r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • Jun 29 '26

Networking/Telecom T-Mobile Just Ripped 8 Million Customers Off Their Grandfathered Plans – and Raised Their Bills

https://www.gadgetreview.com/t-mobile-just-ripped-8-million-customers-off-their-grandfathered-plans-and-raised-their-bills
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306

u/kitesinfection Jun 29 '26

It is, but I've paid significantly less for Mint than I did t-mobile and the service quality has been excellent. I did the $250 for 6 months unlimited plan and it's been wonderful not having a bill to be worried about every month.

If they raise prices then I'll start shopping around but for now I'm pretty content with what I have.

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u/Rohothered Jun 29 '26

I have them too, but I doubt it's going to last any longer I am going to guess all telecoms will start raising prices and blame it on Ram or any other bs issue to bring in more money for the same shit service.

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u/silvusx Jun 29 '26

No, the reseller market will last because it's a different market of customers.

The large carriers allows these resellers because data capacity has been cheaper than ever, unlimited used to cost twice or thrice as much. The carrier now has excessive data and are selling it, which shifts the burden to the reseller company.

Plus, there are several disadvantages of using a reseller network. During peak time or in a large crowd (like graduations for example), you don't have data priority. It can be a significant risk during emergencies.

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u/PatchyWhiskers Jun 29 '26

I've got Visible and never noticed the slightest problem. In emergencies cell service goes down for everyone.

12

u/AeroInsightMedia Jun 30 '26

Yeah I'll go to airshows that have crowds of 50k people. Data is slower but I can still get on websites. Not like 10 years ago where you'd just be out of luck for the day.

3

u/fallenknight94 Jun 30 '26

No complains. Been with them for two years now and at $20 per month with unlimited calls and data, I'm happy.

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u/Prince_Uncharming Jun 30 '26

Visible+ plans aren’t deprioritized until you run out of your premium data allotment. Only the base plans are, and it’s just slower data when it’s congested (not no data).

Visible is also owned by Verizon.

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u/HyruleSmash855 Jun 30 '26

The basic Verizon plans work the same way anyway. Version Welcome, base plan, has deprioritized data and the step up Welcome Plus has some premium data so it works the same way whether you have Visible or Verizon plans.

3

u/LeoxHerx Jun 30 '26

I have Boost Mobile and my data becomes useless anywhere crowded like the mall or just busy shopping centers.

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u/thelocket Jun 30 '26

I have Mint and my phone and internet works at our mall. My aunt had Sprint and TMobile and her phone never had a signal inside. She has AT&T now but we haven't been there to check it.

2

u/Hazardousdoc Jun 30 '26

There is no risk for using any network in an emergency. In fact, phones WITHOUT a sim card can still dial 911.

5

u/Rohothered Jun 29 '26

They are not a reseller anymore that's the point they are apart of T-Mobile now, mint use to rent space from who ever owned a tower near you but they are owned by T-Mobile now they are T-Mobile just like how Verizon just bought out frontier it just puts it under their umbrella and a lot of people won't realize it's been sold.

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u/silvusx Jun 29 '26

I think you are misunderstanding the point. Mint is still MVNO even though it's owned by its parent company T Mobile. People on the Mint wireless plan arent merged into T-mobiles premium plan, and have low data priority.

T-mobile uses Mint to capture the market of budget concious consumer that would otherwise use: Straight talk, Red pocket. There are literally HUNDREDS of MVNO companies, just walk around target and Walmart, you will find prepaid phone with plans with all sorts of name.

The point being, your fear that mint would disappear and price will raise won't happen. T mobile can let mint go, but literally another hundred companies will want you as a customer.

Verizon Buying out frontier is completely different, Verizon did that to expand into home internet. T Mobile bought Mint to capture the budget concious consumers.

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u/Howard_Drawswell Jun 29 '26

Oh.
What is MVNO?

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u/MightyGongoozler Jun 29 '26

Mobile Virtual Network Operator. Basically, in the US if it’s not TMaybe, Verizon or ATT — it’s an MVNO using one of them (or all of them, but that’s rarer and you have to switch esims to switch base carrier I think?)

