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Compatible Carriers for Moto G LTE and Pricing

T

Tesla5

Well-Known Member
Compatible carriers for this phone.

AT&T
Cricket (AT&T)
Straight Talk (AT&T/T-Mobile)
T-Mobile
MetroPCS (T-Mobile)
Simple Mobile (T-Mobile)

Best prices I can find for unlimited data (4G then throttled to 2G after you have used up your 4G limit).

(Updated 11/2/2014)

$30 | 5GB 4G LTE | 100 minutes voice | T-Mobile (T-Mobile Prepaid/Walmart)
$35 | 1GB 4G LTE | With Auto Pay | Cricket (AT&T)
$45 | 3GB 4G LTE | With Auto Pay | Cricket (AT&T)
$55 | 10GB 4G LTE | With Auto Pay | Cricket (AT&T)
$60 | Unlimited 4G LTE | MetroPCS (T-Mobile)

Note: AT&T MVNOs Cricket and Straight Talk have LTE throttled to a max speed of 8 Mbps. T-Mobile MVNOs MetroPCS, Simple Mobile, and Straight Talk have no LTE throttling and an average speed of 18 Mbps. MetroPCS Unlimited plan is for phone only. There are a few MetroPCS phones that allow 2.5GB hotspot tethering for an extra $5, but not supported on Moto G LTE. Cricket also limits tethering to 2.5GB.

4G LTE Bands 2, 4, 5, 17 (1900, 1700, 850, 700 MHz)
GSM/GPRS/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
UMTS (850, 900, 1700, 1900, 2100 MHz)
Uses a microSIM card

Special thanks to mogelijk for all the help.
 
There are a lot of carriers; most of the GSM MVNOs will let you BYOP. But to add a few: Brightspot, H20, Black, Consumer Cellular, Go Smart, Lycamobile, Net10, Red Pocket, Simple Mobile, Solavei, and Walmart Family.
 
mogelijk said:
There are a lot of carriers; most of the GSM MVNOs will let you BYOP. But to add a few: Brightspot, H20, Black, Consumer Cellular, Go Smart, Lycamobile, Net10, Red Pocket, Simple Mobile, Solavei, and Walmart Family.
Click to expand...

Cool! Thanks! I didn't realize there were that many GSM MVNOs.

So far the best price I can find is Cricket. I'll have to check the prices of these others.

Edit: I checked all of those out. The only good deals are Simple Mobile and Brightspot. I added to OP. Also some of those don't support 4G.
 
Tesla5 said:
Cool! Thanks! I didn't realize there were that many GSM MVNOs.

So far the best price I can find is Cricket. I'll have to check the prices of these others.
Click to expand...

It really depends on what your needs are in terms of where you will use your phone, how much you talk and how much data you need. Brightspot (T-Mobile) just added a $35 plan that gives 300 minutes talk, unlimited text, and 3 GB high speed data that appears to be aimed at the Cricket and Virgin Mobile plans.

One downside to Cricket is that they throttle your data speeds; you have max speeds of 8 Mbps on LTE and 4 Mbps on HSPA+. While usable speeds, it is much slower than some of the other options.

What we really need is a chart that shows the different MVNOs and their plans, as well as the networks they run on. Included in this should be if they are throttled, if they have LTE, and which network they are on and if they include roaming. There are so many choices and some of the information, such as if they get LTE or if they throttle, can be a pain to find.
 
mogelijk said:
It really depends on what your needs are in terms of where you will use your phone, how much you talk and how much data you need. Brightspot (T-Mobile) just added a $35 plan that gives 300 minutes talk, unlimited text, and 3 GB high speed data that appears to be aimed at the Cricket and Virgin Mobile plans.

One downside to Cricket is that they throttle your data speeds; you have max speeds of 8 Mbps on LTE and 4 Mbps on HSPA+. While usable speeds, it is much slower than some of the other options.

What we really need is a chart that shows the different MVNOs and their plans, as well as the networks they run on. Included in this should be if they are throttled, if they have LTE, and which network they are on and if they include roaming. There are so many choices and some of the information, such as if they get LTE or if they throttle, can be a pain to find.
Click to expand...

Updated OP.. not as nice as a spreadsheet, but it works.

Edit: Looks like Straight Talk throttles LTE to max of 8 Mbps. Looking to see if any of the T-Mobile MVNOs have LTE throttled.

Edit2: No throttling on the T-Moblie MVNOs!
 
I am on brightspot, just moved from $45 plan to $35 plan. As far as i know, brightspot is 4g but not lte. I was told that the $30 walmart plan is similar.
 
mrnyjet said:
I am on brightspot, just moved from $45 plan to $35 plan. As far as i know, brightspot is 4g but not lte. I was told that the $30 walmart plan is similar.
Click to expand...

