Cellular Service - monthly no contract getting much better

[Dougcjohn]

Entering the age category of 6 decades a few years back, got me noticing those late night advertisements for “old fart” per month cell phone services. Several years back, they were basically worthless, limited or spotty. Recently, I’ve been impressed and worth a closer examination.
One in particular, PagePlus is using Verizon towers and 4G LTE at a price of about half of primary carriers. The main drawback is roaming if no VzW service. In my area, that’s not really a major problem... but if used, roaming is .20 min.

With household only being Wife & myself, paying a large cell Bill was getting irritating. With most phones now containing both GSM & CMDA antennas, you can bring your own phone too and they offer free number porting to retain old number.

I picked up a SIM card kit for PagePlus... you can activate the card with new number, and freely swap your sims while testing the service. I’m only in 1st day, but data speed is basically the same as VzW sim... my avg is 20-22meg.

For $30, 3GB data, unlimited voice & text, for $40, 8GB data, unlimited voice & text, $55 unlimited all (60gb before Throttle)
My Wife’s iPhone on $30, my Note8 on $40... total $70 in place of $140 for essentially the same service.

Might be an option to consider...

*** Edit - Update***
The service is based on VzW CMDA service towers. I have noticed a few times in different parts of town (while I drive my Wife around for her Errands) there a are few times the iPhone on VzW performed and the Note8 on PagePlus had much lower performance & speed. Some areas of town have more GSM VzW towers, I'm assuming.

*** edit 2***
I may have misspoke, it may be the towers are being learned. The poor area greatly improved and gained all signal bars over time.

 

[Dougcjohn]

On a similar line.... If anyone uses the older Samsung S8 or Note 8 series (or 9 series) pondering an upgrade to 10 series. The new Pie UI1 firmware was recently released bringing the 8 series up to current 10 series firmware and features.

The Note 8 just got the update yesterday and performed last night without a hitch... and I was running the Nova shell and it still upgraded clean. Actually best FW phone upgrade I've experienced, no app got hammered and my icon layout remained as I configured it on Android 8.

The Android 9 Pie is reported to be even better on battery life and a up tick in performance. Not much opinion yet with few hours playing, but the screen is definitely refreshing and moving faster.

My thoughts on a Note 10 have been shelved for now... Note 8 continues to purr nicely.

 

[Dougcjohn]

Add-on Note of caution for changing service....
When I added the PagePlus service, I took a new number to avoid porting over my existing number until after verifying the PagePlus actually performed as described on the VzW service.

NOTE: Customer Service of PagePlus is Asian and overseas and is not their strongest asset.
The Cellular testing of the VzW service was equal in performance to data speed tests, video streaming, text msg response, call clarity compared with my Vzw iPhone in same location. Also noticed for voicemail, when doing a *86 to setup VM, I received the message "welcome to Verizon Wireless" just like on a VzW phone.

When I was ready to port over 4 hrs later, I was told it would require Canceling of current plan and activating a new plan, basically forfeiting the $30 payment for 1st account. This took an long time & several discussions to work around this ordeal... finally was able to cancel current number & port over my previous carrier's number.

All works Great for Day1.
Doing speed tests is identical to VzW phone, text msg no delay, VM pops into VM immediately, call clarity appears to be identical to VzW phones... I have 3 phones testing: 1 ATT, 2 VzW, 3 PagePlus.
YouTubes, NetFlix, Hulu, all stream identical.

VM Mail feature... for those in noise environments. AT&T used to have a voicemail transcribed text msg that faded away to old app land. I like visual VM, iPhones get it by default but Android is carrier based and lacking on many services. New app called "YouMail", provides visual voicemail and transcribed VM for FREE. Very nice, can now read the VM msg if not able to listen & then listen later if desired. The Free Version has a few ads, but not disruptive. NOTE: If you try YouMail, they have by default a small intro msg along with your Greeting... if you contact their support on chat, they'll quickly remove their message so it's only your greeting.