This is almost a repeat of my RW changeover from My Choice to 5.0.
I purchased the phone from RW when I changed over (my old phone died). With the new 5.0 plan I had low bars, spotty service.
It did get better, but a few times per month, I’d lose text/MMS/call functions and would have to restart and then it would be fine…until it happened again.
Recently, I would have to re-input the APN settings – it’s like the phone lost the info. I’d restart and the phone would work.
I’m wondering if it could be the phone? My previous phones were all purchased unlocked from Best Buy, and I had Ting (my 1st carrier), then the original RW, and my second phone with Tello, with no problems like this. Can a locked phone cause problems, even when it is unlocked?
Or maybe it’s the network-- But I’m in a populated area, and the coverage maps show good coverage.
Or are MVNOs so de-prioritized that I can’t get many bars?
It’s possible that T-Mobile might have better coverage at your house.
I don’t know if you checked T-Mobile coverage, but I found this coverage map that let’s you check coverage for each of the Big 3 carriers. You could also compare it to the Verizon map that you found: Coverage Map - Compare Networks
Wow – that’s interesting. Very little Verizon 4G at my location. But the coverage map I saw before said it was OK. And people I know with Verizon do OK.
The map shows with any 5G/4G signal is decent. With 4G only, very weak.
So, I’m transferred over to USM, cancelled RW (sad, but necessary).
WARP signal is still weak, but the phone is working.
So my plan is to give it a little bit of time to see how the performance is.
If needed, I can change to the GSM SIM card with USMobile.
I hope it works out !!
Thanks for everyone’s help and responses !
I was emailed yesterday from USMobile help, and left a number to call.
They responded today (calling my other phone), and got the number of bars on my primary phone up from 1 bar.
It’s between 2-3 bars, and phone works fine.
I’ll keep an eye on it, but hopefully this has worked out!
US Mobile customer service has been very responsive and helpful!
I am glad that you have had success with US Mobile. I have been checking them out and I see that they don’t charge any extra taxes and fees. That’s great! I have been charged between 85 cents and $4.10 extra for one line, at the same address, depending on carrier.
Let us know how good the coverage is after you have had a chance to travel around with your phone a bit.
One thing that struck me today that I hadn’t noticed earlier about US Mobile – they don’t have much in the way of online instructions or help (written out).
I wanted to record a new voicemail message and realized I didn’t know how to call in to VM, etc. There were no helpful instructions online. The “Help” option on the dashboard connects you to the chat, which is usually pretty quick and I got the instructions.
I asked the chat-person about online help/instructions and they told me about this webpage: US Mobile Support (helpdocs.io) but it doesn’t seem to be linked to the dashboard from what I could see.
My previous carriers, Ting and then RW, both had good online instructions/help, and I only called in if I was really stuck.
US Mobile is different in that regard. But the non-bot chat will keep people employed, which is not a bad thing, either.
Seems like you made a good decision to switch to US Mobile considering that you have home wi-fi calling. I see that their 1 GB plan is less than half as much (considering taxes and fees) as RW was charging. I will keep US Mobile in mind if I decide to lower my data limit.
I’d also say keep Tello in mind to compare.
I have my 2nd emergency phone w/Tello – with a low minutes/data plan at $6/month, which I roll over and accumulate (by renewing manually, early each month).
Thanks for the suggestion. I see they use the T-Mobile network. I had T-Mobile when I got my first smart phone. I was in an urban area and did not travel much. The coverage was great. However, after moving away to a much less urban area, I tried Mint Mobile and encountered spotty coverage and had to cancel the service. I have not tried a Verizon service. Verizon coverage is supposed to be even better in my area than AT&T, but I have not had any problems with Boost Infinite AT&T coverage so far.
My T-Mobile coverage is decent (w/ Tello, and previously with My Choice RW), but I wanted to try another carrier to see if coverage was better/worse. I found ATT with RW was not as reliable. Verizon, so far, while not a strong signal, has been working so far. Plus, with trying US Mobile, I figured if the Verizon WARP plan didn’t work, I’d go to their GSM plan which is on T-Mobile.