Hmm... very odd. All the information I can find shows that Brightspot should have LTE, though apparently most users are claiming it doesn't. Brightspot isn't clear one way or the other, merely advertising "4G".

The $30 T-Mobile "Walmart" plan does have LTE.
 
mrnyjet said:
I am on brightspot, just moved from $45 plan to $35 plan. As far as i know, brightspot is 4g but not lte. I was told that the $30 walmart plan is similar.
Click to expand...

Thank you for clarifying that! I've updated OP.

Edit: I don't think HSPA+ is supported on this phone.

$30 | 5GB 4G HSPA+ | 100 minutes voice | T-Mobile (T-Mobile Prepaid/Walmart)
$35 | 3GB 4G HSPA+ | 300 minutes voice | Brightspot (T-Mobile)

Edit2: HSPA/HSPA+ might be supported??
 
mogelijk said:
And I'm telling you I've had the plan and it definitely gets LTE. I was getting roughly 20 Mbps down, at the time.
Click to expand...

But I've read that it has to be a T-Mobile branded device. So I'm still not convinced we would get LTE with this plan on this phone.

Edit: I've found a thread that confirms it will work on non T-Mobile branded phones. I'll update the OP.
 
Tesla5 said:
But I've read that it has to be a T-Mobile branded device. So I'm still not convinced we would get LTE with this plan on this phone.

Edit: I've found a thread that confirms it will work on non T-Mobile branded phones. I'll update the OP.
Click to expand...

I was going to say, I had an AT&T iPhone 5s on the $30 plan, so I knew it would work on any compatible phone.

One other note, for Straight Talk you should change it to AT&T and T-Mobile, as you can get SIMs for either network and both get LTE. While the AT&T SIM gives better coverage, you have the 2.5GB/month limit, the T-Mobile SIM has a higher data limit (and may not be throttled).
 
mogelijk said:
I was going to say, I had an AT&T iPhone 5s on the $30 plan, so I knew it would work on any compatible phone.

One other note, for Straight Talk you should change it to AT&T and T-Mobile, as you can get SIMs for either network and both get LTE. While the AT&T SIM gives better coverage, you have the 2.5GB/month limit, the T-Mobile SIM has a higher data limit (and may not be throttled).
Click to expand...

Okay, I've updated the OP. Thanks for all your help!
 
mogelijk said:
Hmm... very odd. All the information I can find shows that Brightspot should have LTE, though apparently most users are claiming it doesn't. Brightspot isn't clear one way or the other, merely advertising "4G".

The $30 T-Mobile "Walmart" plan does have LTE.
Click to expand...


Brightspot says up to 4 g data. Their customer service told me no lte. I have their lte/tmobile lg f3 phone which is lte but only get 4 g.
 
Tesla5 said:
Compatible carriers for this phone.

AT&T
Cricket (AT&T)
Straight Talk (AT&T/T-Mobile)
T-Mobile
MetroPCS (T-Mobile)
Simple Mobile (T-Mobile)

Best prices I can find for unlimited data (4G then throttled to 2G after you have used up your 4G limit).

(6/15/2014)

$30 | 5GB 4G LTE | 100 minutes voice | T-Mobile (T-Mobile Prepaid/Walmart)
$35 | 500MB 4G LTE | With Auto Pay | Cricket (AT&T)
$40 | 1GB 4G LTE | Simple Mobile (T-Mobile)
$45 | 3GB 4G LTE | Straight Talk (AT&T/T-Mobile)
$55 | 5GB 4G LTE | With Auto Pay | Cricket (AT&T)
$60 | Unlimited 4G LTE | MetroPCS (T-Mobile)

Note: AT&T MVNOs Cricket and Straight Talk have LTE throttled to a max speed of 8 Mbps. T-Mobile MVNOs MetroPCS, Simple Mobile, and Straight Talk have no LTE throttling and an average speed of 18 Mbps.

4G LTE Bands 2, 4, 5, 17 (1900, 1700, 850, 700 MHz)
GSM/GPRS/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
UMTS (850, 900, 1700, 1900, 2100 MHz)
Uses a microSIM card

Special thanks to mogelijk for all the help.
Click to expand...

Consumer Cellular is a pretty good deal if you have multiple phones on one account and don't use a lot of data. I.e. for four phones sharing 2.5GB (plus a sufficient number of minutes and texts) it's a few dollars more than Cricket for four 500MB lines but with some key advantages:

1) Roaming is included, both for voice and data. On most AT&T MVNOs there is no roaming at all so rural coverage suffers greatly. Personally I would avoid any AT&T MVNO that does not include the same coverage as AT&T postpaid. You can see the difference in the maps.

2) Typically, on family plans, data usage is uneven among users so it's better to share 2.5GB than to have four 500MB individual lines.

