I switched to cell phone service for old people and I love it (UPDATE: with a little visual voicemail difficulty)

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein) 01/30/2019 at 11:35 • Filed to: None

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A few months ago I said I was going to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! because Verizon deprioritizes prepaid customers’ data in congested areas. Well, I never actually got around to switching, until this week, when I didn’t switch to AT&T but instead to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Yes, the thing for old people.

UPDATE: Consumer Cellular doesn’t have visual voicemail, which is common among some prepaid carriers. Usually I work around this by using !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! for my voicemail, but there were some unforeseen difficulties setting this up. I’ll explain at the end.

Verizon prepaid is basically unusable in major cities. Verizon’s website says nothing about the fact that they deprioritize prepaid customers’ data when connecting to busy parts of the network. They do say this about their cheapest Go Unlimited postpaid “unlimited” plan, but you only see any words about this congestion prioritization being on ALL PREPAID PLANS in your customer portal after you sign up for Verizon Prepaid Service.   And it sucks. All too often, Verizon’s network would arbitrarily decide it was congested, and my data would go to the back of the line. I’d have full bars of signal but data would straight up just not work, and calls would only go thru the old busted CDMA network with terrible sound quality and no background data.

If you spend any time in or near a major city, stay the fuck away from Verizon prepaid. The end.

I decided I wanted to be on AT&T’s network. They don’t deprioritize prepaid customers. AT&T’s in-house prepaid plans don’t have access to LTE calling, but they do have access to AT&T’s 3G HSPA network which still gives background data, just not the HD voice calls that make the person you’re talking to sound like they’re in your head maaaaaannnnnn. Cricket, AT&T’s in-house subsidiary, has LTE calling but data speeds are capped to 8 Mbps. KEEP YOUR THROTTLING AWAY FROM ME! Straight Talk and other brands under the TracFone umbrella aren’t throttled or deprioritized, and somewhat have access to LTE calling, but it’s hit or miss and TracFone customer service is mediocre to poor at flipping this switch on their end if you need this, and in general. I’ve been there and wasn’t in a rush to go back.

Of these mixed drawbacks, I decided I could live without HD calling in exchange for the uncapped speeds of AT&Ts’s in-house prepaid plan. But I never actually got around to switching to AT&T prepaid because I kept not going to the AT&T store to get SIM cards and swap the service before my autopay on Verizon renewed for another month. I could’ve ordered them online but I was hung up on going to the store.

Just out of curiosity I decided to investigate if there were any other prepaid plans from MVNOs that use AT&T’s network, aren’t throttled, and have LTE HD voice calls. Turns out Consumer Cellular does support LTE calls if you ask them to flip that switch on for you. Like anyone else with LTE calling on the AT&T network, you get HD voice with anyone else on an HD voice-enabled AT&T or Verizon phone. That’s not everyone but it’s a lot of people including most of my family.

You can also go on T-Mobile’s network with Consumer Cellular, which is nice if you want to access wifi calling on an unlocked phone. But for me, I’ve been on T-Mobile’s network before and the signal at my house is bad, so it needs wifi calling. I’m far from the sticks, and at my parents’ vacation house out in the sticks T-Mobile has no coverage. Maybe at some point but right now not an option for me.

I had actually looked at Consumer Cellular in the past but their plans never were the amount of data I wanted. But now I have unlimited talk, text & 20 GB shared data for 2 lines for $75/month.

As you can see from the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on Consumer Cellular’s website, I have basically the most expensive possible plan on Consumer Cellular. If only I were old enough to be an AARP member I could save 5%!

I was paying $80/month with Verizon prepaid for 7 GB for me and 3 GB for my wife, with rollover data. Consumer Cellular would get me more data, no deprioritization, and keep HD voice call ing (with AT&T and Verizon customers) for 5 bucks a month less. Bingo.

I ordered SIM cards, which are free on the website but also available in stores like Target for 10 bucks or something (so don’t buy them in a store when you can order them free!), and they came in the mail the other day. I used my Google Voice number on my computer to call in to customer service to activate my SIMs, and got a nice lady in Anytown, USA where the Consumer Cellular call center is located. She activated the SIMs, and also LTE calling when I asked, but said my numbers were scheduled to port over at 1 am, so I’d have to wait until after then to swap SIMs.

