Does the USA have any open market cellular options that are legitimate pay-as-you-go and only for what you use options like Europe yet?

I've lived under a rock for 10 years. I did Metro ages ago while most were still on contracts. Surely we've reached true capitalist open market freedom by now. Is it still total closed market, noncompetitive, privateering corruption?

Raiderkev ,

Google Fi is similar, but I'm sure they are using it to farm the fuck out of your data.

trolololol ,

What's the alternative, pay so they farm the fuck out of your data? Do you think big carriers don't do that?

basilisa ,
@basilisa@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Check out JMP chat. It's an MVNO out of Canada but for $4.99 (US dollars) you get unlimited texts and i believe 120 mins of call time per month (800 numbers are free if you need to call your bank etc). You can pay with debit/credit/cash (literally you can mail them cash or a check) and of course crypto.

TAG ,
@TAG@lemmy.world avatar

The US has had prepaid plans for ages. The first phone I got, back in 2006 or 2007 was like that. If I recall correctly, it was 25¢/minute to call and 10¢/text. If I bought a $25 balance card, the credit would expire after 90 days instead of the usual 30 (plus unused balance would roll over, as long as I had unexpired money in my account.

thisbenzingring ,

Ting

I've used it for years. I'm never changing.

makyo ,

Do you know if you can pause your service? I'm overseas for months at a time but like to be able to preserve my phone number.

thisbenzingring ,

IDK, I haven't had a need to do that. But it's a pay for what you use type of bill. Their support is real people, last time I used it was very pleasant. They might have something in their FAQ.

makyo ,

Sure would be nice to have real support compared to the garbage service I have right now.

LodeMike ,

Mobilex

Mountain_Mike_420 ,

I’m on tello mobile and pay $5 after taxes. It bills PayPal too for easy payments. Very happy with the service. Can use an app to change my plan or add more data or minutes at any time. I can also do tethering and other things that some services charge extra for.

patchexempt ,

I think Google Fi works like you describe.

Chozo ,
@Chozo@fedia.io avatar

I am on Fi and can confirm that this is how my plan works. I pay a standard rate per GB of data used, up to a cap where I will not be charged any more for the cycle.

solrize ,

There's Ting but it ends up costing more. I just use a cheap mvno and am pretty happy.

toiletobserver ,

As a non heavy data user, ting works great for me, and is still cheap.

HobbitFoot ,

Yeah. It gets to whether you are a heavy data user or not. I use data a lot, so it makes sense for me to get an unlimited plan. I know others don't, so it makes more sense for them to use pay as you go.

robolemmy ,
@robolemmy@lemmy.world avatar

You can sorta get close with MVNOs like Tello. I have a plan that’s $6.16/month, including taxes.

Bocky ,

Yep I’ve got my kids lines on Tello, very easy, no bs.

user224 ,
@user224@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

The unlimited data plan offers 35GB at full 4G LTE/5G speed with 5GB of hotspot included. Data speed is reduced after 35GB.

Wow. Truly unlimited. And how much does it get reduced?

Let's check ToS.

Your data speed will be reduced to lower speeds once you have used 35 GB of data in a billing period.

Uh, huh. Very precise information.
Also...

New and existing customers on qualifying plans including data have streaming video optimization technology automatically applied to our plans, and video is delivered at a lower resolution (typically 480p) rather than at a higher resolution which is better suited for larger screens. This helps customers stretch their Data Plans by reducing the amount of high-speed data consumed for streaming video.

What, how? How does that work?

Anyway, I am probably spoiled by Swan (4ka) in Slovakia.
It is the 4th carrier, weakening oligopoly of T-Mobile, O2 and Orange since 2015.
I have their unlimited data plan, which is 300GB, not 35GB, nor 5GB on hotspot. Of that I used 220GB so far in this month (usually I do around 100GB though). €13/month for me, €15 for new customers.
I am not even sure if limiting hotspot usage could be a thing in Europe. It sounds stupid enough.

Hugh_Jeggs ,

Limited hotspot usage was definitely a thing in Europe

Twenty years ago 😂

j4k3 OP ,
@j4k3@lemmy.world avatar

I have a limited understanding of how the video thing works. I think there is a black box installed locally at most ISP connection points. These are from the major streaming services like Google/YouTube and they sit inline with all if the traffic I/O. From what I recall seeing on reddit (not a primary citation worthy memory or source), people that worked on said ISP infrastructure had no idea what the black boxes actually do in full scope, but empirically, they cache the most active streaming content locally.

Speculatively, this was one of the big reasons YT changed so much in 2017 where they started focusing on promoting fewer prominent creators over an egalitarian community. They needed to promote a narrower scope that could be effectively cached. You can usually see this behavior by watching old and obscure content. It takes longer to load, change resolutions, etc., whereas on newer stuff that is popular, the content is nearly instantaneous.

Nemo ,

We had that twenty years ago, it just wasn't a very good deal. Nobody wants to pay 2¢ per text.

KoboldCoterie , (edited )
@KoboldCoterie@pawb.social avatar

It was easier before every random website wanted to send you a text with an OTP just to log in and order a pizza or whatever.

That said, if it was $10 / mo for unlimited, or $0.02 per text, I'd take the per-text charge. I don't use texts much and I'd probably save $8 / mo or more.

j4k3 OP ,
@j4k3@lemmy.world avatar

It should be more like $2 per gigabyte and everything streamlined as only data. Signal is a better service than any of the service providers offer anyways.

EinfachUnersetzlich ,

Wait, you pay to receive texts?

KoboldCoterie ,
@KoboldCoterie@pawb.social avatar

Do you not? I really don't know, I don't use texts much and we've had unlimited texts for like, 15+ years. I always see 'normal carrier fees apply' on OTP notifications, so I just assumed they counted against limited plans.

Dasus ,

Finn here. For us, receiving SMS has never cost anything. Downloading MMS, that used to cost, but no-one uses those.

Sending an SMS could be as expensive as 20c when I was a kid. And an SMS is 160 characters. So if you wrote a long one it'd send it as three.

Then when I was about 12-13 there started being unlimited texting packages, which advertised as unlimited but after giving kids access to the service for a few months, limits were soon imposed to like a 1000 sms a month.

acetanilide ,

I can't imagine being a teenager with only 1000 sms a month. I think at one point i was sending hundreds of texts per day

Zak ,
@Zak@lemmy.world avatar

People in Europe switched to internet based messaging (mostly WhatsApp) as soon as smartphones got popular enough.

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