CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW
That has long been a well known slogan of one of the communication providers that claimed it had high percentages of coverage. The guy bailed on that service provider and partnered with a different provider when the love diminished. It has been several years since we have been caught up in long term commitments with under performing partners. Now, and as of the past fifteen years, our partnerships are all about performance and we maintain no long term commitments based upon service proviers failure to perform. After revolving through several providers like we were on a carousel, we opted to drop the costly monthly services and go with monthly plans under $20 a month, and closer to $15 a month since we spend very little time in the USA making use of our services. We went from red to pink to purple, yellow and blue. Finally we settle with the green of Mint Mobile for $180 per year. We also picked up Red Pocket, and have opted out of renewal with Red Pocket because of three major reasons discussed below.
Mint Mobile
We found Mint Mobile inadvertently when we had de-googled our cell phones and installed an alternate Operating System on them. We have been running either CalyxOS or LineageOS on our Android phones, thereby removing bloat from the variety of providers that have their own versions of Android OS and everything that manufacturer wants to tyrannically impose upon you. Since Apple is closed source and cannot be firmware flashed with a different operating system, we won’t even remotely consider investing in an iPhone for any purpose. Being able to erase the OS and install a different operating system is the number one reason we choose certain phones. For example, we will no longer buy any Samsung Android because they are the most bloated Android Operating Systems we have experienced and practically all of the Samsung phones are locked from being rooted, thereby prohibiting replacing the OS. Many of the manufacturers are like this, although you may own the phone out-right. The phone has been paid in full and you still are prohibited from flashing it with an operating system other than that provided by the manufacturer with all the bloated applications.
We have found that the very same company that develops the Android operating system makes one of the best phones for firmware flashing and installing a de-googled operating system. That would be Google themselves. Generally we boycott everything Google as much as reasonably possible. However, when there is an opportunity to purchase a developer enable phone that is unlocked at the operating system level as well as the provider level, it is difficult to resist.
For our particular interests, the Google Pixel 3A was unlocked at both the carrier level and the OS level. For about $100 USD we were able to buy that phone model. Within an hour after putting it in developer mode we were able to flash the operating system to CalyxOS where Mint Mobile had an icon. We researched Mint a little and within a few minutes we saw Mint was a reseller of T-Mobile. We generally try to avoid anything T-Mobile when traveling outside US Cities, especially when traveling internationally. we know that T-Mobile has zero international capabilities and T-Mobile pretty much sucks every where unless in a heavily populated urban area. If outside a mega-metropolis by more than five miles, T-Mobile has terrible service. However, for $15 a month we felt the same we did for any service at that price. You get what you pay for, just be aware before hand. It was also a no contract deal like the Red Pocket service.
We threw the dice and decided to give Mint Mobile a try. The biggest reason is because it offered an eSIM right from the start. It offered very easy to follow steps and a customer support number that we called prior to making the purchase. The customer support was very helpful and within a few minutes after making the decision to purchase a service plan we were up and running. When we began our international travels we already knew there would be no service on a cellular network. We did learn, however, that some locations did allow limited access.
The Mint Mobile T-Mobile service did not block international WiFi calling and text messages like the other service. The Mint Mobile service also offered 5gb of data and unlimited in network calling and unlimited text messages. The simple fact that we could connect to a WiFi network and use the services internationally made the biggest difference. It proved to be the most useful when there were unidentified charges on banks cards and the financial institution identified the calling number as being associated with our bank accounts. This is an important requirement in today’s banking and technology world.
Mint Mobile also doesn’t enable any of our emergency notification choices based on corporate policy, not have they ever shared, sold or traded our information with third party vendors such as Red Pocket had. After more than two years Mint Mobile has never indicated our numbers are shared with their partners.
Mint Mobile has competent customer support people who get right to the point and apparently value the customer’s time. The three times we had to call customer service, all three of them were very efficient and we were very satisfied with the competency and efficiency experienced through Mint Mobile.
We highly recommend Mint Mobile, and if you can install an alternate operating system on your Android that you look into the CalyxOS and LineageOS for your de-googled phones.
