It’s been 5 months since I left T-Mobile, and I have no regrets

Earlier this year, I made a pretty drastic change in mobile carriers. After 10 years of being subscribed to T-Mobile, I decided it was time to call it quits and switch to a different provider. I moved not only myself, but also my partner and some of my family members to Visible, and that’s where we’ve been ever since.

Fast forward to today, and it’s officially been over five months since T-Mobile and I parted ways. Now that the honeymoon phase with Visible is over and I’ve had time to really assess things, what’s my conclusion? Was the switch worth it?

Absolutely. Not once have I regretted my decision to leave T-Mobile. If anything, I wish I had done it sooner.

When I initially left T-Mobile, the thing I was most worried about was my signal quality. Going from a major carrier to a prepaid MVNO like Visible, I braced myself for the worst: slow data speeds, annoying throttling, and unreliable coverage.

But five months later, I haven’t experienced anything of the sort.

Although I do spend most of my time connected to Wi-Fi, I’ve had to rely on Visible’s 5G network plenty of times since I joined. Not only have I used it while running errands or during any other trips away from my apartment, but I’ve also used it on a vacation to Buffalo, a camping trip in northern Michigan, and during visits to some rural farms and pumpkin patches throughout this fall season.

Throughout all of those scenarios, I’ve never noticed my cell service being noticeably worse than when I had T-Mobile. I haven’t been running side-by-side speed test comparisons or anything like that, largely because I haven’t felt the need to. Everything has just worked, and that’s perhaps the biggest compliment I can give Visible.

I’ve also had to do a lot of eSIM switching over the past five months, and every single time, swapping a Visible eSIM — whether from iOS to Android or between two Android phones — has been a piece of cake.

With Visible, swapping an eSIM takes all of five minutes. I download the Visible app on the phone I want my service on, log in to my account, and initiate the transfer process. Within minutes, my eSIM is transferred and up and running. Any time I had to transfer an eSIM on T-Mobile, I had to call or live chat with customer support to help when something inevitably went wrong.

Most importantly, I can’t get over how good a value Visible has been compared to T-Mobile. My parents, grandma, partner, and I are paying a grand total of $145/month for all five lines — compared to the $212/month we were shelling out to T-Mobile. I can also pay my bill with my credit card instead of linking my checking account, something T-Mobile (annoyingly) forces you to do.

$67 in monthly savings isn’t half bad, especially when our cell service hasn’t gotten any worse or less functional. If anything, it’s gotten better. I have far more generous hotspot usage on Visible than I did with my old T-Mobile plan, along with free smartwatch connectivity, too.

If things have been so great with Visible, have I not missed anything about T-Mobile? Certainly not enough to make me regret my switch, though there have been some compromises in “downgrading” to a smaller brand like Visible.

Perhaps more than anything, what I’ve missed most about T-Mobile is the extra perks that came with my plan. Paying $8/month for an ad-supported Netflix subscription isn’t the end of the world, but it was nice getting a steep discount on the ad-free version with my T-Mobile account.

I also always enjoyed getting some freebies every week with T-Mobile Tuesdays. Most of the time, this was just a $0.05 per-gallon discount on gas, but there were also sometimes coupons for nearby restaurants, free drinks at certain gas stations, and other little goodies like that. It was never anything life-changing, but it was fun to have that to look forward to each Tuesday.

T-Mobile also has a clear advantage in terms of smartphone promotions. Right now, Visible’s best phone deal is getting an iPhone 14 for free when you purchase an annual Visible+ Pro plan. In fact, that’s the only smartphone promo at the time of writing.

Meanwhile, at T-Mobile, depending on what plan you have, there are virtually endless deals for whatever phone you’re interested in. You can get an iPhone 17 Pro for free with trade-in, a free Google Pixel 10 with no trade-in required, up to $1,000 off the Galaxy Z Fold 7 — the list goes on.

I only took advantage of these types of promotions a handful of times over the 10 years I had T-Mobile, so it’s not something that really impacts my daily use. Still, having access to those deals was always appreciated, and it is a bummer that I’ll no longer be able to get those types of savings.

That said, gas coupons and smartphone trade-in deals aren’t enough to make me wish I had stayed with T-Mobile. For the last five months, I’ve had excellent cell service, simple billing, and am saving a decent amount of money, too. I was nervous the transition would be bumpy, but it’s gone far smoother than I could have ever imagined.

I’m writing all of this not to endlessly bash on T-Mobile or sing the praises of Visible, but to encourage you to swap carriers if you’re unhappy with your current one — whether that’s T-Mobile, Verizon, Google Fi, or even Visible.

Switching cell phone providers isn’t the most enjoyable thing to do. Sometimes, it can be a royal pain in the butt. But it can also be one of the best tech decisions you’ll ever make.