These days, Xfinity offers better support for bringing your own device beyond just the iPhone; recent Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel devices are supported, too, if you already own those phones. Sascha Segan, Fastest Mobile Networks 2020, PCMag, September 9, 2020, Ben Gottesman, Readers Choice Awards 2020: Smartphones, Carriers, and Mobile Operating Systems, PCMag, March 24, 2020, Sue Marek, USA Mobile Network Experience Report January 2020, Opensignal, December 31, 2020, Ian Fogg, USA 5G User Experience Report June 2020, Opensignal, June 30, 2020, Sue Marek, USA Mobile Network Experience Report July 2020, Opensignal, July 13, 2020, Dave Andersen, Review of the US Mobile Landscape 1H 2019: carrier performance at national, state, and metro levels, RootMetrics, July 15, 2019, Dave Andersen, US State of the Mobile Union: carrier performance at national, state, and metro levels 2H 2019, RootMetrics, January 27, 2020, Wireless Carrier Investments in Self-Service Tools Drive Satisfaction and Revenue in Customer Care, J.D. But this comparison tool requires careful reading: Like Google searches, it shows sponsored results before organic ones. C-band has been in the news because of concerns over possible interference with radio altimeters on aircraft, but Verizon customers and reviewers have been reporting that its already making a real difference on the ground, with download speeds exceeding 400 Mbps. Read our buying guide to learn more before you shop. Information current as of March 21, 2022. You also have to keep Comcasts Xfinity internet, TV, or voice service, otherwise youll owe another $25 per line. Visible Plus adds other perks like international calling to more than 30 countries, data roaming when traveling in Mexico and Canada and access to Verizon's Ultra Wideband 5G network. They offer some serious bargains but also require you to use that cable firms broadband to get the advertised pricing. The best plan, Unlimited Plus, costs $65 a month and features the ability to use your data overseas in more than 200 countries at no extra cost, making it one of the best international phone plans. Best cell phone plans and providers Visible's $45 Unlimited Plan : Best coverage Xfinity Mobile's $45 Unlimited Plan : Best bundle Mint Mobile : Best budget unlimited data plan US Mobile : Best family plan T-Mobile's Magenta MAX : Best overall performance US Mobile : Best plan under $20 The best cell phone deals right now You can also find reports tailored to specific metropolitan areas. All three offer services directly and have robust nationwide networks that offer 4G LTE (fast) and 5G (really fast) data. But its rates no longer beat those at competing postpaid services. We conduct this undercover testing both over the phone and through social media support accounts on Twitter and Facebook. AT&Ts Unlimited Elite offers the same priority data, as well as mobile hotspot and streaming video provisions, but its $85 rate doesnt include the taxes and fees wrapped into T-Mobiles $85 rate. Best Prepaid Carrier: Mint Mobile. PCMag takes a similar approach but focuses more specifically on network data speed and reliability. Not Yet . Mint Mobile - Best carrier on a budget (opens in new tab) Mint Mobile offers some of the lowest rates around, provided you're willing to pay for coverage up front. AT&T also has some pretty attractive prepaid options, including a deal that gives you a hefty 16GB of data each month when you prepay for a year of service in advance. But at least you can save $20 on one month of service if you refer new customers to Visible. If you don't mind paying a little more on your monthly bill, Verizon provides the performance and service to rank as the best phone carrier overall. With 4G and 5G speeds combined, T-Mobiles lead held up by a slightly narrower margin: 90.65 Mbps, compared with 49.25 Mbps and 44.67 Mbps at AT&T and Verizon. Their performance is outstanding and they have tons of phones to choose from. Coverage at Verizon and AT&T remains more comprehensive than T-Mobilesas I saw on country roads in the Southeast while doing drive testing for PCMagbut the past few years of improvement in T-Mobiles network means youll have to get into fairly rural areas to notice this difference. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. But dig beneath the surface, and there's a lot more to this phone carrier. Also, see if that service offers unmetered slow 2G service once you exhaust your high-speed data so your phone will still have basic (read: slower) internet access and you wont get charged extra for going over your cap. Below, you'll see a round-up of the most recent data from each third-party testing firm, with the median download speed recorded for each of the three major carriers. For subscribers on its cheaper, limited-data plans, AT&T also offers business and academic discounts, plus a unique 15% discount for union members. For example, the OnePlus Nord N200 5G, our pick for the best budget Android phone, is a 4G-only phone at Verizon. Buying your phone on AT&Ts installment plan brings an extra risk: Until youve paid off the phone, the device will be locked and stuck with international-roaming charges of $10 a day in most countriesand unavailable to use with a different service if you want to leave AT&T early. Still, if you can swing the higher cost, Verizon's regular unlimited plans offer a great deal of value. Speaking of devices, Mint sells both iPhones and Android handsets, at a wide range of prices. There may not be one carrier or plan we can recommend for everyone, but we have recommendations for some of the most common needs, and advice for anyone with more unusual requirements too. Best unlimited plan for seniors - T-Mobile 3. A wireless networks quality isnt something you can assess in a single-letter grade: Coverage and performance usually vary considerably by location. That doesn't change the fact that T-Mobile offers a great mix of data plans, coverage and perks. Metro customers with 5G-capable phones can enjoy T-Mobile's 5G coverage, which now stretches coast to coast. Of that total, 265 million can access its faster Ultra Capacity 5G service; T-Mobile says it's targeting 300 million at some point this year. Above that cap, T-Mobile advertises 3G speeds, a seemingly generous fallback option that we had complimented as suchbut a broadband-disclosures page reveals that you get just 600 kbps, which is functionally no better than the 2G-level speeds that AT&T and Verizon allow above their own hotspot caps. In the US there are three major networks: AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon. Opensignals crowdsourced test results for T-Mobile, released in January 2022, give this provider a commanding lead among the big three for both download and upload speeds. Nor did we factor in the promotions that wireless services throw out for each new iPhone. And PCMags Fastest Mobile Networks 2021 drive testing showed AT&T and Verizon tied for network availability at 97%. Best unlimited. Our network performance testing looks at download speeds in select cities, and third-party testing can give you an idea of how networks perform on average. SKU: 6163893. 