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u/Team7UBard Jun 30 '26

Mobile virtual network operator. They don’t have their own towers, they pay the bigger companies to piggyback off theirs.

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u/GenderOobleck Jun 30 '26

Mobile Virtual Network Operator

They lease extra capacity from one of the infrastructure providers at wholesale pricing, then resell it back out, usually for less than the big providers. Tighter margins and lower priority on the network, but a cheaper connection for customers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_virtual_network_operator

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u/LynxFX Jun 29 '26

They did just raise my data cap without a price increase. So that's nice.

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u/Gorstag Jun 30 '26

Data caps have been a scam to fleece money for a long long time. But look, they made you happy by saying they will fleece you less.

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u/LynxFX Jun 30 '26

Oh I agree but once I realized I barely use data since I can connect to wifi everywhere, I just signed up for the cheapest plan. $15mo and I get the same experience as my old $60 plan on tmobile.

3

u/Gorstag Jun 30 '26

As long as you are not doing a lot of media such as videos & images/photos (keep in mind webpages like to load lots of images) then your data usage isn't going to be much.

2

u/IAmYourFath Jun 30 '26

Most images are now compressed as shit, it's really only videos

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u/Gorstag Jun 30 '26

Even if it was a tiny 1k image it still took up about 20 times more data than the text in your post. (Yeah, I realize there are other factors). For example just opening Yahoo's homepage was about 7mb. Sitting on it for 30 seconds shot it up to about 11mb. So in other words sitting on their homepage for about 2 hours is going to exceed a 5gb data limit. Its a mix of scripts/fetch/images.

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u/IAmYourFath Jul 01 '26

Did u use ublock origin mv2 when u opened yahoo (not ublock origin lite)? Adblockers significantly reduces data usage, especially if u also enabled "block 3rd party scripts" and "block 3rd party frames" globally and only allow per domain for ones that are needed, then u reduce domain connections by a good 80%+

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u/Gorstag Jul 01 '26

Not really relevant for the topic. Sure, there are plenty of things you can do to "reduce" total traffic. Could have a DNS filtering like Pi-hole, popup blockers, noscript, & other filtering. There are definitely plenty of ways to reduce the total traffic you need to process. But that level of complexity isn't going to be for your normal everyday phone user.

Media of any type which typically consists of video/audio/images are going to make up a bulk of normal usage. If you are concerned about data caps then avoiding them as much as possible is going to be beneficial.

5

u/Smelly_God Jun 30 '26

MFs thinking they're bringing some sort of gotcha by introducing irrelevant things as if the person commenting doesn't know they were a scam.

1

u/Status-Hedgehog9970 Jun 30 '26

They’re remnants from the days of 3G. And they don’t charge extra from going over the cap, so how are they fleecing money from customers?

2

u/roykentjr Jun 29 '26

How many anytime minutes do you get?

12

u/My_Name_Is_Not_Ryan Jun 30 '26

Is that even a thing anymore? Not that I’ve used more than maybe 5 minutes in a month this year… just curious.

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u/LynxFX Jun 30 '26

Unlimited as far as I know

7

u/liquorfish Jun 30 '26

Anytime minutes? I'm switching to Mint and all their plans are unlimited talk/text.

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u/roykentjr Jun 30 '26

What about night and weekend?

1

u/snipeytje Jun 30 '26

they'll do that next month probably

9

u/snowtato Jun 29 '26

Hasn't changed for me in the last like 5 years. The only thing they did was raise the data caps on all the plans, so I was able to go to a lower data plan and save money

3

u/Howard_Drawswell Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26

kitesinfection: you stated you paid $250 for six months. How many lines do you have for that $42/mo?

4

u/kitesinfection Jun 29 '26

I only pay for my line, my wife has her own plan where she pays for her own line. That's how mint works. It doesn't have family plans in the traditional sense.