3) As far as I can tell, LTE data is not throttled. That's really not a big deal anyway though since 8Mb/s is fine.

4) If you want additional LTE data it's $15/GB which is not that outrageous.

Consumer Cellular markets to seniors, but if you're a moderate data user they actually are a better choice than Cricket or Straight Talk. But for heavy data users they offer nothing.

You definitely want to avoid any MVNOs that use T-Mobile's network unless you never travel outside of dense urban areas.
 
Is there a reason why nobody has listed Airvoice Wireless (ATT mvno)? I have been using my Moto G LTE on the $30 plan (500 MB, unlimited talk and text).

I mostly have HSPA+ no LTE, which could be because I live in a (semi) rural area.
 
avp387 said:
Is there a reason why nobody has listed Airvoice Wireless (ATT mvno)? I have been using my Moto G LTE on the $30 plan (500 MB, unlimited talk and text).

I mostly have HSPA+ no LTE, which could be because I live in a (semi) rural area.
Click to expand...


i called t mobile from walmart to ask and was told the 30 dollar plan is hspa, not lte. you have to get at least 50 dollar plan for lte.
 
mrnyjet said:
i called t mobile from walmart to ask and was told the 30 dollar plan is hspa, not lte. you have to get at least 50 dollar plan for lte.
Click to expand...

It is LTE, unless they changed it recently. If you ask anyone here on the $30 "Walmart" plan, they will say they get LTE (in areas where LTE is available). Here is a T-Mobile Support thread from February stating that it has LTE.
 
mogelijk said:
It is LTE, unless they changed it recently. If you ask anyone here on the $30 "Walmart" plan, they will say they get LTE (in areas where LTE is available). Here is a T-Mobile Support thread from February stating that it has LTE.
Click to expand...


that is the odd thing. Walmart told me the old kits got pulled and new kits with the 30 plan sim card and a month service were stocked. So, l guess that i will have to try it with the unlocked t mobile/brightspot lg l3 lte phone to see what kind of signal l get.
 
mrnyjet said:
that is the odd thing. Walmart told me the old kits got pulled and new kits with the 30 plan sim card and a month service were stocked. So, l guess that i will have to try it with the unlocked t mobile/brightspot lg l3 lte phone to see what kind of signal l get.
Click to expand...

I've noticed that on the T-Mobile website it now only states "First 5 GB at up to 4G speeds," rather than 4G LTE. At the same time, I haven't seen anything, such as on TMoNews (or at least complaints about it on threads here), that states that it no longer has LTE. So I suspect they are considering removing LTE but haven't yet; though that would be a reason to hurry and get signed up (I assume current users would have their LTE grandfathered, if it changes).

I wouldn't buy the SIM kit from Walmart since they charge $35 dollars for it; you can get the same kit from the T-Mobile website for $10 (and often they have sales which make it 1 cent or free).
 
avp387 said:
Is there a reason why nobody has listed Airvoice Wireless (ATT mvno)? I have been using my Moto G LTE on the $30 plan (500 MB, unlimited talk and text).

I mostly have HSPA+ no LTE, which could be because I live in a (semi) rural area.
Click to expand...

I think that Airvoice does not have LTE service. It also does not allow roaming. H20 supposedly allows roaming, though it too does not have LTE service,

With four users, Cricket is $30 per month and they support LTE data (throttled to 8Mb/s). No roaming either.

So in short, if you don't mind no LTE then H20 is a better option than Airvoice (if indeed H20 supports roaming as they claim).
 
mogelijk said:
I've noticed that on the T-Mobile website it now only states "First 5 GB at up to 4G speeds," rather than 4G LTE. At the same time, I haven't seen anything, such as on TMoNews (or at least complaints about it on threads here), that states that it no longer has LTE. So I suspect they are considering removing LTE but haven't yet; though that would be a reason to hurry and get signed up (I assume current users would have their LTE grandfathered, if it changes).

I wouldn't buy the SIM kit from Walmart since they charge $35 dollars for it; you can get the same kit from the T-Mobile website for $10 (and often they have sales which make it 1 cent or free).
Click to expand...

You have to be very careful about this since T-Mobile frequently and intentionally re-brands their 3G HSDPA service as "4G." But they don't claim that it's LTE. And to be fair, their HSDPA service is very fast. It doesn't qualify as 4G but all the available LTE in the U.S. also doesn't qualify as 4G (minimum of 100 Mbit/s).
 
I heard of another carrier today that should be added. Harbor Mobile is a T-Mobile reseller. They are selling what are essentially T-Mobile corporate postpaid lines, complete with US and International data roaming, international texting, tethering, etc. Their plans start at $30 for unlimited talk and text with 1GB of high speed (LTE) data (unlimited but throttled after). They also have a 3GB plan for $40, a 5GB plan for $50, and unlimited LTE data for $60.
 
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