Members Mobile - Free phone service for a limited time - Whose network does it use?

[harshness]

There is a reason verizon is getting rid of their corporate stores and laid off 13k wireless employees

I suspected that the store closure reason was more along the lines of not being able to find good help.

 

[dishstaller]

Since this thread is pretty much about 3rd party Cell Companies, I wanted to mention something to keep in mind and I know this from personal experience, not "somebody told me".

I install cell amplifier systems for both home and business. Back in the covid hysteria I had a customer up in Ashford, AL call me and say that his cell amp quit working...absolutely NO signal in their kitchen. I drop what I'm doing and head on up. I walk into the kitchen and my phone has 4 bars. They look doubtful so I place my phone on the table and call my store on speakerphone. Phone clarity is perfect. I then look at their phone and notice I don't see the VZW up in the top left like on mine. I ask them who is their provider and they said they had changed to Straight Talk, who in our area uses Verizon. They had NO signal. Turns out that there was so much pressure on the towers due to kids being sent home from school that Verizon had to kick off 3rd party companies off of their towers...at least in our area.

They asked me what they could do, I said "go back to Verizon". They did, their phones started working again.

Sorry for the novel but I wanted any of you who might consider going with one of these Consumer Cellular type companies to realize what MIGHT happen one day in case of a national emergency.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Sorry for the novel but I wanted any of you who might consider going with one of these Consumer Cellular type companies to realize what MIGHT happen one day in case of a national emergency.

Couldn't be any worse than those "vandals" taking out Verizon's entire network in NM the other day

 

[Almighty1]

I suspected that the store closure reason was more along the lines of not being able to find good help.

Verizon is losing money, losing customers and stores are expensive. They are not closing stores, they are selling the stores to a franchising company so they remain Verizon authorized retailers so they will still get the business but the costs for the stores and the store employees is no longer a Verizon issue since it's about saving money/cost-cutting as the profit is what matters and need to keep the shareholders happy as 99% of the company is owned by retail and institutions.

Verizon shifts gears as customers continue to leave

Verizon has struggled to slow customer losses in its wireless business in recent years, and under new leadership, it is making major workforce changes. Dan Schulman, who became CEO of Verizon in October last year, has accelerated efforts to transform the company after it lost about 2.25 million ...

finance.yahoo.com

 

[comfortably_numb]

From the article:

"Despite investing significantly in network leadership, we have not been able to translate that into winning in the market."

I would like to know what investments they made in their network. They removed 5G from some towers- pulling back to LTE, many cell sites seem oversaturated and slow, and there seem to be more dead zones than there used to be. Now we have random network outages.

Of course, all that is moot if this joint venture goes forward.

 

[Almighty1]

Speaking about taxes, Xfinity/Comcast could tax in different ways. California has no sales tax on internet services and I do have Xfinity 1.2Gbps Internet.
Basically before, I had the $80.00/month 1 year contract with the price guaranteed for 2 years and also another promotion that provided the gateway/router for 2 years free ($24.99 month normally) which provided unlimited data so my total was $80.00/month without any taxes.

Last December 2025 was when the 2 years was up so now they have a 1 year price locked price no contract including the gateway/router and unlimited data for $70.00 month but there is $1.30 in taxes per month for a total of $71.30. So it seems to be based on $14.99 if it's based on 8.625% Sales tax. They would not provide an answer on why there is a sales tax.

 

[EarDemon]

The tax is in all likelihood on their gateway, the service is tax free, but any leased CPE is taxed. Why the percentage isn't matching up is anyone's guess.

Only a handful of states ever charged tax on internet access and those that did had to stop as per the The Internet Tax Freedom Act, but that only applies to the service not the hardware. Charter doesn't charge for their modems, and I would never use one for their neutered routers so I pay no tax on my Spectrum bill, on my HughesNet bill I am charged NY State tax on the rental fee of the modem, but not the service itself.

Similarly when I had DirecTV the first time, the service was tax free, but I was charged tax on the DVR fee for the DirecTiVo's.

