These 3 Phone Carriers Might Be Your Best Bet For Fast Service At A Low Price
Speaking very broadly, there are two tiers of mobile phone service: Postpaid and prepaid. Postpaid service is what gets the bulk of the promotion from the major carriers, and follows how telecom billing has historically worked. That's where, regardless of if your billing plan is flat rate or metered, you pay at the end of the month for service you've already used and a credit check may be necessary at signup, especially if you're getting a phone on a payment plan or special discount. Prepaid is the opposite, where no credit check is necessary because you're paying in advance for the service.
All three of the major carriers — Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T — offer postpaid service that's also accompanied by prepaid service with the same brand name that offers comparable service, often for a lower price. Prepaid service on their networks is also offered by carrier subsidiaries and independent companies called mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), which resell service at a reduced price. For many people, this is a great deal, but there's a caveat: The vast majority of MVNOs have slower data speeds than name brand service because they're given lower priority to the networks' towers. If you've noticed some carriers referring to a finite allotment of "premium data," that's what they're talking about — your data getting a lower priority if you go over that threshold.
However, besides the carriers' name brand prepaid service, there are a few MVNOs that explicitly offer premium/priority data. Here are the top three.
Visible
Visible is owned and operated by Verizon and runs on its network and gets the lion's share of its prepaid promotional efforts. It's generally very well reviewed, not just making it onto our lists of the best unlimited cell phone plans, the cheapest one-line plans with unlimited data, and the best cheap mobile phone plans, but also getting high marks from multiple tech outlets.
Visible has two different rate plans, Visible ($25 per month with taxes and fees included or $275 per year if paid annually) and Visible+ ($45 per month with taxes and fees included or $395 per year if paid annually), but only the latter includes premium data. That extra $20 per month or $120 per year gets you not just 50GB of premium/priority data per month, but also the faster Ultra-Wideband 5G, included smartwatch service, double the hotspot speed of the lesser plan (10 megabits per second instead of five), and several additional international calling, texting, and data benefits.
Visible is also explicit about what the prioritization benefits are. "Visible+ gives you unlimited premium data on Verizon's 5G Ultra Wideband network, the fastest 5G network access we offer — up to 10X faster than median 4G LTE speeds," reads the detailed plan description. "Premium data means no data slowdowns due to prioritization."
Xfinity Mobile
Xfinity Mobile has priority access to Verizon's network, but is available exclusively to Xfinity broadband customers. It's also postpaid, so naturally, according to its eligibility page, you need a credit check that's considered alongside your Xfinity broadband payment history. Curiously, the official plan pricing page is also unusually opaque, so we're probably best off going by a reliable third party like Best Phone Plans (which last updated its Xfinity Mobile page on May 3, 2024) for pricing information.
With Xfinity, you have the choice of Xfinity Mobile 1GB for $15 plus tax per month with 1GB of priority data, Xfinity Mobile Unlimited for $40 plus tax per month with 30GB of priority data, or Xfinity Mobile Unlimited Plus for $50 plus tax per month with 50GB of priority data. Both plans rate limit streaming video below the maximum possible quality, though. Those certainly aren't bad prices, but given the requirement to bundle it with Xfinity broadband service, it's pretty easy to expect a better deal than this to bring you to the dance. Perhaps that's why the company isn't stoked about displaying pricing on its public-facing web page.
U.S. Mobile
U.S. Mobile is a garden variety third party MVNO that offers premium data on Verizon's network, which it calls "Warp 5G." Meanwhile, "GSM 5G" is how they label their plans on T-Mobile's network, which don't have priority data. Priority access to the network is surprising for an independent startup provider that launched in 2017, so we emailed their press office to ask how it happened; we'll update this article if we hear back.
U.S. Mobile offers premium data across all three of its rate plans, all of which also include all applicable taxes and regulatory fees in the sticker price. Month-to-month, the options are Unlimited Starter for $29 per month with 35GB premium data and 10GB hotspot data and Unlimited Premium for $50 per month with 100GB premium data and 50GB hotspot data. Paying annually saves you $6.00 or $12.50 per month, respectively.
If you're willing to pay upfront for the whole year, then not only do you get discounts on the two main plans, but you open up an entry-level plan. That's Unlimited Flex, which is $180 per year for 10GB premium data per month and no hotspot data. 5GB of hotspot data per month can be added for another $30 per year.) With a 4.6 out of five average on TrustPilot, customers seem very happy with the service.