Your Phone Company Isn't Who You Think It Is 

Would be interested in seeing a video showing ya'll using grammerly to write a future / fake or meta script ( script for the video as it's being filmed lol).

It makes me nervous to hand my data to some third party

Keep it real. No scripts. Fire all writers.

PLOT TWIST- spectrum cable owns the fibers that Verizon uses in their cellphone towers.

@Mate 20X 5G I used to have smarty. Then 3 coverage just got bad when I moved house. Now I use voxi

And it used to be 4 big carriers. But Sprint somehow gotten into financial trouble and T-Mobile had bought Sprint.

Dish is always coming out

@@killertruth186 funny thing also is Tmobile use to be one of them scab companies.

@@fredericksweet that was before they revolutionized the phone buying process and became the original no contract carrier, thats the spark that ignited their incline to where they are now

Yes, but the NVMOs lease from the major carriers not the Tower owners, The Major carriers used to 'own' most of the towers but sold them and now lease.

Not sure if you knew but I was curious if T-Mobile throttled their own prepaid plan?

Same with Metro. It says right in their account tracking app that congestion might result in slow down. That being said, I don't think i've ever been slowed down enough to notice.

I had to drop MM. A few places I’d go, not concerts, I’d have full 5g bars BUT EDGE speeds not fast enough for a google voice call. They’d be suburban urban areas so it’s not like I was in the most populated areas ever. Unfortunately in those places I’d need actual data for work so I went back to Verizon. Which is a shame. I liked just about everything with Mint and had the same thoughts of “what are the chances I’ll be in an arena in the future”

This is incorrect. Mint mobile does not make that clear in any way.

@@travislamont1688 nobody throttles, theirs priorities and yes T-Mobile has different levels

They do share the coverage in Romania also, trust me.

In Germany at least the do not. Really sad if you are in a car crash in the middle of nowhere

Czech Republic here. Almost noone is on MVNOs. At least I dont know anyone. All 3 mobile service providers, T-mobile, Vodafone and O2 are in cartel deal, making our mobile service prices highest in the world.

@@RadioCraftZ didn't you hear? we are "specific market", so the prices have to be so high :P

Balkan best

i used to have that issue south of Ogallala in my home territory when visiting family. mostly US Cellular there, and it wasnt until recently that my carrier's ATT partnership finally took off there.

i've noticed that 'hole' in Nebraska before and wondered what it was all about... Not that I ever am in tge area often. The closest I've been was Grand Rapids

Verizon pretty much is a dead zone here in WV. If you look at their coverage map for the nation, you can see almost the entire outline of the state.

@@RichWhiteUM yep, norther Michigan is a problem spot for verizon as well. I don’t run into many West Virginia customers thats for sure

Yo get Visible then, it’s own by them

Well that explains why everyone and their mom is setting up a MVNO these days

Why is it a nightmare business? From the outside it seems like a easy way to do business: You lock your customers in long term contracts that they can't leave early. Customer service? Pff. And the only thing you worry about is marketing.

@@Jehty_ it's nightmare because your a middle man to another middle man

i want ltt mobile!!

Absolutely. They can even partner with a Canadian company doing this: Wavelo

Having their customers prepay enables them to accurately determine how much bandwidth they need to rent.

The only reason I don't use Mint is because Nebraska is a really bad coverage area for T Mobile unless you live in Lincoln or Omaha

Would love to see a video on how these tower contracts work

@@programablenuance The only way I know about this is because I worked for a company many years ago that handled the cell phone repair and support for Radio Shack. Part of the training was to explain how the towers work as far as hierarchy goes and how to explain it to a customer calling in because a message didn't get received or a call didn't complete.

Remember doing fiber jobs to cell towers. It was mostly ATT/Nexus towers. Hated doing those jobs not only you have to listen to the owner griping about everything you have ATT there doing much of the same since it was one of their idiots who damaged the fiber lines to begin with.

What I find funny is that this is the kind of situation that Net Neutrality in the US was put in place for, yet because it's cell traffic, not internet traffic, it gets to happen unhindered.

@@Mr_Soleo net neutrality is dead though...?

Hell I am old enough seeing the old bell companies after the forced breakup by the supreme court. That was interesting watching the snake eat its own tail eventually becoming more of the same thing but instead of one monopoly we now have 3.

@@fredericksweet you can thank Reagan and conservatives for this. Their deregulation has lead to massive monopolization of US industries. The higher prices we see for food/everyday items is hardly caused by inflation, it's caused by 2-5 companies owning every industry in the united states. Notice how corporate profits are at a 50ish year high? They're making bank while people suffer. Beef is owned by 3 companies. Poultry is run by 3 companies. Produce is mostly distributed by 4 companies. Etc. They operate together to fix prices while people suffer.