 

[EarDemon]

Sprint and T-Mobile cannot call themselves as cellular connectivity because cellular means what is known as System A (Wireless) and System B (Wireline Carrier). For San Francisco, A would be CellularOne which is now known as AT&T Wireless and B is Verizon Wirelss which was originally known as GTE MobilNet. Sprint and T-Mobile are known as Personal Communications System (PCS) carriers which is known as System C and System D. Cellular means 800Mhz and PCS means 1.9Ghz. As far as network connectivity, it can literally mean any network whether wired, wireless, mobile, cellular, PCS. As I said before, read the Mint Mobile disclosure at https://www.mintmobile.com/911-and-e911-disclosure and you will still reach the conclusion that it WiFi and not cellular, Members Mobile is using the same exact disclosure word for word except replace the "Mint Mobile" with "Members Mobile".

If you read everything else, it tells you they use T-Mobile and it would not be LAN Wi-Fi connectivity as why would anyone need data from phone if they already have internet connectivity since one will be pushing the same data capacity usage over both the in-home Internet WAN and also the mobile provider. To be a member of Safe1 which is the credit union mentioned, it costs nothing except opening and linking the Safe1 checking account which has no monthly balance requirement, no monthly fees. That part is already mentioned. The only thing is one will lose $35 as it's not free since you have to pay for one month of service first at the retail price before the free offer will kick in so basically you should have $35.01 in the account so $0.01 balance remains to prevent the linked account from auto-closing due to a zero balance. So like mentioned in my earlier response, step 3 in the how to qualify is what will be the real cost.

Well since Sprint hasn't existed for 6 years now, they can't call themselves anything

While I get what you are saying from a historical perspective, is it even relevant? All three carriers use multiple bands. Verizon and AT&T have 1900 MHz, Sprint had 800 MHz that T-Mobile acquired and either offloaded or is looking to offload and I believe T-Mobile has some native band 5 in very limited areas.

AT&T is mainly AWS, PCS, WCS, DoD, C-Band
T-Mobile is mainly DD, AWS, PCS, BRS
Verizon is mainly AWS, PCS, CBRS, C-Band

 

[navychop]

I believe T-Mobile is only offloading 800 slots where they have plenty coverage already. That is a valuable slot. Somewhat slower, but 5G with no mm wave problems are possible and implemented in some areas.

 

[Almighty1]

The tax is in all likelihood on their gateway, the service is tax free, but any leased CPE is taxed. Why the percentage isn't matching up is anyone's guess.

Only a handful of states ever charged tax on internet access and those that did had to stop as per the The Internet Tax Freedom Act, but that only applies to the service not the hardware. Charter doesn't charge for their modems, and I would never use one for their neutered routers so I pay no tax on my Spectrum bill, on my HughesNet bill I am charged NY State tax on the rental fee of the modem, but not the service itself.

Similarly when I had DirecTV the first time, the service was tax free, but I was charged tax on the DVR fee for the DirecTiVo's.

From Xfinity's explanation was that the previous promotion which was XFi Complete which is basically the gateway with unlimited data ($25.00/month) for two years was basically $25.00 service fee credited which is a line item so it was already $0.00 so the gateway was not taxed.

For the current promotion, the billing statement actually shows:
Gigabit Internet $70.00/month
Unlimited data - included
Gateway - included

but on their side, it shows $15.00 for the gateway rental and then a $15.00 credit so the sales tax was on the $15.00.

When the XFi Complete promotion expired, I didn't sign up for the current offer until 2 months later but it seems XFi Complete when $25.00 was charged during December 2025 and January 2026, the sales tax was $0.71 which appears to be based on a $8.23 amount except there is nothing that is $8.23. So even for the same equipment, the taxes were actually less at $0.71 vs $1.30 currently for the same hardware.

Well, I am using their modem because it's free and it's also needed for their next generation offerings with the higher upload speeds when available as Comcast won't give the faster upload for customer owned equipment, not to mention the Unlimited Data is either something that comes with the xFi Complete package that requires using their equipment or the current none contract packages appears to now include both the unlimited data and equipment. I don't even use their router as a router as I just disable the router functions.

But back to taxes, when Xfinity Mobile started, the 1st generation plans all had lots of people getting lines and shared data that free 1GB for $0.00 + taxes and fees per month. It was only when one went over 1GB when one had to pay the $12/month rate. comfortably_numb seems to have $0.00/plan with no taxes and fees but lots of people online are complaining about being charged $0.00/plan and having to pay the taxes and fees.