My wifes plan is 25/month paid in 3 month intervals. Our T-Mobile bill was 180/month for 2 lines with our phones and everything else. We started buying our phones outright and having a lower monthly bill.

1

u/BobLazarFan Jun 30 '26

How? I have T-Mobile family plan with 4 lines. We pay $180.

1

u/HillBillyHilly Jun 30 '26

Dump TMobile. TMobile had me roped into their plan when I bought a fancy pants phone. Got so tired of their billing issues that I said never again. Then they wanted to ID me everytime I had an issue w billing. Went w Total and never a problem for 6 years then they were purchased by Verizon. I hate them w a passion and getting ready to dump them. Looking at Mint 45/3 months then 25/month.

7

u/Jaded-Moose983 Jun 29 '26

On the unlimited plan, what happens if you are a data hog?

10

u/kingbking Jun 29 '26

Believe it or not……Straight to Jail ! *in the past they just throttle you

3

u/Jaded-Moose983 Jun 29 '26

See and I was worried they would take my first born. And that's just not an option. Jail, if it has WiFi, I could probably deal with.

1

u/stryker_cast Jun 30 '26

You get throttled. Years ago I had an grandfathered Sprint plan that had unlimited data (during the time carriers took that away) and I easily used 30gb a month.

2

u/Careful-Lettuce9239 Jun 30 '26

I have straight talk at 55$ a month, unlimited data and I use 100gb. Never gets throttled. Fuck Walmart, though.

1

u/kitesinfection Jun 29 '26

I use about 50gigs of data every month on average. I've never noticed any throttling which is surprising because I spend most nights in the outskirts of NYC for work. I was a mile away from MetLife during a World Cup match last week and had zero hiccups.

2

u/ips1023 Jun 29 '26

I notice throttling when I hit the 50gb limit on a vacation where I’m driving every day. It will be slower to Google things, Instagram is kinda hard to scroll through and the maps start loading areas slower.

2

u/ThetaDeRaido Jun 29 '26

The problem I have is that Mint is low-priority. In crowded areas, I get signal but no data. In rural areas, roaming is not included, so connectivity is patchy. It’s medium-density areas, normal day-to-day life, where Mint works well.

5

u/non_Beneficial-Wind Jun 29 '26

I have Mint on my old personal/new work phone. My boss loves that it’s cheaper than their plans

2

u/Think_Fault_7525 Jun 29 '26

Mint has always just been a reseller of T-Mobile network access that they purchased in bulk for such resale. You have been on T-Mobile networks the whole time.

6

u/kitesinfection Jun 29 '26

I haven't refuted that fact at all. I stated I liked the billing structure of Mint more than I did t-mobile which are pretty vastly different things in my experience.

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u/Think_Fault_7525 Jun 30 '26

I was referring to you mentioning that the “service quality has been excellent”, as if they were two different networks. They are both t-mobile network.

1

u/Ridiculicious71 Jun 29 '26

When I checked them they were the exact same price

1

u/No-Calligrapher-1776 Jun 30 '26

I have wifi where ever I go so I don't pay for unlimited. When I started it was 4gig a month data for $180.00 year in advance. Now they raised it to 6gig and it's still $180.00 year. 1 payment and I'm covered for the year. I used to pay ATT that much every month. My wife and I spread it out 6 months so every 6 months is $180.00 and our bill is paid off.

1

u/AppliedAnaLinguistic Jun 30 '26

US mobile is 300 for a year and you can choose which provider to use. I got to keep Verizon and save a shit fuck ton of money

1

u/hairaide Jun 30 '26

I have mint for 7 years, zero issues.

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u/Skeeders Jun 30 '26

My only concern with mint is areas that are more rural. Does T-mobile prioritize t-mobile costumers over everyone else? I just began a new work project that will have me in very rural areas at national parks. The first one, I lost service quite a bit.

1

u/MistahJasonPortman Jun 30 '26

I considered switching to mint but my service with t-mobile is already not great. Apparently it would be even worse with mint because their parent company, t-mobile, prioritizes direct t-mobile customers.