You know what bites the big one?
Paying too much money for your cell phone bill.
After paying only $3-4/ month for my phone bills this past year in SEAsia, I just couldn't quite bring myself to swallow a $50/month phone bill for just 1 GB of data after coming back to the states.
Honestly, I'm a cheap-o and I love to do things the cheapest way possible...
...without sacrificing quality.
I was slightly mad at myself for traveling for a year and paying $50/month for something I didn't use just so I could keep my phone number.
So things had to change.
A couple of weeks ago I realized...
...it's time to search the dark web for sketch af cell phone carriers.
So I did.
I found a blog post that made me feel confident about doing it.
I thought, "If this person blogged about THE BEST little known cell phone carriers, he/she must know that they're amazing!"
Wrong.
It was obviously just clickbait and I fell for it like fish fall for regular bait.
Spoiler alert: The first service I tested sucked even more than paying $50/ month for something you don't use!!
😱
Here's what happened.
I tried unreal mobile first, because it was the cheapest.
📱$8.25/ month if I prepay for the whole year?
📱No activation fees?
📱I can return it if the service sucks?
Sign me up.
Unfortunately, as soon as I got the sim card in the mail...
... it was like a bad first date.
Right from the beginning, it was awkward.
The communication was NOT good.
And unreal mobile came with too much baggage and issues for me to resolve.
With red flags right out the gate, I knew it was a failed experiment and it was time to move on.
Pros: $8.25/month
Cons: Can't hear anyone for jack squat.
Calls were droppin' it like it's hot...except it wasn't hot.
You have to download an app to be able to use the service. Aka you can't use facetime or imessage. What the fudge?
It messed up my phone service so badly, that when I popped in my AT&T sim card the next day...
...my phone didn't work at all.
The kicker?
I had a job interview to go to, and I couldn't get the GPS to work.
Let's just say that led to a series of bad events that ended up with me arriving late for the interview.
Dang.
It's like Unreal Mobile was stalking me and causing problems even AFTER the breakup!
No thanks.
On to the next one.
I picked more carefully this time.
I asked up front to make sure I didn't have to download a sketch app.
I looked at reviews online.
That's when I picked Tello for my next date test run.
Tello is $14/ month for 1 GB of data. It's not much more for 2 GB. Definitely a cheap option
Things went much smoother this time.
Maybe I'd learned my lesson, and I wouldn't pick the bad ones anymore.
Tello uses Sprint towers.
Disclaimer: You have to have an unlocked phone to use most of these carriers. Or, at least have a phone that is compatible with one of the major carriers who's towers they jack service off of. Double check that before signing up for any of these.
Basically it should cover you anywhere that Sprint covers you at.
I've only been trying it for a day, but so far, no calls dropped and texting, imessage and all that works as usual.
Much happier with this and may make the switch permanent.
You can check out their site tello.com if you're interested.