Review of Mobi

Actually, after December 1, 2021 (fixed and thank you).

1 Like

There’s something vaguely familiar about the color scheme Mobi uses for its marketing material. I can’t quite put my :point_up: on it. :grin:

1 Like

I will be seeing this material very soon as I just ordered my Mobi SIM.

I’ll report back after receipt and I have a chance to test it on my existing phones (2022 Moto G Power and 2020 Moto E - both purchased from RW).

Which begs the question, what is the best way to test MMS? Just text a picture to the new phone? Or is there a simpler way?

Hi @mikenoname,

If you want to preserve your ability to migrate to Boost Infinite; you could activate the Mobi SIM with a new number, then kick the tires using that new number.

If Mobi proves to be a fit, Mobi will port your current Republic number later after activation. If you decide Mobi’s not a fit, you could cancel Mobi service and still have the option of migrating your Republic number to Boost Infinite.

To test MMS, one would indeed exchange picture and/or group messages with another phone. If both phones are Androids, you would want to turn off Google’s chat features. Chat features use RCS rather than SMS/MMS. If both phones are using Google Messages with chat features on, messages will be sent over RCS rather than falling back to SMS/MMS. RCS will work over WiFi even when MMS does not.

2 Likes

That is indeed my plan. Thanks for confirming it was a good one. :slight_smile:

Since I don’t know what Google’s chat features are, I am assuming they are already off?

That can’t be taken for granted. RCS chat features (more or less the Android equivalent of iMessage) are built into Messages by Google:

  1. Open Messages by Google
  2. Tap the icon representing your Google account (right-hand side of the search bar)
  3. Tap Messages settings
  4. Tap General if that’s a choice, otherwise skip to the step 5
  5. Tap RCS chats
  6. If on, toggle off for the purpose of testing MMS over WiFi

Thanks for that. The Power did indeed have RCS on. The E doesn’t seem to have an RCS setting at all. Maybe it’s different for Android 10…

Theoretically, it’s a Messages by Google app setting rather than an Android operating system setting. Is the Messages by Google app on the 2020 Moto E up to date?

Anyway, so long as one phone participating in the conversation isn’t using RCS chat, you’ll be falling back to SMS/MMS.

Got my Mobi SIM yesterday, and the activation process turned out to be not a very smooth one. But as Roland has indicated, their customer service is excellent and they stick with you!

I installed the Mobi SIM and fired up the app to activate it. [This is actually not what you’re supposed to do – you’re supposed to do the activation process through the app AND THEN install the SIM. I checked with them and they said this probably isn’t what caused my issue, however.] The first step of the activation is authentication of the email address that you are registering with them, which they do by sending you an email to that address with a link you are supposed to click. The instructions say that you can simply tap the link to complete the process.

Problem number one is that when the email arrives it is not an actual link but raw text. So you have to copy and paste the link out of the email and into the browser’s URL window. A minor annoyance, to be sure, but still a bit of a frustration, especially when you are trying to do this on a phone. Problem number two was every time I tried to do this, the URL would send me to the Google play store to download their app which was already installed, rather than giving me a message indicating that the verification was successful. I tried the process three different times, having it send me three different emails, and the same two problems occurred each time. So at this point I was stuck and had to call customer service.

Didi was on the phone with me for almost 45 minutes trying to get things straightened out, including having to get their internal network engineers on the problem. Don’t know exactly what it was, but she referred to it as an activation error on my account. In any event, she was able to get me through the activation process that was all supposed to occur on the app.

Unfortunately, at that point, I ran into another problem that was specific to me and my location (I have zero cellular signal of any kind from any carrier where I live). I had run into this problem before with my Republic Wireless phones when trying to first activate them. If you are connected only to Wi-Fi and not on any sort of cellular signal, you just can’t get the job done. Even when you are trying to enable Wi-Fi calling, ironically, if you are connected simply to Wi-Fi, it will not finish. I left it for an hour and it still didn’t finish.

After making the 40 mile trip into town last night with the phone I was finally able to complete the activation (or rather confirm that it was completed by connecting to the cellular network) and get Wi-Fi calling to finish which, upon connection to a cellular network, it easily did in about 20 seconds.

