And the cell phone service right at our house is so bad that we have a network extender, so all the calls we make from home go through our wifi and internet. I think the breaking point for me was the the wifi on my flip phone must have gone south- it wouldn't connect well, so quite often people would call, I'd answer, and then there would be no connection and they'd have to call again, or I'd have to call them back- quite a pain.
This is not good news at all. If you need a microcell for Verizon coverage, you're likely stuck on Verizon postpaid as you'll need an active account to keep the device registered. Even though Verizon offers WiFi calling with several of their handsets now thus bypassing the need for a microcell, it's still a feature limited and restricted to postpaid service. Then of course, WiFi calling support has been a feature that nearly all the major network operators have kept exclusive to postpaid contracts only in this country.
The problem is, outside of a very short list of T-Mobile based MVNOs, no MVNOs are able to offer WiFi calling to their customers. There are even fewer MVNOs that activate/use microcells, and the ones that do, use Sprint if you can even
find a microcell at this point that you can activate with them.
Are you
positive that native AT&T or T-Mobile coverage in your area hasn't improved the past few years?
Theoretically, given Verizon's microcells aren't discriminating on which customers can connect, it's possible to keep the thing active by leaving your wife on Big Red's postpaid service (given the savings on her line will be far less than with yours) and you could test to make sure a Verizon MVNO could connect and use the thing, but it doesn't eliminate the need for a postpaid account to keep it active even if it does work... but this isn't territory I'm that familiar with and hasn't been talked about much. At all. Microcells were a flash in the pan stopgap in the industry, and poorly thought out at that. After all, you're the one stuck having to foot the bill to extend
their coverage, and foot the bill again on your internet data hosting their network and data traffic for yourself and any other of their customers who stumble onto your extender.
Here's another question, aside from simplicity of billing, is there any advantage to us being on the same plan?
The answer is, it depends. You're the only good judge of that.
Honestly, the Verizon coverage issue is a non-starter for you in my book, but if you're bent on trying to plow forward anyway, do note that I mentioned more than one MVNO offering Verizon service to do some price comparisons.
So, for the phone, this is the one you're talking about, right?
Yes.
I haven't been in on the procedure before. What do I do? OK, I buy the phone. Do I need or buy a Verzion-based SIM card, too? And then I call Selectel, tell them my account info, the phone number of my current phone, give them a credit card, and then they activate things? Do I need to talk to Verizon to cancel/transfer things?
If you switch carriers, you need to get the SIM card from
them, not Verizon. The act of porting your number out from one carrier to the other is your method of terminating service with your previous carrier. Calling your old carrier up and cancelling your account with them directly is a good way to lose your number.
I've been very satisfied with Page Plus for almost a decade.
Thanks, I'll check them out!
PagePlus was bought out a couple years back by America Movil/TracFone, and customer service cratered not long after. There's a lot of reasons why I stopped recommending them and never recommended any other TracFone brand. Be aware of this.
Understand, Hibernaculum, unless you can get mobile service with a carrier on their native network at all the major locations you need to use your phone without using WiFi calling or microcell network extenders,
you really don't have any solid MVNO options at all. There are hoop jumping options in your situation involving a home phone line using VoIP, choosing an MVNO that allows for call forwarding (again, there aren't
many, and I don't believe there are any that use Verizon's network), and forwarding those cell calls to the home phone. There's also Google Voice, but that's a bit of a patchwork.
About the only other potential option would be GoogleFi, but that requires all new expensive handsets that are compatible, signing over all your call records to the Googleplex... and honestly outside of in-home WiFi calling? If your general area just has terrible T-Mobile, Sprint, and US Cellular coverage already (which is probably why you went Verizon in the first place), you're still SOL for reliable calling from anywhere
but home and places with open WiFi hotspots. I'm also loathe to recommend Republic Wireless's T-Mo MVNO plans as well, because although they permit more Android handsets than GoogleFi, it's T-Mo network coverage
only with WiFi calling activated. If Fi's network coverage won't work for you, then Republic
definitely won't.