Xfinity Mobile may be low cost or free but back in December 2023, the person who was supposed to change my Internet plan instead somehow did a disconnect order and within 5 minutes, Xfinity Mobile added $25 per line for not having Xfinity Internet. And in order to get that December 2023 promo, it requires using their gateway because of the promotion for the free 2 year Xfi complete so essentially my actual internet service was working for another 5 days for free. Then when it finally stopped, I basically used the Xfinity Mobile phone as a hotspot for a day or two and picked up the equipment. Xfinity Mobile did credit the $50 for the two lines but it was a lot of hassle. Xfinity basically because of their mess up issued about $500 of credits to the Xfinity Internet account.

I originally had Directv from May 2009 as TVB JadeWorld was on Directv and only went DISH when TVB JadeWorld moved to DISH during 2012. Directv allowed me to keep the HR23-700 HD DVR as I had a lot of unwatched recordings on it.

 

[Almighty1]

Well since Sprint hasn't existed for 6 years now, they can't call themselves anything

While I get what you are saying from a historical perspective, is it even relevant? All three carriers use multiple bands. Verizon and AT&T have 1900 MHz, Sprint had 800 MHz that T-Mobile acquired and either offloaded or is looking to offload and I believe T-Mobile has some native band 5 in very limited areas.

AT&T is mainly AWS, PCS, WCS, DoD, C-Band
T-Mobile is mainly DD, AWS, PCS, BRS
Verizon is mainly AWS, PCS, CBRS, C-Band

Yeah, I am just talking about historically as there are the traditional carriers which has the better coverage and then there are Sprint/T-Mobile regardless what form they are now still has the poor coverage because they can add all the bands they want but the problem is it's not easy to get past the NIMBYs. As for AT&T, remember the current AT&T is basically Cingular which had two networks, the AT&T Blue network which came from AT&T Wireless and also the Cingular Orange network that came from Cingular. The Orange network is the one that sucked big time. The AT&T Blue network is fine only for the parts that were originally TDMA as when they started with GSM, they had very poor coverage so people stayed with the TDMA service instead.

So yes, there is a so called Joint Venture with AT&T/T-Mobile/Verizon but that is not combining the three networks as AT&T/T-Mobile/Verizon will each still be competitors and run their own network. All the Joint Venture does is all three of the companies will provide as a joint venture would be the signal to deadspots via Satellite as a joint effort using the same equipment and signals but anything that is not deadspot signal will still be from whoever the user's actual service provider is. Until that happens, the best choice would be U.S. Mobile since one will have access to all three networks so hopefully at least 1 of the 3 works when needed. T-Mobile would probably be able to get better over time in areas where they can actually add coverage but in places like San Francisco, the traditional carriers meaning AT&T and Verizon would still have the advantage of the existing footprint because the companies can only use the existing physical locations to expand.

Remember the whole point of the thread is that Members Mobile is not a WiFi network as it does say it uses T-Mobile and provides 4G/5G = nationwide service as why would anyone need WiFi Unlimited Data on another provider that uses someone's existing WiFi Internet connection as that does not make sense. 4G/5G would already imply that it's a Mobile Wireless carrier that does not use WiFi.

Not to mention, it already says it uses T-Mobile to deliver 4G/5G data nationwide:

Yes, the 911 terms and conditions used by Members Mobile talks about WiFi being needed but it's exactly the same as what Mint Mobile says, just replace the word "Mint Mobile" with "Members Mobile" in the terms and conditions for Mint Mobile and you would also come to the conclusion that Mint Mobile also is not cellular and also a WiFi carrier. Ulta also uses the same exact agreement, so it could be that these MVNO's who uses T-Mobile all were supplied with that document and everyone just changes it with their own name. No different than Medicare Advantage plans all have the exact layout except specifics are different regardless what provider one goes with. It's a generic document. It's probably more for liability since you do not see U.S. Mobile, Xfinity Mobile, Verizon actually have a terms and conditions for 911 anywhere so perhaps because these are MVNO's, their 911 services are more limited and do not have things like address location information which for some carriers, you have to actually manually enter so they know how to locate you.