Except, right after that, I got a bunch of texts from Verizon that my account was closed out. I tried to make a call and the service was already off. So I swapped the SIMs and called my wife’s phone from mine. It worked but wasn’t HD voice. We were going out to run an errand and grab dinner but I didn’t think to check data because our phones were connected to our wifi. We headed out, and my wife’s data worked fine, but mine didn’t. Hmm. Whatever.

When I got home I called Consumer Cellular’s Anytown, USA call center again. Oh, I should mention that Consumer Cellular has their own in-house news radio while you wait on hold. Old people love news radio.

After a short hold, I told the nice gentleman about this. He right away said, “ok we’re going to have to update your Access Point Name settings,” and started trying to walk me through to how to get to that in my phone’s settings, but I know where that is so I was like, “ok I’m there.” Bam. He told me what to put in, I rebooted my phone, and voila, data worked and I had the toggle for Enhanced 4G LTE which is LTE calling.

Even though my wife’s data was already working, I checked her settings to see if it was the exact stuff the Consumer Cellular guy had told me, and it wasn’t. But her phone had managed to figure out some “AT&T Reseller” APN. Just to make sure everything worked right, especially since my wife was about to fly to Wisconsin to look after her mom who’s having health problems, I entered the same stuff as my phone and rebooted hers. I also downloaded offline maps in Google Maps for her just in case she had any issues with the connection on her trip.

My wife’s at her mom’s now, and we’ve had multiple conversations in HD voice. The Consumer Cellular customer service has been on point, and for me, that plan is all I need and a good price. I’m happy. It’s not just for old people!

VISUAL VOICEMAIL APPENDIX:

Consumer Cellular and other prepaid plans only offer old-skool touchtone voicemail, or sometimes only iPhone visual voicemail, but often this is no problem as there are third-party voicemail services that you can use to cover this gap. I use YouMail, which has a free tier with some ads and limits on the number of voicemail transcriptions you get per month but otherwise is totally fine and functional visual voicemail. These services all work with a network feature called conditional call forwarding.

Regular call forwarding simply takes all calls dialed to your number and forwards them to some other number. Your phone will no longer ring. But conditional call forwarding only forwards calls in certain conditions, like a missed or declined call. By default, your carrier conditionally forwards your calls to their voicemail dial-in number.

YouMail and other third-party voicemail services work because many carriers let you dial codes from your phone to change the conditional call forwarding number. The YouMail app has a part of the settings where you pick your carrier and it dials the correct codes for you automatically, and verifies forwarding is working correctly. Simple.

Except when I tried to set up YouMail on my Essential PH-1, it wouldn’t work at all. I kept getting an error. I tried to troubleshoot this on my own and there were a bunch of forum threads about Consumer Cellular straight up not supporting conditional call forwarding. I also tried and failed twice with Consumer Cellular’s U.S.-based, J.D. Power-winning customer service   to see if there was some switch they needed to flip on my account to enable conditional call forwarding. They kept trying to walk me through doing it from my phone, like there was nothing to do on their end.

So I gave up and set up the old-skool BEEP BOP BOOP voicemail, which I really did not like the thought of, because I use my Google Voice number for work, and both it and my personal number both dump their voicemail in YouMail. I told my wife, who was in Wisconsin visiting her mom, to hold 1 on her phone app to set up her BEEP BOP BOOP voicemail.

Disappointed but not defeated, I kept trying to research any other possible solutions, but last night after my wife got home from her trip, I tried to set up the YouMail forwarding on her Moto G5+, just for kicks. I selected AT&T Wireless for the carrier since Consumer Cellular uses their network, and the forwarding activation sequence worked just as it was supposed to on the very first try. When I went into the call forwarding settings on the phone, it was able to talk to the network and show conditional forwarding was now going to the YouMail dial-in number. WTF????????????

So, with this knowledge, I turned off both of our phones, popped the SIMs out, put my SIM in my wife’s phone, and tried to use the YouMail app on her phone to activate forwarding on my line. AND IT WORKED!!!!! I put my SIM back in my phone, and it still gets the errors and can’t make any forwarding changes, but calls still are properly handed off to YouMail. Good enough!