@@CRneu you know the bell split up was started during the Carter Admin right?

And a few years ago Cricket very publicly got absorbed into AT&T again, it’s just a rebranded prepaid AT&T service.

@@fredericksweet they aren't complaining about the breakup, but the weakening of the laws that caused the breakup.

So which of the big boys in the Netherlands do you recommend? Recently renewed 1 year contract with Tele2. But due to covid could not fully test coverage, because of lack of festivals/events.

@@Jawnoh Personally I'm with KPN. Have a good price as I got a combo with home internet and it's an older (better priced) contract which I never officially needed to renew. Not too sure how big the difference between the other big parties is, but the smaller ones had gotten me poor reception here in some parts of the east of NL. As for a real recommendation I cannot give you. I know too many people working at KPN to be unbiased XD

In Australia I use Telstra which owns a shitload of smaller companies

2degrees right?

Aren't in the EU additional charges for roaming illegal? Don't know how exactly it works since as a swiss i have to pay roaming anyway

Roaming within EU countries is seen as national traffic but you can still roam outside of the EU😉

Overprice rates sounds like Mobile carriers in my country :D Number one in EU with the most expensive mobile plans.

Some do some don't. O was on smarty in the UK and at no point does the website say they use 3. But my new network voxi say in massive text "VOXI BY VODAFONE" on their site

@@williamsquibb5249 smarty says it multiple times on their homepage and even has a link to three on the page

@@williamsquibb5249 That is because Voxi is a subbrand of Vodafone. If you look at the small print at the bottom of the page, the company you are dealing with is actually Vodafone. Similarly Superdrug is a subbrand of Three, the pharmacy chain and the mobile operator are both owned by Li Ka-Shing; and GiffGaff is a subbrand of O2.

I still use Telcel though; their plans and services have always worked for me.

I was going to write the exact comment, but it looks like you beat me to it.

Same here, I have been with Mint since 2017 and so far so good. Not sure why people say they don't get good Internet.

@@darkrulier It really depends on there location to be fair. Its just not suitable for some people. If you live somewhere rural for example but at the same time that should be a good thing. Less users on the master network(T-Mobile)🤷‍♂️

My first provider was US Cellular in 91! They had 1 tower in Coos Bay, OR where I lived.

It's not even regional, it covers a large area. They have proper towers in Maine where I live (ironically they're actually one of the only cell companies to have decent towers here), and also all the way to Oregon. So it's very much not regional at all.

US cellular is a ATT subsidized company now It happened at the same time Cingular wireless got absorbed by att. Only reason USC is still mostly independent they are set up in select areas.

@@fredericksweet what? UScellular is 84% owned by tds. They traded some assets with Cingular in 03 but unless I’m missing something that was a small deal that just traded around some coverage.

US Cellular is still considered a regional carrier because it doesn’t have a nationwide network. Dish still doesn’t have even a citywide network to speak of so no, there are only 3 “major” (aka nationwide) carriers in the US.

@@logangatlin OK THIS IS GOING TO BE LOG BTW>. While they are now 84 percent owned by TDS. Lets break it down more easily. Know who is KBR or BRS is? If not let me go with this to make more sense to people who don't really understand. BRS or Brown and Root Services was acquired by Halliburton Corp. Following me? Then They merged BRS with Kellogs Services thus creating KBR. All in the meantime BRS still existed as an independent company taking their own contracts and using their own corporate structure. This Happened during LOGCAP 1. Where KBR and BRS were bidding for contracts against each other while KBR answered directly to Halliburton BRS did not they just had to pay loyalties to keep in business and independent from Haliburton. This is what a legacy contract is. Now fast forward 25 years Halliburton and KBR went their separate ways BRS still exists, but not as a KBR subsidiary but as an Halliburton company since their name is now patented by Halliburton hence the loyalties. This sounds like a convoluted mess I know I dealt with this split up in Dubai. Now back to USCell they dealt with Cingular as you remember so thing was this little bit you are talking about was more like 45% meaning UScell stayed out of full control of Cingular at their time of absorption by ATT. This does not end here though since UScell also sold stocks ATT before Cingulars take over, They owned more like 52 percent of the company meaning they had legal right to trademark the name. So now while TDS may own 84% of the company ATT owns the name. Yes ATT sold off crap tones of their other stocks and withholdings just to aquire Direct TV that is where TDS jumped in.

