I recently received an email about Boost. They’re offering $25 per month for new customers for as long as you maintain active service, with unlimited talk and text and 5G Data, with no activation fees. Data speeds are reduced after a 30GB monthly allotment is exceeded, but I’m nowhere near this neighborhood of usage. It’s my understanding that Boost uses T-Mobile’s network. I presently have T-Mobile, but pay well over $25 per month. What would I be losing if I switched to Boost?
If you don’t use lots of data/texts, look at Tello (on T Mobile network).
Tello allows you to select how many minutes and GB you want. (unlimited texts, but you need GB data for MMS/group messaging to work).
I have my spare ‘emergency’ phone on Tello with a minimal plan of 100 minutes and 500 MB, which costs me $6/month.
It renews every month, but if you renew early (manually online), the unused minutes/GB can roll over. That changes the next renewal date, but it’s nice to have the unused talk/data accumulate.
Also, if I ever need my spare phone for more use, I can just change my plan.
If you change in the middle of your billing period, you don’t get a credit or rebate— it just changes your plan at that point, so technically you lose the balance of what you paid. But to me, it’s worth it for the flexibility in choosing what you need. Also, if you change your plan, you lose the roll overs.
They don’t have a store, but the online CS help/email/chat has been good when I’ve had a question. The phone/SIM/account was easy to set up. I only occasionally use the phone, but it’s been fine so far. I appreciate having an inexpensive plan for my spare ‘emergency’ phone.
My main phone is on Republic Wireless, which got bought by Dish (which also owns Boost and Ting). When I changed from the old plan to the new Republic Wireless plan, there were many problems and the Dish customer service people were limited on what they could do (they were nice, I just think they aren’t given much information/training from Dish). I wouldn’t recommend starting with Republic now w/ Dish. But maybe Boost is better? Maybe Dish invests more in Boost? I see they have stores and I maybe they’re in Target, too? Ting was always good (I had them years ago), but I don’t know if Dish owning them has changed things.
My 4 cents…
I switched my wife to the $25 Boost Infinite Unlimited 30GB plan. You’ll be on the exact same network as any T-Mo customer. The only thing you give up is that in the unlikely event that the network should become suddenly saturated with so many calls that the network can handle it, your calls would temporarily become second priority on the network, until network call traffic becomes less saturated. But, this would be a rare event. All networks have load balancing schemes in place to prevent over saturation on any part of their network. In my view, the savings are definitely worth the very low likelihood that your calls would temporarily be a reduce priority on the T-Mo network. I am a low data user, or I would be on the plan, too.