Sim cards and carriers, discussion

[Angle]

Okay, update on Verizon on my pinephone. So, calling out seems to work fine, but I don't think I can receive calls or texts - do I need to manually activate VOLTE, or something? :/

Also, how bad is the pinephone about using mobile data? Can I trust it to not blow my data budget, or should I be careful about that?

The Pinephone requires VoLTE to be working to make outbound calls on Verizon (Pinephone has no CDMA capability and Verizon is probably all LTE these days anyway) so that's not your problem. Hopefully someone with Pinephone Verizon experiences will come along with some suggestions.

I have 1GB / 30 days on my US Mobile plan. It's enough data for me, but YMMV. I'm very careful to not visit sites that launch video on my browser and, when I'm bored and want to surf via 4G, I surf non-fancy sites that are mostly text, like this forum.

I also download maps to OSM Scout server via wifi and use Puremaps so I don't need to use my cellular data for generating maps. My Pinephone GPS rarely works, but I still like having a street map on my phone when I travel.

Okay, that seems like good advice on the maps. I just got a spam call for 'car insurance' or something, so apparently that works - maybe it just took a day or two to get set up, or something? Not sure.