I have no real explanation for this other than people have been posting in forums about certain phones not being able to access the conditional forwarding settings on AT&T and other companies that use AT&T’s network, for years. At least one phone in my household was able to do it for both of our SIMs.

So all is well, but not without a certain amount of hassle that took some ingenuity on my part to overcome. BUT I DID OVERCOME.

So, with this, I’m still happy with Consumer Cellular as it meets all of what I want in terms of calling features, coverage, data cap, and no goddamn Verizon congestion throttling. YMMV with Android visual voicemail though.

KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time > Textured Soy Protein 01/25/2019 at 11:27

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Ranked Numbah one by JD Powah 5 times? You know it’s going to be good! Mahk approves!

Textured Soy Protein > KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time 01/25/2019 at 11:34

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I wanted to just leave that there and not comment on it but see if anyone noticed. You win!

Tapas > Textured Soy Protein 01/25/2019 at 12:18

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Moving to Canada made me apprecitate the variety and choice in the US cellular market. I know that’s really saying something - but Canada genuinely sucks harder in terms of choice and cost.

For the kind of plan you have, Canadians are paying $110+ per month at a minimum.

Textured Soy Protein > Tapas 01/25/2019 at 12:37

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The US market is dominated by the major carriers and their expensive post-paid plans, but that’s not because those plans are necessarily the only option. They’re just the option that gets promoted ALL. THE. TIME. so people think that’s how you’re supposed to get a phone.

There are plenty of prepaid plans on those same carriers, and through MVNOs that piggyback on their networks. B ut which plan offers the right features and quality of service is very much a moving target. I’ve been rolling with only unlocked phones and prepaid plans for the past 4 years but I’ve jumped around carriers a lot depending on what was best at a given time.

But what I do takes a little bit of knowledge, research and effort. Most folks just go to the cell phone store or Best Buy and are needlessly locked into super pricey service plans tied to phone discounts or installment payments.

Tapas > Textured Soy Protein 01/25/2019 at 12:57

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I completely agree.

That’s how telecom works here too.

I have always stuck to unlocked phones and prepaid plans. Things just are more expensive in Snow Mexico :(

ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com > Textured Soy Protein 01/25/2019 at 15:31

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Interesting. I got my parents on Consumer Ce ll ul ar as a way to move them to smart phones 2 or 3 years ago , and the plans made sense for their very limited data usage. At the time, I didn’t look seriously at them because the data plans weren’t sensible for my use. I may have to give them a second look now.

I’ve been doing Verizion prepaid the last couple of years. I’m not in a major metro area (and probably only visit one a few times a year for not more than a couple of days), so the de prioritization basically doesn’t affect me. Until relatively recently, they were also the only carrier that had any significant 3G and LTE data coverage for more than just a small swath of New Mexico about 15 miles wide along the interstate corridors and bigger cities .

However, their plans just don’t feel like as good a deal as they once were. Also, as other carriers have finally started building out 3g and 4g data coverage for more than just the interstate corridors in NM, V erizion’s generally much older equipment certainly isn’t as speedy as some of the competition. The completely cracked screen on my phone as also been figuring into consideration. I actually thought I was going to have to replace it when I broke the screen four months ago, but it just keeps on working, so I keep on using it.

I’ve been pretty seriously considering Google Fi, but I may have to give the older people plan another look.

Textured Soy Protein > ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com 01/25/2019 at 15:44

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Fi uses a combination of T- Mobile, Sprint , U.S. Cellular and wifi. You need to have a Fi-specific phone to take advantage of the network switching tri cks that Fi uses to provide a seamless experience with that hopping around. We have unlocked phones that work on all those networks but without as seamless of an experience with that hopping.

It’s also not all that cheap, especially if you use a good amount of data. It *is* good if you roam internationally.

For me AT&T’s network on its own is good enough and it works fully with both my and my wife’s phones. If I needed wifi calling I’d have to go with something on T-Mobile, or an iPhone with Consumer Cellular.

