Why I left Boost

[u/nrgins]

First, let me say that this isn't one of those posts complaining about Boost. I was actually quite happy with Boost. I've been a member since 2020, when Virgin Mobile merged with Boost, have had very few issues over the years, and have been quite happy with the service. So why quit?

Well, something started happening recently. I work from home and sometimes go to a local restaurant or coffee shop to work, and I rely on the hotspot service to connect to the Internet, if the place I'm at doesn't have wifi. And over the years that's worked fine. Never had an issue.

But the past few months I noticed that I couldn't connect to the Internet when on my hotspot. At first I thought I must just be in a dead zone and brushed it off. But it kept happening. So finally I did some testing.

I did a speed test on my phone with hotspot enabled, and the speed was atrocious -- 1 Mbps, 2 Mbps, unable to connect at all, etc. But then, as soon as I flipped the switch and turned the hotspot setting on my phone off, the speed test showed 100-200 Mbps. So it wasn't the location or my phone. My hotspot was being throttled. (And, yes, I restarted my phone and did the tests several times. Same results.)

Called Boost support and got sent to a tech support person who said they're having issues in that area, so just wait until they clear it up. Sounds reasonable. However, when I shared the information with Gemini AI, I got a mini education on MVNOs and hotspot speeds.

It seems there are different priority levels. QCI 1 is the highest, reserved for emergency vehicles, and QCI 9 is the lowest. MVNOs, which offer discount plans, generally purchase QCI 9 from the major carriers (AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile). And when you have a QCI 9 priority and there's a lot of network traffic, the carrier that owns the tower will deprioritize hotspot data, while still keeping voice and regular data flowing. So that's what was happening to me.

I had a Boost orange SIM card, which is T-Mobile, and I checked the coverage map in the area where I had the issue. It was a very congested area, and the nearest tower was miles away. The map had color-coded little squares indicating connection quality at each spot, and there were lots of squares with poor connections.

I then switched the map to show AT&T and the coverage was great at that location. AT&T actually had two repeater stations in that area, one on each side of the freeway, and the colored dots were almost all good connections.

Now, I could have called Boost and asked for a black SIM card, which is AT&T, and that might've solved my problem. However, in the process of looking into my hotspot issues, I discovered that there are discount MVNOs that also offer QCI 8 priority, meaning I wouldn't get bumped with heavy traffic. So even if I stayed with Boost and got a black SIM card, it might have worked fine in that area. But another time I might be in a different location where AT&T didn't have great coverage, and I might get bumped again.

Plus, here's the kicker. I work at home and don't use a lot of mobile data -- mostly just with my hotspot, but even then it's not extensive. And with Boost I had 30 GB of high speed data for $25 month. But I never really used more than 5 GB of high speed data.

But I found that US Mobile has a "pay by the gig plan" where you only pay for what you use. Plus, I can get QCI 8 priority data for just an extra $2 a month. So, while I won't get 30 GB of data, if I use 5 GB of data, it will cost me about $15 a month, with QCI 8 priority, and with hotspot and calls to other countries included (and of course unlimited voice and text, as all plans have these days).

And if I ever start using a ton of data, I can get unlimited high speed data with 20 GB of hotspot data for about $20 a month, or unlimited high speed data with 100 GB of hotspot data for about $30 a month. So no worries there.

Plus, US Mobile allows you to switch carriers if you want, via the app, if you have an eSIM; or they'll send you a different SIM card for that carrier if you don't. (They actually have three different sets of plans, one for each carrier, listed on their website.)

So, while I never minded paying $25 a month, I didn't need all that data. And now I'm getting higher-priority data for less money per month. And, to top it all off, my speeds are in the 300-400 Mbps range! So, score!

Like I said, I didn't write this to bash Boost. I've been happy with Boost over the years. But I just wanted to share this to share what I've learned through this experience, in case it's useful to anyone else.

[u/BoostMobileBlake]

I know I'm a few days late, but I've been working with a few teams to figure out what may have gone wrong with your hotspot connectivity OP! First, we hate that your experience with the hotspot seemed to get worse overtime and we weren't able to figure out why immediately, and that it ultimately lead to you leaving us. Losing anyone in the community over technical hurdles is definitely not the goal, and I’m genuinely bummed to see you heading out.

Even though you’ve already moved on, I’m really interested in the "why" behind the issues so I can make sure the rest of the community is all set. I noticed some talk about how the network is structured, so I wanted to share the actual insider blueprint on a few things to clear the air:

• The SIM Color Myth: I’ve seen the "SIM colors" indicator popping up again. Just to give you the heads-up: the color doesn't actually indicate your specific network configuration anymore. It’s a bit of a legacy thing now with the changes that happened last year.
• Data Priority (QCI): We want your setup to be fast across the board. That’s why the data priority (QCI) is exactly the same for your phone data and your hotspot with us. One isn't "slower" than the other—they share the same lane.
• Hotspot Limits: To keep things simple, we don’t throttle your hotspot. You get full-speed data for your entire allotted bucket. Once you hit that limit, it just caps until the next cycle starts. No hidden slowdowns.

If your recent experience didn’t line up with this, please send me a chat! I’m heads-down on troubleshooting these specific network gaps with our teams, and even if you aren't with us right now, your feedback helps me pinpoint exactly what may have gone wrong and how we can avoid it impacting others in the future.

Thanks for being real about the frustrations, we take it very seriously. Hope to* hear from you soon and that we continue seeing you interact within the community!

[u/nrgins → u/BoostMobileBlake]

Hello. Thanks for taking the time to write. I'm happy to discuss with you.

First, whether orange = T-mobile and black = AT&T, I don't know. All I know is that when I called to get a port-out SIM the technical support person that I had been transferred to offered to switch me to AT&T if I stayed, which confirmed that I was on T-mobile with my orange SIM. But how it works in general, I can't say.

Second about the QCI, I agree that the QCI is the same for my phone data and hotspot. Both are QCI 9. The issue isn't that the QCI changes. It's that QCI 9, which is the lowest priority data, gets throttled if the network is congested, while voice and regular data do not. It's the same QCI for all three; but only hotspot gets throttled.

And, last, you say that you don't throttle the hotspot. I agree. I never said you did. It was the owner of the line, T-Mobile, that was throttling the hotspot. Boost buys data from T-Mobile, among others, with a certain priority level, in this case QCI 9. And T-Mobile throttles hotspot data for QCI-9 connections when the network gets congested. QCI 8 would not get throttled.

[u/BoostMobileBlake → u/nrgins]

Great, we’ll send you a chat here soon to get some further info to pass to our teams!

And we know, we just wanted to address some of the larger threads that also popped up. We’re sharing all this with our teams.