@@vapidshay US Cellular still has a pretty decent footprint in the Midwest to the point that it's considered to be the 4th major carrier, even if its market is a fraction of that of the Big 3. Because of this, you'll see the people who make cellular BDAs (Bi-Directional Amplifiers) - such as Cel-Fi, who makes the Quatra that Linus put in his home - willing to accommodate US Cellar where they would not accommodate other small carriers, including Dish. Dish owns a lot of frequency rights, but hasn't deployed much infrastructure, to the point where even completely regional carriers like C-Spire may arguably have a greater foothold.

US Cellular does have their own towers around the central midwest!

Us Cellular has their own towers. Linus just failed to mention them as one of the actual carriers and not just an MVNO.

That must have been some time ago. I have Cricket and aside from some section line road between a field where everyone loses coverage my plan has full access everywhere I go now. Verizon used to be the only game here but that's changed quite a bit since the oil boom/bust. (And I've been in and around Williston although live in Fargo)

Canada already has a good MVNO company called Ting. They are headquatered in Toronto and all their employees live in Canada. You just can't use in Canada

Canada's internet plans have such outrageous prices compared to many other places

@@akiraigarashi2874 it come from low population density. Unfortunately it is easier and more profitable when you have a dense population. Lol that is why rogwrs is buying shaw instead of the other way around. Rogers has Toronto and the GTA, and some thing like 60% of all Canadians live around Toronto and the corridor going to Montreal. That population density mean more profit. However the government says that everyone needs to be offered the same price, so people in a small town, where a 10 million cell tower will never have enough people to pay it back, pay the same cellphone bill as those in the big cities. Companies make money in the city to lose it in the country side, and Canada has alot of country side. But that is the price the Canadian government makes the big 3 carriers pay to stay in business

I love tech quickie

I watch this on 2times speed

They offer T-Mobile too, we were given the option to choose between T-Mobile towers or AT&T towers when we switched over. I think we just wound up going with a CC branded T-Mobile sim because that's what we were switching from.

@@PinkAgaricus They no longer use T-mobile sim cards anymore. If you still have a sim card give them a call and they we get you the new sim card for better service.

you can also buy any unlocked phone and bring it to prepaid as well. Happy savings :)

Works great for me too.

i missed the "a year" part and was about to say that's actually not good at all for a supposedly "cheap" carrier, then i re-read and went OH

@@mysteryboyee lmao I actually thought about capitalizing the word for that exact reason.

Who would you say Mint Mobile isn't for specifically?

@@BonJoviBeatlesLedZep generally people who expect things like payments for phones or cant afford to outright buy phones (we save up for a few months when we start to see our phones failing and it isnt an easy repair), people that don't tend to connect to wifi and will use more mobile data because of it, and people who do a lot of traveling in certain areas. I live in South Dakota and have great service in my primary areas, but do notice more dead zones while traveling than I did on Verizon. There's probably other examples i could come up with, but it doesn't really matter as it's all opinion. Just like with all other financial dicision, I recommend people do their own research to decide what's best for their situation.

Except the logical endpoint of capitalism is an oligopoly with no competition.

@@aprofondir And the logical end point of it's opposition is millions starving to death! But hey! It's not like we can find a balance somewhere in the middle or something!

it's a 0% apr payment plan unless you have absolute garbage tier credit, so it'd literally be the same thing as if you saved that 27$ or whatever per month for the same amount of time as the plan and then bought the device outright, just this way you get the phone at the beginning instead of at the end (i wouldn't recommend this method if you don't have job security though)

​@@mysteryboyee I am not sure what you mean by "garbage tier credit", but here if you do not plan to get the most expensive plan, only the cheap phones (200$ or less) are what you can feasibly get and not over pay for them. And even then, you could buy them on sale for cheaper. Same goes for top tier phones with expensive plans. In EU it's usually just not that worth it to get your phone from your carrier, especially when some of our unlimited plans (calls and SMS) cost about 25$ a month. Getting a 70$ plan just to be able to get a 1000$ phone, when you still have to pay extra monthly fee for 2 years for it just doesn't make much sense.

Nah when my speed test loads I eventually get less than megabit

I use mint and have seen no difference from the sprint T-Mobile service. It's exactly as shity for a lesser price lol

Yeah it’s all a scam. You’re essentially paying outraging fees for renting server space/internet connection monthly. I’m always on the road with GPS, takes about the first 14 days out of the month until my speeds are throttled in half. This is with Verizon.

That wasn't what he meant. He meant not all of the MVNOs offer 5G with their SIM Cards. Some only do 4G or even 3G at the very most, even if the network they piggyback on offers 5G. The UK is pretty standardised for what frequency bands they broadcast 5G on, and any 5G device purchased within the UK or Europe should connect to 5G just fine.