So if AT&T has good coverage where you need it then Consumer Cellular is definitely worth it. At least based on my initial experience. 

shop-teacher > Textured Soy Protein 01/25/2019 at 15:46

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Good to know!  Thanks!

ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com > Textured Soy Protein 01/25/2019 at 16:02

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Indeed on the network switching, as that combination of networks is what make Fi appealing to me and offers still inferior, but livable , coverage compared to Verizion . I also need a new phone anyway.

The pay as you go on data also appeals to me on Fi. Most of the time, I’m on one wifi network or another between home, the university and breweries. Most months I can get by on a not more than 2 or 3GB of data. It’s when I go on vacation a few time a year that my mobile data usage spikes. When I go hiking/backpacking/messing around in rural NM on the weekends I don’t tend to use much data, but I do like having coverage for the option of communication.

Textured Soy Protein > ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com 01/25/2019 at 16:08

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If you’re cool getting a phone thru Fi and don’t use a ton of data then it’s worth considering. All the phones that Fi sells are decent deals and Fi gives you a service credit along with them . It’s a good way to get a deal on a phone and not be stuck with a big monthly service bill.

Since I already have unlocked phones and sometimes use a lot of data,  it’s just not as much of a fit for me.

Rico > Textured Soy Protein 01/25/2019 at 20:43

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I’m thinking about getting this for my dad. He’s on an ATT prepaid plan with a flip phone but likes to talk on the phone and usually spends about $40 a month on prepaid refills . Is it as simple as switching out the sim and calling them from my phone to activate? Do they port numbers? 

Textured Soy Protein > Rico 01/26/2019 at 10:21

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They do port numbers. And yes you’ve got it with calling from your phone. You just need to get his account info to order a sim card from the website. The sim is cut in multiple shapes so you just pop out the shape that matches the sim card in your phone.

Alf Romio > Textured Soy Protein 01/28/2019 at 21:07

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I wanted an AT&T MVNO so I switched to H2O Wireless a few years ago and still love it. Consumer Cellular was a close second for me. Both have very appealing plans.

Textured Soy Protein > Alf Romio 01/28/2019 at 22:15

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Looks like h2O has an 8 Mbps speed cap. I had that with Cricket a few years ago and wasn't  thrilled with the experience.

Tripper > Textured Soy Protein 01/30/2019 at 12:01

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I have had the same number with the same provider for the last 22 years. I won a phone and a year of service at the “Flyers Wives Fight for Lives” Carnival when I was 12. My parents switched it on for me to use for emergencies only. Now I handle the billing for the family, full cell phone circle.

It was this phone with a Philadelphia Flyers logo on the front of the flippy flap.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Textured Soy Protein 01/30/2019 at 12:10

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Good info. Just need this now:

Textured Soy Protein > Tripper 01/30/2019 at 12:12

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I’ve had the same number since 2004. I graduated high school in 2000 and had a similar “for emergencies” Nokia 5160 but I didn’t get to take that to college with me. My sophomore year I got my own phone with a Wisconsin number. But a couple years later I was back home in Maryland for the summer and selling cars, so I decided to switch carriers to get a free new phone and a local number for customers to call me. Then I took that Maryland number back to Wisconsin with me and kept it for the next 14 years until I...moved back to Maryland. I even paid $10 to swap my Google Voice number from a Wisconsin one to a Maryland one, so I could use it for work. 

Textured Soy Protein > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/30/2019 at 12:20

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Why stop there when you can also get the Consumer Cellular GrandPad Tablet ????

Tripper > Textured Soy Protein 01/30/2019 at 12:21

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I graduated in 03'. I also had a 5160, then the infamous 3310, followed by a Motorola V60i. I had a prepaid Verizon phone in college as service on campus was spotty , but still kept the at&t phone. I think I had a few others before the Razr. From there it was blackberries from the side wheel ones until the touch button “ bold” . The I moved to iPhones and stuck with them except for a short stint with an android based Motorla Atrix.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Textured Soy Protein 01/30/2019 at 12:27

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Haha! Those icons are ginormous! 

Textured Soy Protein > Tripper 01/30/2019 at 13:22

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Here, I bet I can reconstruct my whole phone timeline.

