Ting: Tucows' Venture into the MVNO Business

**HF305** · 12-07-2011, 09:24 PM

The data offering is nothing to write home about, but the roaming could be very useful to those who travel a lot and mostly talk. Access to the superior rural Verizon and US Cellular coverage for well under 10 cents per minute is a good deal. For that market, they should expand beyond the one flip phone they have, it's a Samsung at that.

**Endeavor** · 12-08-2011, 10:47 AM

I think you have it backwards. Every other cellular provider is trying to cater to those who think that they know exactly how much they regularly use. They bank on you overestimating to avoid outrageous overage charges, and then using some amount less than you orginally guessed.

Ting appears to be taking the opposite approach. They will charge you only for what you actually use, and if you use more, you pay the same amount as if you had guessed correctly in the first place. If you use less, they give back the excess and so, again, you pay the same amount as if you had guessed correctly in the first place.

Originally Posted by Conan Edogawa

Well, it looks like this service's niche is to cater to those who think they are currently overpaying for cell service & know almost exactly how much they regularly use. Instead of fixed prepaid monthly packages, you pick one from row A, row B, etc.. As usual, it just depends on whether this is a good deal or not.

Anyway if somebody pays $600 or whatever for a 4g Photon, will they get 4g speeds on Ting?

**silentjudge** · 12-08-2011, 02:08 PM

Problem is if you use a lot of minutes and/or data, the higher packages are more expensive than competing MVNOs. $60 for 3000MB, this is more than what AT&T or Verizon charges for.

Sent from my Atrix 4G

**Relztrah** · 12-08-2011, 04:27 PM

When I click on the link I get a certificate error message.

**Endeavor** · 12-09-2011, 10:20 AM

And that's why I said that these plans will not appeal to the "unlimited crowd."

Again, however, I'd point out that if you actually use that much regularly on an "unlimited" plan, you're likely to find out that "unlimited" doesn't really mean "unlimited," when the company cancels your data service (or your entire service) for "unreasonable use." I for one would rather just have an honest pricing arrangement where I get what I pay for and I pay for what I get.

Originally Posted by silentjudge

Problem is if you use a lot of minutes and/or data, the higher packages are more expensive than competing MVNOs. $60 for 3000MB, this is more than what AT&T or Verizon charges for.

Sent from my Atrix 4G

**benlucier** · 12-09-2011, 10:29 AM

Originally Posted by silentjudge

I dont have the ability to invite people unfortunately. They are still sending out invites everyday, so I imagine you can get in pretty soon.

Hey folks... I'm from Ting. Invites are sent pretty often. We're in beta right now, so we're testing lots of code and fixing lots of bugs. We'd love to swing the doors wide open, but it impacts our ability to properly test.

That being said... we're in pretty good shape these days and I'll do what I can to answer Qs, if I can. We're also trying to keep people up to date on the blog here: https://ting.com/blog/ (yes, we're aware that SSL cert currently throws an error)

-Ben

**slohasley** · 12-09-2011, 12:40 PM

Originally Posted by benlucier

Hey folks... I'm from Ting. Invites are sent pretty often. We're in beta right now, so we're testing lots of code and fixing lots of bugs. We'd love to swing the doors wide open, but it impacts our ability to properly test.

That being said... we're in pretty good shape these days and I'll do what I can to answer Qs, if I can. We're also trying to keep people up to date on the blog here: https://ting.com/blog/ (yes, we're aware that SSL cert currently throws an error)

-Ben

Will Ting offer any ability to BYOD? I would really like to try the service, but I don't want to spend a lot of money getting another phone just so I can use Ting.

**Piqutchi** · 12-09-2011, 04:07 PM

The prices for the phones are pretty high-priced compared to the other Sprint MVNOS (A Transform or Zio for $245?!).

**slohasley** · 12-09-2011, 05:13 PM

Agreed, Piqutchi. PlatinumTel is selling the Zio for $139, over $100 lower than Ting. Maybe Ting's phone prices will come down once they are out of Beta?

