Stop Overpaying For Wireless Phone Service With These Smart Carrier Hacks

There are lots of service providers for cell phones (or wireless phones) in the US, ranging from big to small. The national carriers, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile are known as the Big Four and are – unsurprisingly - the biggest. These also own the prepaid networks like Cricket, MetroPCS and Virgin Mobile. US Cellular is a regional carrier that covers a lot of cities but doesn’t have quite the same coverage as the top tier players. All of these use 4G LTE as standard. Then there are discount carriers or resellers which work more locally, piggy-backing on the major carriers for coverage where needed.

Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint

Verizon is the largest cell phone provider in the US and offers the highest consistent speeds. Packages can be expensive but the product is correspondingly better too.

AT&T are one of the biggest and have a wide range of phones, brands and operating systems. They have 4G LTE coast-to-coast.

T-Mobile offers very low prices, and among other things currently offers free music streaming that doesn’t count towards a data allowance. As long as your town has coverage, this is a good option.

Sprint focusses on value for money and, while it’s not the fastest network, it does have an impressive range of devices available.

US Cellular

A regional carrier that is the 5^th largest in the US.

Prepaid and discount carriers

Usually paid in full with no option for instalments, this means credit checks aren’t required. These can be more flexible and good if you don’t use your phone all that often. Popular choices include MetroPCS, Cricket and Boost Mobile.

Who to pick?

The first question to ask is, which of these providers has coverage in your area? If you have more than one choice, then lucky you – and always compare packages and deals to make sure you get the one that’s right for you. A major carrier can be a better option than a discount carrier, simply because being bigger means they have more coverage and a wider range of products.