The whole point of the thread is to provide useful information and accurate information. It would help if there were actual comments or reviews of people who use Members Mobile to see what they actually say. Ofcourse the big gotcha is that before the free 1 year service even is available, one has to pay for the one month of service at the $35.00/month which is not disclosed until you read the FAQs so essentially the 1 year of service really will have a out of pocket cost of $35.00 before one would even qualify to get the free promotion. If it didn't have that requirement, it would be worth a try since one has nothing to lose as the checking account is free with no minimum balance requirement and no monthly fees regardless of balance which basically means $0.01 to prevent the account from automatically closing with a zero balance. It's not like Navy Federal where one is required to keep $15.00 that one cannot withdraw as it's excluded from the available balance until one cancels the membership.

 

[navychop]

Sprint/T-Mobile regardless what form they are now still has the poor coverage

T-Mobile is #2 today. Your information is outdated. Damn good coverage.

 

[Almighty1]

T-Mobile is #2 today. Your information is outdated. Damn good coverage.

It's not my information is outdated. It's that you misinterpreted what I actually meant. I am talking specifically in the San Francisco Bay Area where T-Mobile has still poor converage as experienced by myself and others as seen on Nextdoor and Facebook. Here is a good example thread to read:

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1mb0s8a/terrible_tmobile_service_in_sf_is_it_just_me/


It would have damn good coverage only because you don't live in something called a major metropolitan area where it would be harder to increase coverage as it would be easier to increase coverage in areas where it's easier to just add coverage with less buildings among other things as you also do not are not located somewhere that has lots of buildings, mountains among other things. That applies to all the people other than Juan who has responded. The other reason is you probably didn't even realize that T-Mobile never had their own network in California and Nevada when Cingular Wireless existed as T-Mobile used Cingular Wireless's network until Cingular Wireless was acquiring AT&T Wireless and T-Mobile basically bought the entire California and Nevada network from Cingular Wireless in 2004. Whether information is outdated or not, what matters is the actual signal measure in dB and not using bars which is useless and personal experience. Yes, T-Mobile may be the best thing since slice bread at your location but that does not mean it at all locations. Ask the Venture Capital firms on Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto, California why they will only use Verizon and not T-Mobile because one has coverage and actually works while the other doesn't. So like anything, it's a YMMV situation as it depends on your specific area. And like I said, if you want damn good coverage, U.S. Mobile will give you that because unless you are in a deadspot, you will get the big 3 in whatever # order you want based on actual performance personally which is what matters.

 

[comfortably_numb]

you don't live in something called a major metropolitan area

I live in downtown Albuquerque and have great coverage with T-Mobile. I'm often in KC, Dayton, Las Vegas and LA and never have issues with T-Mobile. Not-so-ironically it's only rural KS and MO where I have issues.

 

[Almighty1]

I live in downtown Albuquerque and have great coverage with T-Mobile. I'm often in KC, Dayton, Las Vegas and LA and never have issues with T-Mobile. Not-so-ironically it's only rural KS and MO where I have issues.

There is a difference. LA is big even in landsize. San Francisco is 7 mile squared but it's full of mountains which is why it's harder for coverage. Downtown San Francisco is fine even in 1997 with pretty much everyone. T-Mobile/Cingular/AT&T PCS were very spotty as people had to be next to the window in order to even make a call or else it's as dead as a door brick. Up until 2009, I used to live in San Francisco Chinatown and never had any issues with Verizon since 1989 but the issues came when I moved and it would show randomly anywhere between 0-2 bars so it randomly works when it wants to.

I can't really tell if it gets worse or not when I don't have a signal to begin with even with Xfinity Mobile on Verizon but Verizon seems to be degrading in the company in general because since April 2026 for example, despite contacting Verizon Executive Relations, the 7726 spam is still broken as the usual sequence is:
#1 - Forward spam to 7726
#2 - 7726 responds and asks for the phone number of the sender of the spam
#3 - phone number for sender of the spam sent to 7726
#4 - 7726 acknowledges and completes the spam reporting

but since April 2026, it's been:
#1 - Forward spam to 7726
#2 - 7726 acknowledges and completes the spam reporting

It does not ask for the phone number of the sender of the spam. Verizon claims that the 7726 is provided by a third party.

T-Mobile from what I know and experienced has always had good customer service. Verizon did too but think it went downhill. AT&T is the one who always had bad quality service.

