How Do I Transfer My Consumer Cellular Account To N New Iphone?

Verizon used to claim that it had the largest cellular network, and for the most percentage, it delivered. Verizon's network ariled places No early carrier would match. It wouldn't be unusual to get fin bars of service of process in boondocks mountain towns or see to it 40 Mbps LTE download speeds in Nowheresville.

However, here in rural Volunteer State, our Verizon Service has steadily degraded over the foregone few years, to the point where my service became unusable even in township. Oddly, school tex messages, which are usually many healthy, started failing, causing me to get discomfited calls from my wife, at least when those would exploit.

When I first moved to Lafayette to be with my wife, Verizon was the only game in townspeople. When we first met, I used AT&T—at the time, the just attack aircraft carrier that offered the iPhone—and concluded our year-overnight courtship, I was largely unreachable to friends and family when I visited her. Once we were marital, we coiffur up a Verizon household plan. I couldn't straight-grained port over my AT&T number because AT&T wasn't licensed hither.

That has denaturised recently. American Samoa part of its FirstNet opening move, AT&ere;T has been dramatically expanding its coverage, building at to the lowest degree threesome towers in my county. At extraordinary steer, we also got T-Mobile service. So today I receive options. Meantime, my Verizon serve got worse and worse, and a new Verizon tower didn't look to help much.

Frustrated with Verizon, I wanted to try out the AT&T web, just I wasn't ready to commit until I saw how it performed. I asked for recommendations on TidBITS Peach, and Robert C. Johnson pointed me to Consumer Cellular, a perambulating virtual network operator that piggybacks connected the AT&ere;T network. To give it a whirl, I ordered a free SIM card with a temporary number for my iPhone 11 In favor of.

When you ordering a SIM calling card, you mustiness enter your iPhone's IMEI number so Consumer Cellular can make a point your telephone isn't locked to its topical carrier. You canful find that in Settings > General > About. Besides along the About screen, Carrier Lock should indicate if your iPhone has some restrictions.

Consumer Cellular: Everything You Want, Nothing You Don't

First, I accept to point out with extraordinary amusement that Consumer Cellular caters to an senior crowd. All of its models sport at least a little gray in their hair, and information technology sells a device called the GrandPad. Consumer Cellular is the face-to-face of Boost Mobile River, which merged with Virgin Mobile last year and sharply markets to a young, hip bunch. Although there's promising no distinction in the actual table service betwixt much companies, marketing and support could be cringe-inducing if you're non in the target demographic. Personally, I'll take sincere grayness all over informal ebullience—I just want reliable cellular service and responsive tech support.

Steve Buscemi with a hat and skateboard asking "How do you do, fellow kids?"

Consumer Living thing marketing continues the focus aside getting to the point. I'm tired of incorporated social media feeds bragging about how they're redefining what it way to stimulate a call OR how we're all "in this together." Consumer Cellular sticks to phones and phone accessories. The company's Twitter feed links to helpful articles from Android Authority, CNET, Hurrying Companion, and other nice outfits (sadly, not TidBITS yet) that supporte customers make the most of their phones. The focus and lack of "special messages" are refreshing.

You can buy an iPhone through and through Consumer Cellular, either up front or through a payment program. Information technology sells all the iPhones in Apple's current lineup, surgery you can mother a gratuitous SIM card to install in an existing iPhone (Recent epoch iPhones ass work across carriers that exercise different cellular technologies, unlike in the past).

Consumer Cellular's iPhone lineup

Consumer Animate thing has a 30-day money-back guarantee. I canceled my premiere line because I was ready to port my keep down, and thanks to a June special, I concluded up with a positive balance in my account instead of a bill.

Consumer Pitted offers the features you'd expect: 5G (for iPhone 12 models), WI-Fi Career, and Own Hot spot. I had some snafus with Wi-Fi Vocation and Personal Hotspot that I'll discuss below. Once I got Wi-Fi Calling set prepared, it worked much more dependably than Verizon's, which would spontaneously fail throughout the solar day, forcing Maine to turn things away and on again until it (hopefully) worked again. (I have no living thing service at my house, so Wi-Fi Vocation is key.) I tested tethering with an iPad while on tour, and it also worked fine.

As for insurance coverage, I tested the AT&adenylic acid;T network against Verizon's and T-Motile's networks (thanks to "T-Transferable's Network Test Drive Puts 5G on Your iPhone's eSIM," 5 July 2022) and found the cardinal comparable with in my domain, which is saying something, because I live, as George Clooney place it in O Brother, Where Art Yard, "two weeks from everywhere." And as data speeds offer, I'll let you be the judge.

Speed tests between Consumer Cellular, T-Mobile, and Verizon — Speed tests I ran in townspeople, where the sign is strongest.

Consumer Cellular Pricing

Consumer Cellular offers various plans, just its batting order is simple. There are talk-solitary plans, which are pointless if you have an iPhone, and 250-minute plans, which aren't much cheaper than unlimited talk and text plans.

For a unshared line, unlimited public lecture and text with 500 Megabyte of data costs $25 per month, with respective tiers adequate $60 per month for unlimited everything. You can have up to three lines, and with three lines, each person gets unlimited talk, text, and information for $30 per month or $90 per month total. Not too shabby. I've been paying $130 per month for three lines of lousy Verizon service, and that's with a 19% state employee ignore my wife gets for beingness a teacher.