Unfortunately, after completing the activation, I can report that Roland’s information about the 2022 Moto G Power indicated in his chart above is correct. Voice and SMS over Wi-Fi work perfectly, MMS is a no go. Which means for me it’s also a no go. So I am off to Swappa to pick up a used 2021 Moto G Pure to see if I can duplicate his results with that phone on the Mobi network. Fingers crossed!

One more thing to note, Didi let me know when she was setting my account up that they are currently offering some kind of discount on new subscriber plans and are giving four dollars a month off for the life of your account. On a $10 plan! Seems kind of crazy, but who am I to argue?

3 Likes

I must admit, I’ve never used the app to activate Mobi service. When I first became Mobi’s customer in late 2020, it wasn’t yet possible to activate using the app. Recently, when I moved another line from Republic to Mobi, I decided to call into Mobi Customer Care because I wanted to be certain the new line was added to my existing account.

MMS over WiFi is very much hit or miss (generally more miss than hit) using most phones on all traditional cellular carriers. Republic’s former proprietary WiFi-first technology was an outlier.

I don’t know what your budget is, however, if wanting to stick with Android I suggest a Google Pixel 6 or later model as a better option than a Motorola phone. That said, my factory unlocked 2021 Moto G Pure does do MMS over WiFi on Mobi.

If willing to entertain it, a switch to iPhone is another option. iPhones are the most broadly compatible across networks option in the market. There are advantages (and, of course, disadvantages) to Apple’s “walled garden”.

I certainly wouldn’t argue either and might just need to ring Didi up! :smile:

1 Like

Yeah, those may be nice phones, but that is more than I want to spend for my THIRD phone purchased in as many years. Getting tired of this phone/carrier musical chairs that we have gone through with RW after many years of great, consistent service with them. That is why I am liking Mobi. Small and hopefully around for a long time.

Yeah… no. Walled gardens aren’t my style.

It’s a crazy great deal, and making me work even harder to stay with Mobi! For way less than $10/mo including taxes I can have everything I need (hmmm, sounds familiar) in a plan. Would make it even more painful to have to run back to BI and pay the better part of $30/mo including taxes for a bunch of crappy deprioritized cell data I don’t need, but otherwise gives me the flawless WiFi performance that I must have.

Did you find one? If not, please DM me.

I did. Did you have one available?

I do. Sorry, I didn’t have a chance to make sure it was available before tonight!

Bummer. I would’ve much rather given you money than a stranger. If anything goes squirrely with the one I bought, I’ll ding you!

1 Like

Got my Pure today, installed the Mobi SIM and tried to get wifi calling working from home (where I have no cell signal and only have wifi). No go (not surprising).

Hopped on my bike and rode the three miles up the hill to a spot we call the ‘cell phone spot’ (where I was able to get 2-3 bars of Verizon signal) and easily completed the activation of wifi calling. While I was there I used my phone still on RW/Dish to confirm that voice, SMS and MMS worked on the new phone over cellular (another non-surprise).

Rode back home, turned on airplane and reenabled wifi and confirmed Roland’s results that the Pure works flawlessly for all three services. Yay!

This means I can stick with Mobi. Very happy.

I will call RW tomorrow morning and get the port started. Will report back on the port process.

1 Like

Uphill both ways, correct? :grinning:

That is pretty funny RolandH!
My dad used to add “in the snow”. He grew up on the gulf coast :slight_smile:

Nah, but the wind was against me on the way up the hill. Does that count?

Called into RW first thing this morning and got a CS rep immediately (calling in early does help alleviate wait times). Got the porting PIN and then called Mobi. Took a bit over half an hour on the phone with Kayla to get things done. Again, friendly, competent customer service.

Now just awaiting the port to occur…

… and 2 hours later, port complete!

Once again, because it’s a new phone, I couldn’t get wifi calling to enable without cellular signal, so I had to ride back up the hill with the wind in my face AGAIN (feel bad for me yet, Roland?) so that it could sniff cellular, and from there it went quickly.

Got back home again and and all three services still work perfectly on wifi. Yipee!!

Thanks again so much @rolandh for your endless help to me and this community!

3 Likes