We no longer need a major carrier’s wireless plan. Discount versions are the way.

Americans have long been conditioned to believe that when they buy a cell phone, the next step is choosing a wireless plan from one of the major carriers: Verizon, AT&T or T-Mobile. With their plans ranging from $60 to $200 per month for individuals and families, the price of a phone is quickly overshadowed by the recurring service bills.

What if I told you it didn’t have to be this way anymore?

Your phone bill can drop to as little as $25 a month if you choose a wireless plan with a lesser-known service provider known as a discount carrier. The cheaper plans, based on my testing, offer sufficiently fast internet speeds and reliable phone service. It takes some courage and technological savvy to make the switch, but the potential savings outweigh the downsides.

At first glance, these are budget carriers, including Cricket Wireless, Straight talk, Boost mobile, Coin Mobile And Visible, lack a cool factor. They do not operate their own mobile networks; instead, they lease wireless services from the major carriers and sell them to retirees. The basic plans often have drawbacks, including slower download speeds, because Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile subscribers are prioritized for faster network performance.

Still, so much has changed in recent years that I can now confidently recommend discounted phone plans to most people, including white-collar workers and Instagram-obsessed young people. This is why:

• Mobile networks have reached their peak. Newer 5G and 4G cell technology is so fast that even budget providers can offer very fast download speeds – fast enough to stream video, load maps and download apps – even if they are slightly slower than what the Big Three offer.

• The shift to hybrid work. Office workers who used to spend more time commuting and relying on their mobile network are now seeing their travel time cut in half and relying more on their home or office Wi-Fi connection to make video calls and send emails. to inform. That means slower mobile performance on a budget carrier might not be noticeable.

• You can try a discount carrier without breaking the relationship with your major carrier. The eSIM, the digital version of the SIM card on which your telephone number is stored, is now common on many modern smartphones. This allows you to instantly activate an additional phone line without having to insert a physical SIM card, making experimenting with a third-party wireless service easier and less intimidating.

Once you switch to a discounted phone plan, the savings add up quickly. A family of four buying new iPhones with a Cricket phone plan would spend $3,762 over two years, $1,311 less than they would spend with Verizon, according to a analysis by WalletHub, a personal finance research firm.

“The negative perception around budget plans is fading,” said Cassandra Hoppe, analyst for WalletHub. “Now they are seen as a smart choice for everyone. People are realizing you can get a great phone plan without spending a fortune.”

To put cheap phone providers to the test, I activated three services: Visible, Cricket and Straight Talk – on an iPhone. I ran speed tests at various locations in California, made phone calls, and used apps like Maps, YouTube, and TikTok. For comparison, I ran the same tests on my Verizon connection.

The discount providers were up to 46 percent slower on average than my Verizon connection. That sounds like a lot, but in real-world testing I noticed no difference: my apps worked fine and videos streamed smoothly.

Here’s how the installation and testing process went.

Buy and activate a discounted phone plan

Consumers can sign up for discounted phone plans by purchasing a physical SIM card from a website or store, although I recommend eSIM as an option. The digital SIM saves time – and because you can install multiple eSIMs at the same time, you can try out a low-cost carrier and compare it to the performance of your major carrier before choosing a plan.

The steps for setting up an eSIM vary slightly from carrier to carrier, but the process is fundamentally consistent: You purchase a phone plan through a brand’s website or app and click a button or scan a barcode to activate the service.

Visible charged $25 per month for an unlimited data plan; Straight Talk charged $35 per month for a plan with 10 gigabytes of high-speed internet; and Cricket charged $40 to $10 to activate the eSIM and $30 for a monthly plan with five gigabytes of data.

Visible, owned by Verizon, had the smoothest installation. The mobile app allowed me to purchase a phone plan with Apple Pay and tap a few buttons to activate the service. Using Straight Talk and Cricket, I searched the websites to find their eSIM offerings. I ran into problems with Cricket, who emailed a broken web link to activate my plan; it took me about 20 minutes to find a tool on the website that allowed me to manually activate my service.

Testing, testing

My iPhone could hold up to eight eSIMs, so I installed all three plans and switched between them for each test.

I drove to 10 locations, including hiking trails, shopping centers and wineries, in California. At each location, I used the Speedtest app to test each provider’s internet speed, and I called my very patient wife and streamed video on apps like TikTok and YouTube.

In general, the discount telephone services performed well. They were occasionally slow loading videos on TikTok, but my Verizon connection had similar delays.

Based on the results measured with the Speedtest app, Cricket and Visible achieved similar performance, with download speeds averaging 154 megabits per second. Straight Talk delivered speeds of 279 megabits per second – comparable to my Verizon connection, which delivered download speeds of 287 megabits per second.

What do those numbers mean? To stream video via apps like Netflix and Hulu, you need at least 25 megabits per second, according to AT&T. So the budget airlines gave me more than enough speed to handle some of the most data-intensive tasks.

Take the plunge

Of the three discount providers, Visible was my favorite because of its smooth installation process and consistent network performance. Visible was also more transparent with billing in email receipts. Straight Talk never emailed me a receipt. I was turned off by Cricket’s clunky website and the $10 fee to activate an eSIM, which wasn’t a fee the other two providers required.

Angie Klein, president of the Verizon Value organization, which oversees Visible, said the budget plans were designed for tech-savvy customers who wanted a single line, and that Verizon’s traditional wireless plans were a full-service experience with more advantages. Straight Talk and Cricket did not respond to requests for comment.

Overall, I don’t have a one-size-fits-all recommendation. As with the major carriers, mobile performance for each discount carrier will vary depending on the network coverage where you live and work.

But because eSIM technology makes it easy to switch networks – and the discounted phone plans are cheap – it would be foolish to pass up the opportunity to try out a budget phone plan.

Last year, Robin Phillips, a 54-year-old Seattle resident who works in food distribution, broke up with Verizon to try Visible. He got the hiccups. The wireless service initially wouldn’t activate and the customer service representatives, available only through a chat app, were unhelpful.

But he said he had no regrets about the move. Visible’s service started working after a day, and he pays $25 a month, down from the $70 he used to pay for a Verizon plan. His wife also converted.

“Is it worth it?” he said. “We save about a thousand dollars a year. I will take care of the hassle for that.”