@@Koda14 Except that's not accurate: many UK MVNOs will publish a list of devices that will support 5G on their network. It usually has to do with that phone having the relevant APN support, which usually gets updated OTA thesedays. For example, do a search for SMARTY which devices are compatible with 5G as an example. All of their SIM cards will offer 5G, but it depends if the device recognises their network as offering it. With the Google Pixel 6 series, for example, support was only added as of Android 13. Nothing to do with the SIM

@@dftfire They can say whatever they want, but it's not true. There's not a single Motorola device listed on Three/SMARTY's device list but I can tell you as a fact that Motorola 5G devices work just fine on their network for example. The list is just what they have confirmed compatibility with. It doesn't mean that it doesn't work, no matter what they claim. With exception to iOS where carrier profiles have to be set correctly with Apple, there is no reason for 5G Not to work out of the box provided the MVNO allows access to the 5G Network.

Yes and dish is the only carrier willing to build a good network. I know they mostly roam on att for now since tmo could not handle their merger agreements. I'm waiting for byod once that happens I'll switch from att to them. For the extra security their network offers

I had family mobile at one point and damn, it was on par with Tmo never noticed a difference with my mothers phone.

Verizon giving me 4G LTE of not even a megabit per second. It's basically useless and I want a refund.

@@jhoughjr1 ouch, I don't blame ya. My issues was them screwing me out on my reward dollars when I wanted to upgrade to the latest razer (at the time). Do what I did, switch to Visible. Same network covers but for a flat rate of $30 a month with great tech support. Seriously, they let me use my "missing" Verizon dollars towards my new phone. So nice of Visible when they didn't have to.

SFR have: Afone Mobile - Budget Telecom - Cdiscount Mobile - Club Budget Cofidis Mobile - Joi Telecom - La Poste Mobile - Prixtel Reglo Mobile - SIM+ - Vectone Mobile Bouygues have: Lebara Mobile - Lycamobile Orange have: Bazile Telecom - Syma Mobile - Transatel Mobile Mixed across multiple networks are: Auchan Telecom - Cdiscount Mobile - CIC Mobile Cofidis Mobile - NRJ Mobile - Soon Mobile - Coriolis

Well, we have some : laposte mobile, prixtel, NRJ mobile... But they are facing a strong competition from the 4 "real" providers and their low-cost subsidiaries which ofte offer lower rates and a somewhat decent customer service And by the way the Eiffel tower is fitted with a lot of antennas (0:57)

Well actually in France we have laws that force the big 4 to share their infrastructure when there isn't coverage from another operator. Look up "mutualisation opérateurs arcep" En France les grand opérateurs doivent partager leur infrastructure dans les zones où il n'y a pas de couverture des autres opérateurs. Cherche "mutualisation opérateurs arcep"

We also have virtual Providers: Prixtel, ‘a poste mobile, virgin mobile…

Linus' recent self run fiber cable outed just how much corporate PR subterfuge is involved with ISP infrastructure cost estimates. Frankly they should all be drug into court and forced to disclose actual costs on the spot. Infrastructure is not communist. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3CDOSj8fZA4.html

the cool thing is mint normally uses t-mobile towers so in a way you get both for less. A win win is always nice :) Happy savings my friend.

Man that does sound like a logistical nightmare. But hey, thanks for sharing. Interesting to hear the more human side of the corporate providers, and I appreciate that. :)

The problem T-Mobile had was shutting down the old sprint towers and refarming the spectrum. Dish was meant to have it's network done far long ago but they missed it. Dish whined about it and eventually partnered with ATT. Their network is already having issues, rollout is slow and their "next-gen" 5g network is the slowest out of all of them.

I think tmobile should've Merge the sprint network with theirs and then let Boost Mobile use that brand New Network or Verizon Should have bought Sprint instead Because Verizon and sprint are both CDMA Network so it would be be easier to merge the two networks and Verizon would have a Bigger and Faster 5G Network

NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE

Telco vendor content would probably be tough to make happen. MOCN would be a good topic to do a video on though. It's widely used. Canada's operators specifically pioneered its usage. Telus and Bell split the country basically in half RAN-wise (Bell mainly in the east and Telus in the west) but effectively operate one single national network via MOCN/MORAN.

Only those who resell Telstra. MVNOs using Optus and Vodafone/TPG get similar coverage to the host carrier.

And some are just sub brands of the major carriers.

@@life.with.sabine true, Telfort is a sub brand of KPN

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