1998-2000: Nokia 5160
2001-2003: G eneric Sprint flip phone kinda like a Samsung SPH-N300
2003-2004: LG 5350 a.k.a. one of the first-ever Sprint flip phone with an external caller ID display and color internal screen!
2004-2006: Sony-Ericsson T610 (the phone I got when selling cars)
2006-2007: Cingular 3125 a.k.a. HTC Star Trek
2007-2008: HTC S620 unlocked
2009-2009: AT&T HTC Tilt
2009-2011: iPhone 3GS
20011-2013: Motorola Droid Razr
2013 (briefly): used Samsung Galaxy Nexus to replace that Razr after I cracked it
2013-2015: Verizon LG G2
2015-2017: Motorola X Pure Edition
2017-2018: Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge unlocked
2018-present: Essential PH-1

Tripper > Textured Soy Protein 01/30/2019 at 13:35

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Ooo, I forgot about this one I think it was the smallest phone I’ve ever owned.

I also had a P alm Treo and a bunch of other N extel phones when I was with Circuit City.

I was unaware of Essential’s existence . Seems like a really nice phone particularly for the price.

Textured Soy Protein > Tripper 01/30/2019 at 14:09

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Nerd alert:  I actually had a Palm Pilot Personal and then a Handspring Visor but all my early smartphones were HTC Windows Mobile.

Tripper > Textured Soy Protein 01/30/2019 at 14:37

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I had an HP ipaq! I remember wanting the Handspring Visor.

danalion > Textured Soy Protein 04/15/2019 at 15:07

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Great information. I’m talking to a Consumer Cellular rep now and she has no idea of what I’m talking about with Conditional Call Forwarding. She gave me **21*10 digit phone number for YouMail# and that was direct forwarding without ringing. What codes did you use that worked? Thx

Textured Soy Protein > danalion 04/15/2019 at 19:53

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My Essential PH-1 refused to work with any forwarding codes, both those generated by the YouMail activation thing within the app and codes dialed by me. But for whatever reason my wife’s Motorola G5+ worked just fine when I used the in-app YouMail activation.

So I put my SIM in her phone and used it to activate forwarding on my line, then put my SIM back in my phone and her SIM back in her phone. After that, somehow forwarding got deactivated on her line, but I just did the in-app YouMail activation on her line and all was fine after that.

lovemedonthateme > Textured Soy Protein 10/06/2019 at 16:14

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For Consumer Cellular (AT&T) Dial **004*8572166808# to forward to YouMail. Thank you so much! Just switched and this was driving me nuts. Had so many junk voicemails the past few days and CC was telling me they do not support it. I knew there had to be a way!

Phil > Textured Soy Protein 03/31/2020 at 11:48

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Thanks for this...it definitely pointed me in the right direction. Here is how I was able to make it work on my Galaxy S10+

I set up an account with YouMail. It gave me an error message saying that it does not work with Consumer Cellular. I then contacted YouMail via their chat and asked for the “deposit number” for my voicemail with them. This was just the phone number that my missed calls should be forwarded to so that they could go into my YouMail voicemail.

I then talked to Consumer Cellular and they said they could “turn on” the visual voicemail capability for me. I believe this is basically the “conditional call forwarding” functionality.  I had to turn my phone off and back on to update that capability after they turned it on.

Next step was to open up my phone icon. Go to the 3 dots for the menu (upper right). Select Settings. Then select Supplementary Services. Then select Call Forwarding. I left the “Always Forward” option as “Turned Off” because I don’t want all calls automatically forwarded. I changed the other 3 options...

Forward When Busy

Forward When Unanswered

Forward When Unreachable

I put in the YouMail deposit number and clicked Update for each of these.

Now and calls that are missed (busy, unanswered, or unreachable) are forwarded to my YouMail and my messages are recorded there and I have a visual voicemail.

I got the impression from Consumer Cellular that this may not work on all handsets but it did work for my Galaxy S10+. Probably a little different for other phones but hopefully this will help a few people.

Road > Textured Soy Protein 04/19/2020 at 22:22

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Thanks for posting this info it worked like a champ