I’m of the opinion that if you can afford it you are better off if you can have multiple phones on different networks. By doing this you increase the odds of having phone service if one of the networks does not cover the area you are in. I am looking at migrating my “home” phone from Spectrum to US Mobile which will allow me to keep the Verizon network for it while our other two phones are on T-Mobile.
I agree, which is why I decided to try the US Mobile WARP Verizon plan, with my other 2nd phone on Tello (T Mobile). Even though I’m in a populated state, there are some towns I go to that don’t have a signal, so I’m going to experiment and see if traveling with the 2 phones helps!
I was really hoping for multiple networks on one phone.
That’s a big reason I have for staying with Boost Infinite even though their plan may not be the best fit. Otherwise, I would probably go with a competitor’s plan that has less high-speed data.
UPDATE 12/2025 – I’ve been with US Mobile since 2023. My original post discusses some issues in the initial set up, but talking to customer service (a person!) fixed everything.
I’ve had reliable service at a good price with US Mobile. My service is on Verizon, but they offer other carriers, and different plans for different levels of use. Their customer service has been excellent – when I have had questions, I contact customer service, usually by chat, and a live person on the other end has always answered my question. The price has stayed the same since I signed up. I’ve been happy with US Mobile, as I was happy with our dear departed Republic Wireless….!!
I’ve been on US Mobile for about 4 months now. Service and support has been good.
One problem I’m just noticing is that MMS over Wi-Fi doesn’t seem to be working on my Pixel 4, while Wi-Fi calling works fine with Airplane Mode enabled. On my wife’s iPhone XR, even though Wi-Fi calling is enabled in Cellular settings, it doesn’t work at all. Like, the network in the upper-left-hand corner never shows AT&T/Dark Star Wi-Fi Calling and if I turn on Airplane mode with Wi-Fi on, I can’t make calls or even send SMS.
I’ve been in touch with US Mobile support and they are telling me, “Regarding MMS, these messages generally require a cellular data connection to go through, so sending them over Wi-Fi only can sometimes cause issues, even if it worked on other networks.” I’m not sure why they’re telling me this, as it has been a standard feature of the big three carriers for a long time now.
I supposed I failed to test this thoroughly when I first signed up for US Mobile. Does anyone else have an issue with MMS over Wi-Fi on US Mobile Dark Star (AT&T) or even the Verizon or T-Mobile variants through US Mobile?
MMS over Wi-Fi has been a long running issue with AT&T, and is dependent upon which phone (and even which firmware version) you are using. AT&T maintains a whitelist of devices that work on their network, but they don’t necessarily spell out which ones are capable of MMS over Wi-Fi:
I finally got a representative to at least admit that MMS over Wi-Fi is possible:
Technically speaking, MMS is designed to work exclusively over a cellular data connection. However, you are absolutely right that there is a workaround: Wi-Fi Calling!
If you enable Wi-Fi Calling on your phone, it allows us (US Mobile) to route SMS and MMS messages over the Wi-Fi network instead. This allows them to send even if you have absolutely no cellular signal!
While we cannot 100% guarantee that MMS will always cooperate over Wi-Fi (as it can sometimes be a little picky!), it is definitely the best workaround to try. Since you mentioned you already have it on, you might want to try toggling Airplane Mode ON and keeping Wi-Fi ON to force the phone to use that Wi-Fi connection for the message.
I had already tried all this, so I asked them to check my APN settings, which were correct. Now yet another agent is saying MMS over Wi-Fi is not supported. I don’t understand the back and forth from them. Hopefully, I can at least get it working on my wife’s XR.
I’m gonna see if they’ll allow me to switch my Pixel to the Verizon variant. I originally had this Pixel on Verizon and I’m pretty sure Wi-Fi everything was working just fine.
