(image by cookie_studio, courtesy of Freepik.com)
Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of Consumer Cellular’s latest ad “HQ Tour” offering cellphone plans for “up to half of what the largest carriers charge”, and the excited narrator even saying he’ll give me a minute to “get smart enough to know a good wireless deal”.
Their ad is pretty slick, and after hearing it repeatedly over the last month or so I’ve almost got it memorized.
Personally, I use Mint Mobile, once completely owned by actor Ryan Reynolds who now only owns a portion of it after selling it to T-Mobile for $300,000,000. His ads (here’s one) are designed to convey the same message about his cellphone plans: Easy, Simple, and Inexpensive. I use a phone I brought to them, and I’m quite happy with the service (despite an occasional low signal and extremely rare random reboots of my phone).
I think I’m a fairly smart shopper so I checked if Consumer Cellular could sell me a less expensive, full-featured wireless plan.
Except for some minor differences offered to new customers, when it comes the usual wireless plan features – like talk, text, roaming, hotspot, voicemail, billing, etc. – both companies offer nearly identical plans (to see that boring comparison Click Here). One important difference is Consumer Cellular is a month-to-month service while Mint Mobile requires at least a 3-month contract.
However, most of the cost of a wireless plan is the high-speed data, and in plans offered by companies who don’t own their own network (called “MVNOs”, or “Mobile Virtual Network Operators”) the more money you spend the more data you get.
Let’s compare the data plans offered by each company:
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“…compared to the last half billion years of earth’s history, both current temperatures and CO2 levels are extremely and unusually low. 
