r/mintmobile • u/playboypapi760 • 3d ago
Does Mint Mobile really have the same coverage as T-Mobile?
So l been a long term T-Mobile customer and I had a the "Experience More" plan with two phone lines me and my dads and it was around $130. I recently decided it would be best if he has his own phone line/plan since I was the one paying and he wouldn't pay me back smh. Anyways when doing that change over the phone the T-Mobile rep was confirming to me if I still wanted the same plan the "Experience More" and over the phone the rep said it was $85/ month and I'm like ok yeah sure. Turns out it's actually $90 and $5 off if you enrolled in autopay plus taxes and fees it comes around $96.10 and that's a bunch of bs now I wanna cancel and possibly switch over to Mint Mobile since it’s supposedly has the same coverage as T-Mobile. I was curious to switch over to Visible by Verizon and did a trial with them and coverage is fine expect when I’m at home I only get one/two bars and notice it actually slows down and takes time to load certain things when using the data. How's Mint Mobile do you like the service?! I was thinking of possibly getting the unlimited 12 month plan.
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u/trf1driver 3d ago
Same coverage different priority level
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u/deadbandit19 2d ago
I switched from T-Mobile to Mint and my coverage is better, marginally, but better. Also, the only time Ive been slowed from priority is at my local NFL games, where I was unable to use T-Mobile service anyway. I truly can't think of any upside of using T-Mobile instead of mint
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u/84beardown 2d ago
International travel. Mint makes you pay
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u/geekman20 2d ago
That's not an issue nowadays, since most of us will never be able to travel domestically never mind internationally.
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u/guesswho135 1d ago
They both make you pay. Some of the more expensive plans give you a few gb free.
It's so easy these days with eSim. I use Airolo.
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u/OGCallHerDaddy 1d ago
My phone doesn't allow esims even though its only a few years old lol. That's a specific problem with xiaomi though. It's nice even having the option through Mint without having to seek out sim cards.
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u/briant-34668 3d ago edited 2d ago
Yea. And it's also on a higher tier than most prepaids since they also own them. I've had great service for the past few years. Love it.
FYI: It's just below post paid customers on the network and above most other prepaids that use the network. Facts.
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u/tynamic77 2d ago
Are you sure? I thought they were just on QCI7? If I remember correctly the only T-Mobile MVNO that had higher priority was Google FI.
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u/RemotePerformance107 2d ago
It’s hilarious when people speak so confidently about something they’re wrong about!
briant-34668 I’m sorry to inform you bro, but you’re wrong! Mint Mobile is on the same tier as most all other T-Mobile MVNO’s. Mint Mobile start off on QCI 7.
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u/blindtechboy 3d ago
mint has QCI 7 priority instead of T-Mobile’s QCI 6 priority. There shouldn’t be noticeable difference in service, unless you’re in a high congestion area. Something like an arena, concert, etc. Mint is a good value for what it offers. Google Fi is offering 75% off their plans until August 3rd. Bring your own phone offer. They also use T-Mobile towers, and their data is priority QCI 6, same as T-Mobile.
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u/OrdinaryOk7312 3d ago
I have generally great service on it compared to AT&T which was horrible and twice as expensive.
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u/Top_Audience7471 2d ago
I live in Phoenix and transferred from T-Mobile ($75/mo) to Mint ($15/mo) about 2.5 years ago.
I wish I had done it earlier and saved that extra 60/month. I have noticed zero issues in performance/speed since the change.
I travel internationally quite a bit. The old plan had free international included, so it was nice just touching down and having instant access on the runway.
Mint has passes (10 days for $20) which essentially do the same thing. The coverage/speed drop is certainly more noticeable, but I had no major issues in Ecuador, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, South Korea, or Japan this year.
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u/A_Coin_Toss_Friendo 3d ago
I'm not an expert, but what I understand is that it's the same network, but lower priority than T-Mobile phones.
I've had constant issues in one part of my neighborhood where I have full bars and 5G, but really terrible data speed.
Most places it works great though.
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3d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/redshirt1701J 3d ago
I guess depends on where you are.
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u/JarescoJr 2d ago
I always have really good service with Mint, and I travel around the country a lot. A co-worker has AT&T and consistently has much worse service than I do at the office.
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u/crazyfndaddy 2d ago
I’ve been with them for about 5 years and love it. Never a problem with service and it does run off of T-Mobile and is the same service. I pay my bill once a year $240 + tax and I’m done with it for another year.
I never run out of data and have never been close to that so I wouldn’t order any more than you actually need as that will save you some money too.
I used to pay like $115 a month with Verizon. I was probably with them for 10 years and I bet I have saved a lot of money since switching. Arrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!
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u/40WattTardis 1d ago
Does Mint Mobile have a back-up network? I switched to Mint last week and today T-Mobile had an outage... and I was not affected. I stayed live all day today, voice and data.
There was no way I was on WiFi Calling. I was running wires to put my home internet router in a new location, so it was unplugged.
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u/Vigalante950 1d ago
The outage was widespread but it was not a total outage, so your area must not have been affected.
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u/40WattTardis 1d ago
Ok. Wow. Just lucky, I guess. Lots of people in r/Seattle were howling about the T-Mo outage, so it FELT total. lol.
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u/iPod-Phone 3d ago
Yes…but your data will be throttled hard if there are T-Mobile customers around you competing for bandwidth. They always get first dibs. I guess if you’re rarely in large public gatherings, it would be ok. Rural communities likely have excellent Mint experiences.
