Sim cards and carriers, discussion

[tallfrye]

BTW, cellular phone company reps are entirely unreliable. Lately I've been using US Mobile. USM offers a black SIM card that runs on the Verizon network and also a white SIM card that runs on T-Mobile. (Each card is a separate account and activation, of course.) Both the USM rep and their online tool said the black Verizon card would work the best where I live. In fact, the rep said the white T-Mobile card would not work at all. In truth, the black SIM didn't work at all and the white SIM card works very well. Things are even more iffy with the Pinephone, because I don't think it completely covers all the cellular bands of any provider, which is probably true for most phones that are not supplied by the provider. You just have to try a service for yourself to find out what works.

This is the same with Tracfone, they tell you almost exclusively that you should use a Verizon SIM, and only relent and send out an AT&T one when the Verizon one has proven not to work. I haven't heard of AT&T drawing out the same favoritism from any MVNOs...