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Your phone determines what towers to connect base on the BANDS they have installed or licence agreement. You cant expect a 20 dollar phone have the same bands as a 200 dollar phone.
This isn't true. With the exception of some older devices, phones on a carrier have similar band lineups now. For example, see https://www.t-mobile.com/optional-se...hones-700.html . Every phone in the Tmobile lineup has band 12, which is the newest band that TMobile uses.
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Most and if not all Prepaid services will throttle your speed to 5mb> vs 20MB+ on post paid.
Not at all. Only Cricket and GoPhone do this on ATT. Only the America Movil brands (TracPhone/Net10/Page Plus/Straight Talk) do it on Verizon. All other prepaid services are unthrottled until you hit your data limit.
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ATT and verizon Roam off each other alot.
No, they use two incompatible technologies and do not roam off of each other. Sprint and Verizon will sometimes roam off of each other. Tmobile and ATT will too, but never Verizon and ATT.
[quote=Sparkplugnw;45450432]prepaid sucks, the phones are crap, the signal strength is weak and if there are some towers in your area, the pre paid only is connected to about half of them. /QUOTE]
AFAIK the only differences between prepaid and postpaid is that sometimes data speeds are throttled (slightly) on prepaid and roaming may not be as good..
Your theory about prepaid only being connected to some towers seems to have erupted from your own fertile imagination.
agrees with paco
when i was on att go phone that uses the att native network. i had the same service that a post paid customer has. with the exception that my internet speeds sucked ass i couldn't even get 1 mbps dl.and t-mobiles giving me 270 mbps dl and 35 mbps ul but other than that why did i leave att. well there internet speeds sucked for me they tried screwing me out of 135.00 for directv now a service that never worked since day one. i'm saving 9.00 a month in commieforina taxes by switching to t-mobile
Yea, that doesn't even make sense. From a technical standpoint, I would love to know how the towers or the data know you are on a prepaid plan
Technically it doesn't know or does it care you are on a pre or post paid plan. Signal towers are repeaters they don't discriminate as long as you can connect at the Freq channel. The only way carriers can differentiate is by checking Sim card acct then what type of plan you are on and manage your connection while on the network.
When you are using data, post paid plans are put on proxies that are shared with other post paid customers while prepaid customers are put on proxies that have much more availability and resources.
So in essence a prepaid and postpaid customer doesn't have that much differences until you hit a busy time when prepaid folks in a busy area will experience congestion as the area could be maxed out. Post-paid customers are provided much more resources by the carrier, not always true but generally.
For voice calls, I don't think there's any difference any more other than the device and area signal tower distance.
This isn't true. With the exception of some older devices, phones on a carrier have similar band lineups now. For example, see https://www.t-mobile.com/optional-se...hones-700.html . Every phone in the Tmobile lineup has band 12, which is the newest band that TMobile uses.
Not at all. Only Cricket and GoPhone do this on ATT. Only the America Movil brands (TracPhone/Net10/Page Plus/Straight Talk) do it on Verizon. All other prepaid services are unthrottled until you hit your data limit.
No, they use two incompatible technologies and do not roam off of each other. Sprint and Verizon will sometimes roam off of each other. Tmobile and ATT will too, but never Verizon and ATT.
band 12 is the newest band and if im not mistaking phones made after 2015-2016 are able to connect to band 12 for the 700. Verizon has a 700 band as well.. only downside is LTE is limited to the phone bands that are turn on. It will work, just not get LTE.
When i say throttle, the speed itself is throttle.
Cricket is 8mb
Total Wireless is now selling 4G LTE phones and offering 4G LTE data. ... There is one downside to the joining any Verizon MVNO and that is that LTE data speeds are limited to 5 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload. Pretty much every verizon MVNO is limited to the same speeds as total wireless.
prepaid sucks, the phones are crap, the signal strength is weak and if there are some towers in your area, the pre paid only is connected to about half of them. people think they are getting a deal, but there is a price, and its weak signal and stripped phones.
but what has been your experience with pre paid carriers \phones?
Never had any problems.
I've tried Cricket, StraightTalk, TextNow and AT&T Prepaid.
TextNow is interesting if you have no other recourse and you can only afford to pay like $10 a month for your service. But I would not recommend it to anyone that can actually afford a regular phone bill.
StraightTalk is better than they used to be. There were really shady when I dealt with them back in 2008. But they're far better now. Never had any problems getting a signal with them though.
Cricket is okay since it is AT&T but the data speeds are slower than AT&T Prepaid. I like fast data speeds, so I left Cricket alone. I know you'll rarely feel the difference between the two but I was able to feel the difference when I was multitasking and downloading, caching, uploading, more than one thing at a time. So I went back to AT&T Prepaid, even though Cricket was getting features like a discount on Deezer, WiFi calling, and HD calling, at the time.