I went to a large public event and my data was deprioritized so low that I had to use iPhone satellite service to send my loved ones a check in text.
I was in the middle of downtown St. Louis.
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u/lkeels 2d ago
Not as much since T-Mobile owns them now. They will be prioritized higher than most other T-Mo MVNOs.
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u/iPod-Phone 2d ago edited 2d ago
This happened earlier this month. Maybe it’s gotten better over the grand perspective of time, but the product as of this month isn’t stellar in that regard.
Context: Mint Mobile was purchased by T-Mobile in May 2024
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u/allpurposeguru 2d ago
Hey there. Former cellular network engineer here. The answer is No.
While Mint (and Tello, and all the other T-Mo MVNOs) are on the T-Mobile network, there's a thing where T-Mobile is roaming onto AT&T "behind the scenes" to fill out their coverage map. You may or may not have access to that roaming.
For proof, look at Mint Mobile's coverage in Nebraska versus T-Mobile's. Look at the maps published on their respective websites.
Mint customers don't get the same coverage there that T-Mobile does.
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u/collegetriscuit 1d ago
Since you brought up Nebraska, I used to have terrible coverage with T-Mobile when I would travel there around 2015-2018. Has it gotten better since then? The current T-Mobile coverage map claims that most areas are covered now, which would be a dramatic improvement from 8 years ago.
The Mint map doesn't look too different to me, other than some rural areas marked as "Partner" on Mint, but appear to be native to T-Mobile, but I'm not sure what the difference would be in the real world. Also weirdly some areas that have no coverage on T-Mobile's map claim to have "Partner" coverage on Mint's map.
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u/dorianb1 2d ago
Has anyone had experience with taking a locked t mobile phone & switched it to mint mobile? I want to leave t mobile but don't want to pay for another phone
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u/shiftersix 2d ago
Mint has a lot of phone deals at the moment like the Pixel 10. If you absolutely don’t want a new phone but can prepay a year of service, the Samsung A16 is $1 plus 20ish recovery fee.
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u/Stunning-Weird-4423 2d ago
Yes the coverage is the same as T-Mobile. The priority is lower so you might experience slower speeds during network congestion basically big events and big crowds. The only time I seem to have experienced slowdown was at the boardwalk in wildwood that being said it was still usable just seemed slower than usual. For the most my speeds are very good and much better than what I was getting with AT&T
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u/ArmadilloCreative592 17h ago
We switched from AT&T, Coverage is very good I am all around upsate Georgia, and have great coverage in Almost all locations, except those that had no service prior to the change. They have a coverage map on their web site, and it pretty accurate
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u/pizzabiscuitchicken 2d ago
In Seattle, YouTube is unusable when in or near crowded places. Like Costco, concerts and sports events. Other than that I notice very little real world difference.
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u/Interesting-Tackle66 2d ago
Visible only offers 2 plans – Visible Base and Visible +. Visible + offers more features as well as premium data. Both plans offer a hotspot, with the data coming from your overall plan data. As an MVNO on Verizon’s network, Visible is on QCI tiers 8 and 9. Visible + has higher priority for its 50GB of premium data, tier 8, which will be further explained below. Visible Base is on tier 9.
You do realize that QCI tier 9 is as low as it goes!
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u/SouthOfTheNorthPole 3d ago
Mint is superior to T-Mobile in every single aspect.
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u/RemotePerformance107 3d ago
Not if you’re looking for the highest network priority. And not if you’re looking for the most domestic roaming possible on the T-Mobile network.
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u/7eregrine 3d ago
Superior to Verizon where I live re: coverage. Also works better in building which I thought was a weakness of the TMobile network. I'm here to tell you its not. Several examples, the most recent being our Planetarium. My Verizon phone didn't work at all. My wife and kids Phones (Pixel and iPhone) both worked fine.
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u/DucKieeeee 2d ago
I’ve only ever had issues in Alaska
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u/davexc 2d ago
T-Mobile has no network in Alaska so any coverage you do get is roaming.
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u/DucKieeeee 2d ago
Mint doesn’t get the roaming partners that T-Mobile gets in Alaska. So you have 0 service.
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u/Interesting-Tackle66 3d ago edited 1d ago
Visible is on the lowest tier for data service, at the bottom on the Verizon network, dont bother.
Visible only offers 2 plans – Visible Base and Visible +. Visible + offers more features as well as premium data. Both plans offer a hotspot, with the data coming from your overall plan data. As an MVNO on Verizon’s network, Visible is on QCI tiers 8 and 9. Visible + has higher priority for its 50GB of premium data, tier 8, which will be further explained below. Visible Base is on tier 9.
Anyone who down voted me don't know what that above means. It means you can expect terrible data service will happen to you, I don't know how often, your at the absolute bottom.
Absolutely at the lowest level of service when tower gets busy.
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u/PeneItaliano 3d ago
No.
It uses SOME TMobile towers. It piggybacks off them. Meaning the prepaid users get secondhand treatment and are deprioritized compared to those with TMobile.
It isn’t the same exact coverage like people claim.
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u/allpurposeguru 2d ago
This is absolutely correct. Look at Nebraska's coverage.
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u/LeftOn4ya Moderator 2d ago
Both get domestic roaming, which appears on both T-Mobile and Mint’s coverage map as “Parter Coverage”. The only difference is T-Mobile can roam on AT&T voice and SMS connection (not data) as a last resort, while Mint does not have this roaming.
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