Red Pocket
The only reason we chose Red Pocket was because it is a reseller of AT&T service. Many countries have service agreements with AT&T that allow an AT&T customer access to international cell towers. Upon returning from one of our international travels we opted to sign up for Red Pocket based solely on this availability. The price tag for the annual service was really affordable and if it didn’t work outside the USA, then it would be no big loss to not have service.
As it turned out, the AT&T service did NOT work outside the USA and neither did Wi-Fi calling. That was the first of several disappointments with Red Pocket, which are all reasons why we will not be renewing service with them when our year is expired. It is some what understandable that the AT&T reseller doesn’t provide international service like the parent AT&T, but the NO WI-FI calling most certainly is a deal breaker. This service provider is useless for anybody wanting to use the calling or texting features over Wi-Fi during international travel.
We suspect that Red Pocket also sells customer information to third parties, and the company also resets all notification settings without consent. We had to have several conversations with Red Pocket to discontinue resetting our emergency notification settings since we were traveling in many different locations in a matter of days. We don’t have any interest in receiving alerts regardless if those are Amber Alerts or national emergency alerts. We want to chose for ourselves what we want. Eventually we learned we had to “opt-out” of having our provider updates disabled and turned off at the provider level. What that meant was that suddenly we began receiving alerts within hours of disabling alerts. It took three calls to customer service which involved about five hours to finally make progress.
The nice thing about the service is that Red Pocket offers both a SIM and an eSIM version of the phone card. We went with the eSIM version because it can be disabled in the phone settings under Network. We keep the Red Pocket AT&T eSIM off nearly all the time unless the Mint Mobile (T-Mobile) doesn’t work or we need additional data. AT&T has less than terrible service in most areas we travel, any way. What’s more is that Red Pocket obviously shares (sells) customer data with many third parties. Every time the Red Pocket eSIM is enabled, we receive messages from a plethora of marketers having only five or six digit identifier numbers, not a normal telephone number.
Also, SPAMmers on the Red Pocket AT&T network send messages like “Hey, why is your number in my contact list?” Seriously, you think we are going to respond to that text message and confirm we are a valid number? For the most part we block every number and message that arrives on the Red Pocket network. We have never shared that number with anybody and know all the calls or text messages to it are illegitimate.
All this said, we recommend searching for another provider and completely avoiding Red Pocket if you have any inclination in international travel and want any type of Wi-Fi text or calling.
We highly recommend avoiding Red Pocket.
GOOGLE PIXEL
Although this provider is on the list of those we actively boycott, we never purchase anything from this corporation. We only purchase second-hand equipment at a fair market value from individuals, thus promoting and supporting the individual while maintaining our position on new purchases. It has been nearly a decade since we have purchased any new tangible goods for our travels. We have been practicing a minimalist life style for more than a decade and emphasize the “Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rethink and Repair” concept.
We have had our most successful experiences with this model cellular devices when it is time to de-google our devices.
When it comes to maximum performance and minimal bloat, we always turn to either CalyxOS or LineageOS, depending on our desired application needs. Each has simple step-by-step instructions on how to install the operating system on your cellular device and a list of default applications that are included with the installation. For a list of alternate Android OSes, we recommend doing your research for what best suits your needs.
Signal Messaging
“State-of-the-art end-to-end encryption (powered by the open source Signal Protocol) keeps your conversations secure. We can’t read your messages or listen to your calls, and no one else can either. Privacy isn’t an optional mode — it’s just the way that Signal works.”
—Signal web site
Telegram Messaging
"Telegram is a messaging app with a focus on speed and security, it’s super-fast, simple and free. You can use Telegram on all your devices at the same time — your messages sync seamlessly across any number of your phones, tablets or computers."
—Telegram Web Site
We are quite satisfied with both Signal and Telegram for our intended messaging purposes. The most important factor is that both have a desktop version we can use on our laptops, and are independent platforms, unlike another platform we avoid at all costs. Whats that App owned by some Face Booking agency, yeah, the one who is notorious for sharing your data and has access to all your information and communications? Yeah, that one. Those guys are on our boycott list and we emphatically suggest avoiding that company and all their products if you have any intent on remaining privacy compliant and somewhat anonymous.