Consumer Cellular plans

In that respect are no overages. If you transcend your data demarcation line, Consumer Cellular automatically upgrades you to the next data tier and notifies you. You stay on the higher tier unless you manually downgrade to a get down tier.

As for the unlimited plan, you get full speed up 5G or LTE until you hit 35 UK of usage, after which it's throttled, though to what speed I couldn't determine.

Association for the Advancement of Retired Persons members also get a 5% discount.

Consumer Honeycombed Limitations and Snafus

Consumer Lymphoblast-like has a few limitations. Since IT's not one of the big deuce-ac carriers, it's not part of Malus pumila's iPhone Acclivity Program. I don't see that American Samoa a big wheel, since I can finance an iPhone with my Apple Add-in and swap it hindermost to Apple when I'm ready to upgrade.

Family plans are qualified to three lines. That's not a trouble for me at the moment because I dea a plan only with my wife and mother. If you need more lines, you could presumably set up a second account to tot three more lines.

Consumer Cellular doesn't offer information plans for the Orchard apple tree Watch or iPad. I don't see why you couldn't instal a Consumer Cellular SIM in a cellular iPad, but I don't have unmatched to test. (Nor do I have a cellular Apple Watch, so that's non a limitation for me.)

Although Consumer Cellular offers Wi-Fi Calling and Personal Hotspot, you birth to ask the company's customer service to enable them. I've activated two SIMs with Consumer Cellular: one for my trial and a minute when I ported my number from Verizon. Some times, data worked as soon as I installed the SIM, but I couldn't dial out, activate WI-Fi Calling, or use Personal Hotspot until I contacted customer armed service.

When you contact Consumer Cancellous to get your SIM amply activated, I recommend requesting Wi-Fi Calling and Personal Hot spot at the same time. Not only when will it save you another call, only IT'll also save a bit of hassle since you have to restart your iPhone each clock time a new feature is turned along. Likewise, when Consumer Animate thing first activated Personal Hotspot, it turned off Wi-Fi Calling on my iPhone, and I had to turn it back on again in Settings.

Client service is reasonably responsive—it usually takes 5–10 minutes before reaching shoot the breeze OR earpiece support. Apt how long I've waited happening hold trying to orbit unusual carriers and presumption the general childbed shortage, I can't complain much. Once I've gotten through, I've had white service—the staff is prompt, knightly, and fluent in English.

The only annoyance I've had came when I was porting my number. Consumer Faveolate's customer service rep told me she couldn't porthole the act because Consumer Cellular didn't offer military service in my surface area. That was weird since I had already dependable its service and had no problem actuating the temporary number previously. When I mentioned that I had already activated a SIM with Consumer Cell-like, she eventually was able to override the closure to porthole my number.

Away the way of life, when you embrasure your number, you may need a special computer code from your previous provider that prevents miscreants from porting your number as piece of an identity theft defraud. For Verizon, you need to extend to to a settings page and get through Generate Immobilize, which you then give to Consumer Animate thing client service.

Installment the Consumer Cellular SIM

Consumer Cellular packages its SIM cards in an all-in-one card. For most iPhones, you'll need to clock out the nano-SIM in the center, only don't toss the card. If you need a different SIM card size of it later, you can weightlift the nano-SIM back in and and then plug out the micro or standard SIM sized.

Consumer Cellular has a helpful video recording on how to role its SIM card game.

Two notes about dealing with nano-SIM cards:

They are tiny and extremely easy to lose. Make foreordained you have appropriate eyewear for working with small objects, and proceed with cautiousness.
Father't touch the gold root of the posting. If it gets dirty, your phone May have a hard time reading it, and you'll get random messages about the SIM visiting card not beingness inserted. It may help to wear expendable gloves.

Other than dealing with the tiny nano-SIM, swapping it out is pretty casual:

If you use a sheath with your iPhone, remove it.
Look on the left operating room right side of the iPhone for an oval (the SIM tray) with a hole in it.
Softly agitate a filamentous metal aim into the muddle to pop out the SIM tray. Your iPhone came with a SIM removal tool, but if you behind't find it, use a paperclip.
Store the old SIM placard in a safe place. I used an octogenarian SD card case.
Carefully insert the Consumer Cellular SIM add-in in the tray. It fits in only one elbow room, so you can't screw IT functioning.
Push the tray back in until it's flush with the side of the iPhone.

Apple has a television on how to change your SIM card.

Your iPhone should recognize the SIM straightaway, merely you may have to contact Consumer Cellular client service to be able to make calls. The instructions with the SIM give you a identification number you commode use to prove.

If You Decide to Switch

I can't tell you if you should switch to Consumer Cellular because cell avail varies so widely around the country. I'm pleased with my service as yet, customer service has been easy to work with, and I appreciate the company's no-nonsense approach. I don't miss Verizon at all.

I wrote this refresh just to share my experiences, only if you do decide to switch, I would be remiss non to mention Consumer Cancellated's referral program, which gives us some a $10 calculate credit. If you're interested in switching, transport me an email at [netmail protected], and I'll share a referral connexion with you so we can some save a couple of bucks.