**Endeavor** · 12-14-2011, 01:59 AM

Ptel has the luxury of making up the phone discount on their plan pricing, which is higher than Ting. In addition, Ptel is limited to Sprint's coverage. No roaming on Verizon.

Right now, I've narrowed my short list of good MVNO choices to:

Ting- for a typical user who wants a phone and nationwide coverage. Sprint/Verizon coverage with very reasonable per minute/per MB pricing.
Straight Talk- for a heavy user who wants unlimited talk, text, and data (and can live with Sprint's coverage if you want Android). $45.00 per month no matter how much or how little you use.
Spot Mobile- if you want a talk and text only phone that you plan to keep for emergencies only (Great coverage- AT&T and T-Mobile, $20 per year minimum to keep alive).
Republic Wireless- still a big ?, but it could be better than all of them if you want an Android phone and can live with 550 minutes and 300 MB of data.

**billm261** · 12-14-2011, 06:48 AM

Originally Posted by slohasley

Will Ting offer any ability to BYOD? I would really like to try the service, but I don't want to spend a lot of money getting another phone just so I can use Ting.

Usually, it's the mother carrier that sets those rules. Seems too risky of an investment on an offering that I don't think is going to save me any money.

**silentjudge** · 12-14-2011, 07:02 AM

Originally Posted by EndeavorOR

And that's why I said that these plans will not appeal to the "unlimited crowd."

Again, however, I'd point out that if you actually use that much regularly on an "unlimited" plan, you're likely to find out that "unlimited" doesn't really mean "unlimited," when the company cancels your data service (or your entire service) for "unreasonable use." I for one would rather just have an honest pricing arrangement where I get what I pay for and I pay for what I get.

2GB or 3GB isn't unlimited. I'm not asking for unlimited, dont get me wrong here. I'm comparing their data pricing to AT&T's data pricing and at $42/2GB or $60/3GB, they are clearly charging more than AT&T.

On T-Mobile for example, if you get a Value plan (no contract, but full price phone), you get $5-10 off on the data each month as compared to Postpaid (Classic plans).

Thats my rationale for bringing that up.

**aka414** · 12-14-2011, 01:08 PM

Originally Posted by billm261

Usually, it's the mother carrier that sets those rules. Seems too risky of an investment on an offering that I don't think is going to save me any money.

Sprint seems to have a real problem with BYOD across any one of their lines. It's actually one of the main reasons I refuse to use them. You'd think these guys of all companies, with their year after year of losses, would do everything they can to try attract customers.

Verizon, AT&T, and T-mobile and their various MVNO seem to get this. This freedom of BYOD also explains the enormous success of page plus. They offer cheap pricing and the ability to BYOD a great handset.

This is a huge bonus for PP, as they do not need to invest significant capital in handset purchases. The customers are also not stuck with bargain basement handsets to chose from, that most people do not want.

Ting's model looks great and they are definitely on to something. However, not a chance in hell am I going to pay $395 for some unknown basic spec HTC handset. BYOD costs them next to nothing and allows the customer to sign up on the spot.

**aka414** · 12-14-2011, 01:18 PM

Originally Posted by silentjudge

Problem is if you use a lot of minutes and/or data, the higher packages are more expensive than competing MVNOs. $60 for 3000MB, this is more than what AT&T or Verizon charges for.

Sent from my Atrix 4G

Not too many people in this boat. For most people, they will never get the use out of unlimited.

It's no different to unlimited local or even unlimited voip (vonage). The second I switched to pay per use callcentric, I saved big time.

Their plan structure actually looks really good, only big big problem is the lack of BYOD. For $300 I can buy an Iphone 4 outright.

**efredmi** · 12-14-2011, 01:46 PM

Personally I like PP more, the only issue with PP is no data packs (.99 per mb is the way alot!!!!). Actually there might be a light with ACRS new plan comming. They look good and they on Verizon!!!