230 million people (nationwide); 175 million (Ultra Wideband), $25/month 16GB plan (12 months in advance), 5 robot vacuum deals from $113 to make spring cleaning easier, YouTube TV is getting a price hike heres how much more youll pay, This Twitter scam is targeting angry banking customers what you need to know, Microsoft announces 365 Copilot this AI could revolutionize how you work, How to get a better night's sleep at any age: sleep expert shares their tips, The best tech tutorials and in-depth reviews, Try a single issue or save on a subscription, Issues delivered straight to your door or device. A shrinking number of prepaid and resold services offer cheaper rates if youre willing to stay within certain limits. Equally bogus: AT&T labeling its fastest flavor of 4G LTE as 5G E on phone screens, a marketing stunt that only confused customers into thinking they have actual 5G. And Opensignals 5G-specific tests, also released in January, show an even bigger advantage for T-Mobile: average 5G download speeds of 150 Mbps, far above the 56.2 Mbps and 49.1 Mbps download averages at Verizon and AT&T. He's been covering personal technology since 1999 and was in the building when Steve Jobs showed off the iPhone for the first time. The perks T-Mobile customers receive continue to set this service apart from rivals. But wherever you live, taxes and fees should hit you equally across all of your optionsexcept for T-Mobiles Magenta plan and the offerings at Boost and Visible, all of which include taxes in their advertised prices. Its coverage mapwhich, unlike its network scores, also folds in crowd-based estimates from users of its mobile appsencompasses basically every major US city street and highway, as well as all of the towns and thoroughfares that connect them. We also assumed that most people wont use up more than 3 GB of data a month with this feature, as it can put a real dent in a phones battery, but we do have an intensive scenario that assumes up to 10 GB a month in smartphone use. If your usage doesnt fall into our specific categories and you sometimes think in spreadsheets, you can do your own calculations using WhistleOuts carrier-comparison tool. And this mid-band 5G, which T-Mobile markets as Ultra Capacity 5G, also provides much speedier service than the low-band 5G that fills out its network and constitutes the most widely available form of 5G among its competitors. Thats double the allotment of comparable plans at AT&T and Verizon, which cost $5 and $10 more before the taxes and fees. PCMag also conducts its tests with the same model of high-end phonethis year, the Samsung Galaxy S21that may support more high-speed frequencies than your own. (Two lines of Magenta cost $60 each, and four run $35 each.) As new iPhone and Galaxy models approach, here's what you'll want to know.. Consumer Cellular offers tailored cell phone plans for seniors that start as low as $15 a month. Its TravelPass costs a reasonable $5 a day in Canada and Mexico for you to use voice, text, and data drawn from your domestic allowance, and a less reasonable $10 a day in much of the rest of the world. It also includes far more services than we cover here and shows not just plans with the required amount of data, minutes, and texts, but also those that exceed your needs, producing a cluttered presentation overall. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Mint Mobile is our top pick for best value cheap cell phone plans . The Best Phone Deals This Week* Samsung Galaxy S23 256GB Phone With $50 Gift Card $859.99 (List Price $909.99) Google Pixel 7 5G 256GB Unlocked Phone (Obsidian) $599.00 (List Price $699) Moto. 3. But AT&T also levies a $2 administrative fee that is such an obvious example of a junk fee that it has drawn a class-action lawsuit. Among its plans for unlimited on-phone data, AT&Ts $75 Unlimited Extra offers the best value, with 50 GB of priority data, 15 GB of hotspot use, and SD video for $5 less than Verizons Play More and Do More unlimited rates. Last, we cut prepaid services that required separate purchases of data, texts, or voice minutes to meet any of our monthly usage quotas. If data is your priorityin the sense of having a fast network connection and being able to use that to download and upload in volumeyou should consider the T-Mobile Magenta plan. The biggest prepaid brand in America and the corporate parent of Straight Talkand now a Verizon propertyTracFone has historically required smartphone customers to patch together a service bundle by buying separate buckets of data, voice, and text. If youre looking to save money on smartphone service by getting resold service from your cable operator but are also considering dropping your cable operators broadband, understand that these wireless plans are best understood as a customer-retention tool. The nipping is over . And you face the risk of seeing your bandwidth deprioritized behind that of T-Mobile subscribers, especially when the network is busy. Most importantly, it offers US-based phone support and step-by-step manuals and video tutorials for the non-tech savvy, maintains an in-store presence in major retailers such as Target, and offers installment-plan phone purchase options with roughly the same terms as the majors provide. The mid-band spectrum that T-Mobile picked up when it bought Sprint has allowed it to deploy impressively fast 5G with much better coverage than you can get from the faster but far more fragile millimeter-wave 5G of AT&T and Verizon and even the C-band 5G that those two rivals now offer. Price alone should get your attention: Magenta costs $70 a month for unlimited on-phone data, with 100 GB of it prioritized. But here's how the rest of the Big 4 national carriers stack up, according to the latest OpenSignal report: T-Mobile ties with Verizon for fastest speed, but suffers in coverage; AT&T gives both Verizon and T-Mobile a run for it when it comes to actual nationwide availability and comes close behind T-Mobile for speed; And Sprint brings up the . T-Mobiles plans to acquire prepaid provider Mint Mobile, Best for the most data: T-Mobile Magenta/Magenta Max, Multiple-line plans: Metro or Consumer Cellular, How to determine which network has the best coverage for you. 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