me since I rarely come close to using my 15 GB anyway. And I generally distrust the “unlimited” framing, because it always seems to come with some sort of catch.
- Both have throttled video. Annoying since I paid for 15 GB so I feel I should be able to use it however I want. But I’m not really interested in watching video on my phone anyway, so I don’t really care.
- All Visible plans have significantly throttled personal hotspot. I just tested and I’m getting the same speeds on my tethered laptop as on my phone itself; the 200 Mbit down in my testing seems much better than Visible’s 5-15 Mbit.
- “Ultra Wideband” (UWB), which I’ve learned is a Verizon marketing term that encompasses mmWave (basically only available in big sports stadiums) and C-Band (available in many 5G areas, does not increase coverage, but might sometimes increase speeds). My plan doesn’t have UWB at all, although it is available on a higher-priced Verizon-branded prepaid plan.

So, for a similar price, I guess it comes down to which of these things is more important to you. C-Band seems like it would be nice, but it’s not really solving any problem I currently have, and I’m reluctant to take the hit on personal hotspot speeds (which I use rarely, but when I need it, I really need it). So I guess I’m staying put for now. Verizon gets my money either way, of course; for them, it’s purely an exercise in market segmentation.

@dmd: Pretty sure that Verizon plan doesn't include taxes in that price. Also my Visible plan includes my Apple Watch at no additional cost. The limited hotspot hasn't bothered me much as I barely use it.

On almost any carrier, you can bypass the video streaming restriction by connecting to a VPN. Hotspot is difficult to bypass but Mint restricts video streaming and if I need to watch YouTube at a higher bit rate and I’m not on a WiFi network, a VPN cleans that right up.

Some providers are better than others for hotspot data, it often comes down to what carrier works best for you in your area.

I’ve been with Verizon for 15 years, but T-Mobile (which Mint uses) works just as well in my building and might even be faster. That said, Verizon is overall more reliable than T-Mobile across the various cities I visit.

I do a lot of international travel which is one reason I’ve stuck with my Verizon plan because it gives me a certain number of days a month that then roll over. I’m fine getting an eSIM for data overseas but don’t like to disconnect my number if I need to receive an SMS alert or important phone call, but some of the MVNOs have good international plans too (and historically this was an area T-Mobile was better at than the other two major carriers, although I don’t know if that is still the case).

For anyone who wants to go down this rabbit-hole, the no contract Subreddit is pretty good!

The international travel issue was the main problem I had with visible, but they have travel options now that they didn’t have previously that would solve it for me now.

Verizon just last week introduced their “Simplicity” plans, and I moved over from Fi. $30/mo for Verizon post-paid if you BYOD.

I used Visible for a few years and was happy, but wasn’t getting great signal everywhere around town. I recently switched to US Mobile with 2 networks and have been very happy. If signal is bad on one network, I switch to the other. I’m paying something like $35/mo and always have signal.

> But I’m (and most of us in this comment section) aren’t the target audience for prepaid plans anyway.

I think there's a marked cultural difference here in steam-powered and thrifty old Blighty. Here, postpaid (we usually just call them "contract") plans are much more widely spurned because SIM-only deals are very widely taken up for their price and flexibility, so you'll often only be on contract if you're also paying on a phone. There is still price-discriminated service, so PAYG is often not always the best option if you want all the features (watch, fastest data, roaming, added subs, etc) but they're almost always better value. If you do decide to take up a SIM-only contract plan, it's a good idea to either pay it all up-front, or stick with a monthly rolling contract, in which case you might see some saving, but as the major MVNOs are run by the networks they run on top of, it's usual to price-shop all the options. Just don't buy your phone through your carrier, would be my advice. We anticipate the day when our comms regulator ceases to worship at the idol of "competition", so that any of them are worth the price paid for them, anyway.

In case it's not clear, for an international ESIM (or a local ESIM bought in the target country), remember that you can still keep both lines active and only route your data through the travel ESIM. That's how you keep your local number running for texts and, if supported, Wi-Fi calling.

To bypass tethering caps and speed restrictions, which are usually based on the hopcount of the packets, simply run a SOCKS5 server on your iPhone under ISH or Pythonista, then tell your Mac to send traffic through that proxy on the tethering Wi-Fi or USB interface. For bonus points, and to get maximum connectivity from non-TCP or non-proxy-aware software, then instead of using the inadequate SOCKS support in macOS, use TUN2SOCKS (or a similar program) to intercept all TCP and UDP traffic from your Mac and route that through your iPhone. I successfully got the Cloudflare Warp client running in this way, though I suspect Apple's recent changes in Tahoe will have nerfed that, as they say you're no longer allowed to manipulate the routing table to implement a VPN. Which would be fscking stupid, if it turns out to be true.

Ting Mobile (from the tucows/Hover folks) also seems to be a Verizon MVNO now.

@gildarts: "Also my Visible plan includes my Apple Watch at no additional cost." I have that too but my intro deal is about to expire, causing my price to go up by $10;I noticed that my plan is grandfathered, and the current plans are cheaper but charge an extra $10/mo for the watch.

MVNOs are de-prioritized vs post-paid FYI

I highly recommend US Mobile. I'm on their cheapest "Light" plan: $10month for 1GB data (unlimited talk). If you prepay for a year, it's only $72! In the rare event I exceed 1GB, I can add an additional 2GB allotment to the current month for $4. Of course, they also have more expensive plans.

You can choose among Verizon, AT&T or T-Mobile as your carrier, and you can even switch among them with some restrictions.

My carrier thru US Mobile is Verizon, and my service reliability (in Silicon Valley) is 100% as good as my wife's genuine Verizon post-paid plan. No hint of Verizon imposing congestion limits on my account because of going thru US Mobile.

US Mobile's website can be confusing, and the Light plan in particular can be hard to find, but their customer service via telephone or chat is superb. No bots, and the support staff are knowledgable, not merely following a script. So I recommend contacting customer service if you don’t quickly find something on their website. (fwiw, US Mobile is based in Pakistan, and all their support staff are there.)

I have two lines on US Mobile and pay $18/month total (taxes and fees included). It's been completely reliable for 3 years now. Yes, that's for a relatively small amount of data (2Gb), but it's only $2/month for each extra gig...

Honestly, The way boom handled this was abysmal.

They’ve been obviously in dire straights for awhile but completely left everybody in the dark until people found out they had no service. Boom reps said they completely had no access whatsoever.

Massive FCC violation here. They are not going to restructure they are basically done.

I incorrectly wrote: "[Visible's] current plans are cheaper [than my grandfathered plan] but charge an extra $10/mo for the watch."

That's true of the lower two plans, but the highest end plan includes the watch.

I figure most people are probably gone by now

However, being curious it looks like management portal is gone now. Redirect to a cloudflare error.

The customer support team is taking too long to provide the PIN, which caused my number port to fail.

+2 on Visible.

Just switched to Visible from Boom Red a few months ago (before this "news" about Boom -glad I switched when I did - I went to Visible for the "unlimited" data). US Mobile was my 2nd choice.....

Visible+ has higher priority than most VZW MVNOs.

It’s only been a couple of weeks, but I’m curious to hear how US Mobile is working for you so far. My wife and I are thinking about moving away from AT&T after about 20 years in order to reduce our monthly costs and US Mobile is what we’re leaning toward at the moment.

@Mike It’s been great so far. It was easy to switch, the price is good, and it just works. It’s already faded into the background of my life, which is good, but it means I don’t have anything interesting to share.