My review of Spot Mobile

[Pabster]

All calls were charged at 10 cents per minute, SMS 5 cents each way. I have no idea about the 20 cent roaming possibility, nor have I heard from any Spot user actually charged that rate.

[cyclops13]

Spot mobile does not gets AT&T coverage anymore, this is a recent news given by the customer service... And that was the only reason I bought it, as I dont get tmobile in my part of the building, while AT&T is there.

And can anyone tell me how to do a balance check directly from the phone? There customer service has pretty limited hours and Sundays closed! There is no option for balance check when we dial 611, the toll free number.

[Bob859]

And can anyone tell me how to do a balance check directly from the phone? There customer service has pretty limited hours and Sundays closed! There is no option for balance check when we dial 611, the toll free number.

I don't know of a way to do it from the phone, but you can go to your account online and find the info there.

[LuuDucPhu]

My Spot Sim came with this phone number to find my balance and expiration date: 7768.

Dail 7768 and just wait for the machine to say " for account balance press 2 " and then press 2. I believe this is a free call.

[mframe]

Spot mobile does not gets AT&T coverage anymore, this is a recent news given by the customer service... And that was the only reason I bought it, as I dont get tmobile in my part of the building, while AT&T is there.

I just tested this, myself. I used to be able to manually network-select AT&T, and now it is a "forbidden network".

[fonezfonz]

Without Att as part of their lineup, they are now basically a Tmobile mvno with roaming on smaller regional gsm carriers I assume. This greatly impacts their uniqueness and coverage. I'm sorry to see this unique mvno affected by this. Wonder if they will fix it with Att or if the merger failure impacted this in some way. Who knows?

[Conan Edogawa]

I will speculate that it is probably one or maybe even both of these scenarios. Either AT&T was asking too much for a renewal after their old deal expired, or Spot wanted to cut costs and decided that providing roaming onto AT&T was an unnecessary expense.

[fonezfonz]

It looks like Tmobile only. I was told "no roaming" . They may or may not introduce unlimited plans in the near future but right now they are a paygo Tmobile mvno. However, you have to still use fully unlocked gsm phones on their network as their sims are not native Tmobile prepaid /mvno type like Simple Mobile is.

Their sims won't work in Tmobile phones without unlocking.

[Endeavor]

The fact that you can't force AT&T does not mean that they don't allow AT&T. I tried forcing my phone to AT&T a few weeks ago and it wouldn't, but I was still able to use AT&T in areas where there was no T-Mobile coverage.

[Endeavor]

I just checked their web-site and confirmed that AT&T is gone.

http://www.spotmobile.com/Corporate_Profile.aspx

This page used to mention PCM, T-Mobile and AT&T. It now omits any mention of AT&T.

[Bob859]

The fact that you can't force AT&T does not mean that they don't allow AT&T. I tried forcing my phone to AT&T a few weeks ago and it wouldn't, but I was still able to use AT&T in areas where there was no T-Mobile coverage.

I have never been able to use manual network selection with my Spot SIM. Even though you were using your Spot service on AT&T a few weeks ago, it may be a thing of the past. According to Cyclops13 in post #62: "Spot mobile does not gets AT&T coverage anymore, this is a recent news given by the customer service". That is why we are concerned. I sent an email to Spot Mobile yesterday, requesting verification. I haven't heard back from them yet, but if and when I do, I will post the info here.

[dmarkson]

I just checked their web-site and confirmed that AT&T is gone.

I just checked that page a few days ago. This is a very recent change and pretty much confirms what others have said here.

Just checked my Tru(phone) and e-Kit SIMs. Both of them can still select Tmo or AT&T. So must be a specific deal with Spot that lost the roaming.

[Bob859]

"Spot mobile does not gets AT&T coverage anymore, this is a recent news given by the customer service". That is why we are concerned. I sent an email to Spot Mobile yesterday, requesting verification. I haven't heard back from them yet, but if and when I do, I will post the info here.

I sent that email on Sunday. I received an automated message that said they would reply within 48 hours. I have not yet received that reply, so I called customer service and asked if they still used AT&T. I was told that they use T-Mobile only.

I noticed something else on their website: Two of the six phones they sell have been marked as "Sold Out" for quite some time. It is not a good sign, that they are not replenishing their supply of phones. When I ordered my SIM last spring, I was able to get an area code for my home state of Minnesota. Now I see that Minnesota is among the states that Spot Mobile does not have area codes for. I believe that all of these things that we are seeing are evidence that Spot Mobile is struggling or worse, maybe floundering.

[Bob859]

I have received a response from Spot Mobile. Here it is:

"Thank you for your inquiry. We recently changed our Spot Mobile service to work with the T-Mobile Network cell sites only. This change should have a minimal impact to our customers. Please note that the T-Mobile Network service which we offer does have many cell sites in different areas which allow the customer to make and receive calls away from their home location."

[richardho]

This is really bad news. I was planning to drop Tracfone and switch to Spot Mobile after my Tracfone minutes expired. And I just bought a new battery for my unlocked gsm phone that is on Spot. T-mobile coverage is just too spotty for me to rely on.