I'm sticking with AT&T Prepaid. They finally have WiFi calling and it is rare that I do not have a signal. Although WiFi calling has been known to drop calls when switching between WiFi and cellular. It works for me.
If I ever needed to go to Verizon I would use their prepaid service as well.
OP, if you want an actual relationship with the phone company and are paying off the phone over time post paid is the best way to go. If you're paying upfront for your phone and just want data prepaid is the way to go. For expensive phones requiring insurance I would probably go post paid. For disposable phones you'll throw away as soon as you stop getting updates I would go prepaid.
I've had a LG for a while now and I am still getting OS updates, and security updates. I'll stick with this phone until it no longer holds a charge and get another LG. The phone was $35 out the door.
I've been using Tracfone for over a decade; never had issues.
If you're a light user it doesn't make sense to sign up for post paid (AKA a monthly plan) at the higher cost. I don't browse the web on my phone, don't text and may use an hour or two of calling every month.
Others with higher use may be better served with post paid. There is a reason Tracfone and Straight talk are still around.
I'm not that technologically knowledgable. Is prepaid the same as pay-as-you-go?
I'm a Tracfone user for the last 4-5 yrs & I want a new phone badly! I might as well not even have a phone the way it works. I can't mk calls 1/2 of the time, can't get online whe I want, etc. yet I see other people happily yakking away when they're out & about. I very rarely talk & text, but want to go online sometimes to use some apps. I seem to be having to buy something every month too lately, which I don't like. So what's the best PAY-AS-YOU-GO plan for people like me? I don't have to keep TracFone, just as long as I keep my same phone#.
I'd love to have a plan that will let you buy X amount of minutes/text/data & let you use them down as slowly as you want...then I just buy again. Is there anything like that?
I don't really need a new phone every year. Mine now is 4-5 yrs old, so I DO want a new phone soon this time around, but every few yrs of a new phone is fine w/ me & I don't need all the whistles & bells. I'd like the Moto g7 w/ the Pie operating system this time. Any pay-as-you-go plans sell that phone?
I'm not that technologically knowledgable. Is prepaid the same as pay-as-you-go?
They are similar but not the same. With both, you are paying before you use the service. With prepaid (offered by one of the Big 4 carriers) the plans are monthly and you pay in advance for the next month's service. With pay as you go, you still pay in advance but the plans could be monthly, multiple months, yearly, and you may be able to buy service days, minutes, texts, or data to top up each bucket separately.
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Originally Posted by Forever Blue
I'm a Tracfone user for the last 4-5 yrs & I want a new phone badly! I might as well not even have a phone the way it works. I can't mk calls 1/2 of the time, can't get online whe I want, etc. yet I see other people happily yakking away when they're out & about. I very rarely talk & text, but want to go online sometimes to use some apps. I seem to be having to buy something every month too lately, which I don't like. So what's the best PAY-AS-YOU-GO plan for people like me? I don't have to keep TracFone, just as long as I keep my same phone#.
You say you can't make calls half the time — why not? Do you not get signal bars? If not, you might need to switch networks (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile) within Tracfone. Maybe ask your friends or family that get good reception what network they are using.
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Originally Posted by Forever Blue
I'd love to have a plan that will let you buy X amount of minutes/text/data & let you use them down as slowly as you want...then I just buy again. Is there anything like that?
I think most companies put a time limit on their service.
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Originally Posted by Forever Blue
I don't really need a new phone every year. Mine now is 4-5 yrs old, so I DO want a new phone soon this time around, but every few yrs of a new phone is fine w/ me & I don't need all the whistles & bells. I'd like the Moto g7 w/ the Pie operating system this time. Any pay-as-you-go plans sell that phone?
Tracfone right now is selling the Moto G6 on hsn and qvc with 1500 min/txt/data and 1 year of service days for $130. So the first year would cost you $130. Then the second year, if all you needed were service days, you could buy 1 year for $50. If you needed min/txt/data, you could buy them separately or buy an airtime card that has service days plus min/txt/data. The exact amount depends on how much you use up (this is the Pay-As-You-Go part). Repeat for years 3 and 4. Then buy a new phone bundled with airtime again, and start over.
Or if you really want the Moto G7, buy it outright (new or used) then transfer your Tracfone service to it.
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.and t-mobiles giving me 270 mbps dl and 35 mbps ul but other than that why did i leave att. well there internet speeds sucked for me they tried screwing me out of 135.00 for directv now a service that never worked since day one. i'm saving 9.00 a month in commieforina taxes by switching to t-mobile
I very rarely talk & text, but want to go online sometimes to use some apps. I seem to be having to buy something every month too lately, which I don't like. So what's the best PAY-AS-YOU-GO plan for people like me? I don't have to keep TracFone, just as long as I keep my same phone#.
