If you sign up and pay for an unlimited phone plan, would you expect there to be a limit to how much high-speed data you get?
Data prioritization and other ways to reduce data usage aren’t exactly new, with Sprint even lowering the quality of images years ago, but there have been a lot of carriers recently that offer unlimited plans that slow down if you use them too much or deprioritize your connection. Calling these plans “unlimited” is technically correct, as you do get as much low-speed data as you can use, but it doesn’t feel totally honest.
Better labeling, like the FCC broadband labels, has made it easier to know exactly how much high-speed data you’re getting, but if you’re uninterested in making spreadsheets to find out which is the best value, you could find yourself on a plan with much less data than expected.
These carriers need to ditch data caps on unlimited plans
They’re not the only ones, either
Mint Mobile has been a popular prepaid option for a while due to its reasonably-sized plans, easy-to-understand multi-month discounts, and some strong marketing. The T-Mobile-owned carrier advertises three limited plans, plus an unlimited plan for customers to choose from. For the former, if all your data is used up, the data still works, but at much lower speeds that aren’t good for much more than sending messages.
The problem, however, is that if you have Mint’s unlimited plan, the same thing happens to you after 40GB of usage. Really, Mint’s unlimited plan is 40GB, plus 5GB of hotspot data.
Another T-Mobile carrier, Ultra Mobile, was cut from the same cloth as Mint Mobile, as it also has multi-month discounts, but it recently updated its two unlimited options to be truly unlimited. With others carriers continuing to raise the bar, Mint Mobile has become a lot harder to recommend.
Unlike Mint, Boost Mobile is in charge of its own destiny with its own 5G network in addition to coverage from AT&T and T-Mobile. Despite all of this capacity, however, the carrier’s unlimited plans come with a 30GB limit on the cheap end and 50GB on the high end. Boost also has a plan called Infinite Access, which carries the same 30GB premium data limit as the base unlimited plan. After 30GB, your speed may be reduced to just 512Kbps.
While Boost’s plans can be great, especially if you need a new phone, you’ll need to accept Boost’s creative definitions for “unlimited” and “infinite.”
Meanwhile, Google Fi — popular for its deals on phones like the Google Pixel 9 Pro, international features, and data-sharing features — has data prices that feel like something found in a time capsule; $10 per gigabyte on its Flexible plan and only 50GB of high-speed data on its top Unlimited Plus plan just isn’t appealing.
At $65 per month for a single line, plus taxes and fees, Google Fi’s Unlimited Plus plan is a solid deal for those who frequently travel abroad, but for everyone else, it’s an expensive plan with only 50GB of data. As a point of comparison, US Mobile’s Unlimited Premium plan comes with 100GB of high-speed data and international eSIMs for $44 per month, which includes taxes and fees.
It doesn’t end there, unfortunately, as AT&T Prepaid is another plan that explores the limits of “unlimited;” its Unlimited Basic plan gets 30GB of data at 3G speeds of 3Mbps, which is slowed to 1.5Mbps after that. Another plan, Unlimited + 10GB hotspot data, only gets 16GB of high-speed data, which can also be slowed to 1.5Mbps.
Of course, none of us really need an unlimited plan, but they’re nice for a bit of peace of mind. Unfortunately, you’ll also need to pay attention to how much data you actually get and whether that lines up with your needs, especially if you’re signing up for an annual plan from a carrier like Mint Mobile.
Some carriers are starting to come around
MobileX, Ultra Mobile, and more have upgraded their plans
Unlimited plans with a high-speed data cap are nothing new and are likely to stick around, but customers looking for the best value data plans should still keep an eye out for them. Luckily, some carriers have reintroduced real unlimited plans, with carriers like Ultra Mobile removing high-speed limits and Visible removing speed caps. MobileX is another notable carrier with its unlimited plan upgrading to a generous 199GB.
If you know how much high-speed data you typically need, you can still get a great deal with one of these unlimited plans, so they shouldn’t be completely written off. Plus, if your phone is paid off, you could even save quite a bit of money by trying out a new carrier.
In fact, if you haven’t checked how much data you use in a while, you might need a lot less than expected thanks to the availability of public Wi-Fi and smarter software that can take care of app updates and cloud backups, but only when you’re connected to Wi-Fi.
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