Red Pocket Verizon superior to US Mobile (in certain areas) ?

[cacophony555]

I've had Red Pocket (Verizon) for the last 6 months and have been generally pretty happy with the service. I've never had great coverage at home, but it doesn't matter because I'm on wifi. I've been excited to switch to US Mobile because of the prioritized data, cheap data adds (1GB for $2), and lack of 1 year commitment.

I have a Pixel 7 (unlocked version, not the Verizon specific version; so it has 5G but not mmWave)

A few days ago I signed up for the US Mobile eSim trial and while speeds seem generally fast around town, I can't get over the fact that if I compare speed test results at home the US Mobile service seems significantly worse than Red Pocket.

On Red Pocket I reliably see about .5 or 1 or 1.5Mbps down and about .3Mbps up. Terrible I know, but most of the speed tests I've done with US Mobile won't even complete. And for the rare one that does complete I'll get .2Mbps down and .01Mbps up.

To be clear, this is on the same phone. I have a physical sim for Red Pocket and an eSim for US Mobile. I've tested many times and the results are always worse for US Mobile. I've tried to help the US Mobile results be giving it more time after the setting change, restarting the phone, making sure to manually pick the same speed test server, etc but it doesn't help.

FWIW, I've seen speeds as high as ~450Mbps down around town with US Mobile, especially when I see a 5G UW icon. I haven't done comparisons to Red Pocket in those cases because it would likely exhaust all my data.

Any idea what's going on here?

[jet1000]

Any idea what's going on here?

It's hard to tell without knowing which frequency band each carrier is connecting to. I don't know if the Pixel 7 has a menu to tell like the Samsung Galaxy does. But it's possible they for some reason they are connecting to different frequencies at your residence which is giving the slower speeds to US Mobile. It's doubtful there's anything you can do to change it. If RP works better at your residence and that's important, stick with it. Since you're getting high speeds from USM when you're around town at least you know the phone does get the UW in some places.

[bubbalou32]

What plan are you on? I checked - a 1GB top up shows $10 for me on a 3G CDMA annual plan.

[cacophony555]

What plan are you on? I checked - a 1GB top up shows $10 for me on a 3G CDMA annual plan.

I'm on the 1GB Red Pocket plan. I'd much prefer to pay $2/GB than $10/GB.

[cacophony555]

New discovery: The Roaming setting!

On Red Pocket I had "Roaming" enabled, but it was disabled on my US Mobile sim. After enabling, US Mobile seems improved.
I had forgotten that I had disabled it at the request of US Mobile support when I complained about slow speeds at my house. At the time i hadn't done direct comparisons to Red Pocket.

So any actual reason to have Roaming disabled when it makes things worse in certain places?

[rpz1]

New discovery: The Roaming setting!

On Red Pocket I had "Roaming" enabled, but it was disabled on my US Mobile sim. After enabling, US Mobile seems improved.
I had forgotten that I had disabled it at the request of US Mobile support when I complained about slow speeds at my house. At the time i hadn't done direct comparisons to Red Pocket.

So any actual reason to have Roaming disabled when it makes things worse in certain places?

Interesting. I didn't think US Mobile allowed data roaming except on the premium esim plan without extra charge, don't know about RP. Maybe the free trail is with that premium plan. But I do see it says international roaming on all unlimited data plans.
Either way, I thought roaming is just allowing the use of other carrier towers if Verizon isn't in your area. Is that the case in your area, no actual Verizon coverage but through one of their roaming partners?

[cacophony555]

Interesting. I didn't think US Mobile allowed data roaming except on the premium esim plan without extra charge, don't know about RP. Maybe the free trail is with that premium plan. But I do see it says international roaming on all unlimited data plans.
Either way, I thought roaming is just allowing the use of other carrier towers if Verizon isn't in your area. Is that the case in your area, no actual Verizon coverage but through one of their roaming partners?

I just spoke with US Mobile support.

To answer your questions: The trial is unlimited basic and all US Mobile plans support domestic roaming

[rpz1]

I just spoke with US Mobile support.

To answer your questions: The trial is unlimited basic and all US Mobile plans support domestic roaming

Thanks. What I don't understand is if there's a difference in data roaming vs voice/text roaming. I believe their phone set up steps specifically say to turn off "data" roaming. Strange to say if they allow it. But their site always mentions international roaming for an extra fee on some plans, nothing about domestic roaming I noticed. But I'm not a roamer of any kind so never pursued it.

[cacophony555]

Here's some of their explanation for recommending disabling roaming: https://www.reddit.com/r/USMobile/co.../roaming_data/

[jet1000]

So any actual reason to have Roaming disabled when it makes things worse in certain places?

I would leave it turned on if USM is performing better. It won't hurt anything. It may cause the device to interact differently with the cell site for some reason.