I had a interesting experience with Xfinity Mobile too when I visited Toronto, Ontario Canada in 2024 which would only work for calls and texts but not data even though it's connected to Freedom Mobile and stayed that way for roughly 5 days. We had to go to Niagara Falls on the Canadian side before it finally switched to using Verizon's network on the New York state, USA side and then it seemed it seemed to be using Rogers when we got back to Toronto where the data did work but that was only for a few hours and then it went back to Freedom Mobile with the data not working again. So it seems that while Verizon is who Xfinity Mobile uses in the U.S., their roaming partners outside the U.S. is not the same as Verizon. That's why it seems like U.S. Mobile would be the best choice as the big 3 is available without factoring in the joint venture. Xfinity Mobile's unlimited voice, text and data while traveling outside the U.S. included in the current plans seems attractive and hopefully the data actually works. Maybe U.S. Mobile will have something similar or as a add-on when needed. As for the JV, this can also mean the big 3 can even provide worldwide service while traveling outside the US which might be what might happen since they are no longer limited to not having networks outside their U.S. national footprint.

 

[EarDemon]

I live in WNY and spend a lot of time along Lake Erie within clear eyesight of Canada.

On T-Mobile I've only roamed onto Telus, every time I've checked it's been LTE band 13. T-Mobile roams on to Telus very easily for me. It doesn't matter if it's Niagara Falls (US side), some where along Lake Ontario or my spot along Lake Erie, if I can smell Canada it roams into Canada.

On AT&T I've roamed on to both Telus and Rogers, but it's usually Telus. I can keep a native AT&T for much longer than I can keep native T-Mobile, it's a FirstNet line so as long as there's a sliver of band 14 I'll stay connected to US towers.

On Verizon I hit Canadian towers for the first time a few weeks ago, in one area it was Bell, in another Rogers.

The way I understand it is all three big US providers have roaming agreements with all three big Canadian providers.

In my general area, as someone having all three providers my observations are for coverage it's #1 Verizon, a veryclose #2 AT&T, #3 T-Mobile. For data speeds #1 T-Mobile by far, #2 Verizon, AT&T a distant #3. I've got the new Pixel XL and Pixel Fold coming, we'll see how that new MediaTek modem compares to modem in the Pixel 10 series.

 

[Almighty1]

I live in WNY and spend a lot of time along Lake Erie within clear eyesight of Canada.

On T-Mobile I've only roamed onto Telus, every time I've checked it's been LTE band 13. T-Mobile roams on to Telus very easily for me. It doesn't matter if it's Niagara Falls (US side), some where along Lake Ontario or my spot along Lake Erie, if I can smell Canada it roams into Canada.

On AT&T I've roamed on to both Telus and Rogers, but it's usually Telus. I can keep a native AT&T for much longer than I can keep native T-Mobile, it's a FirstNet line so as long as there's a sliver of band 14 I'll stay connected to US towers.

On Verizon I hit Canadian towers for the first time a few weeks ago, in one area it was Bell, in another Rogers.

The way I understand it is all three big US providers have roaming agreements with all three big Canadian providers.

In my general area, as someone having all three providers my observations are for coverage it's #1 Verizon, a veryclose #2 AT&T, #3 T-Mobile. For data speeds #1 T-Mobile by far, #2 Verizon, AT&T a distant #3. I've got the new Pixel XL and Pixel Fold coming, we'll see how that new MediaTek modem compares to modem in the Pixel 10 series.

I don't think the roaming would be a problem for people who are customers with the big 3 compared to a MVNO because it seems like Verizon roams with Telus, Bell and Rogers and Xfinity Mobile supposedly uses Verizon's roaming agreements as a MVNO. Verizon and Verizon MVNO all use a PRL so for what it's worth, it only seems to connect to Freedom Mobility and I have no way to try this again as I have only visited Canada twice, once in 1987 and once in 2024. I cannot even find anyone else who connects to Freedom Mobility while in Canada either as it's always the big 3 so it seems like it's connecting a someone that is not a roaming partner even though Xfinity Mobile when I talk to their International Data department have told me to basically try everything for troubleshooting but they never solved the problem and ending up just crediting my account so both lines were free for that month, I was spending like 2-3 hours daily with them. Xfinity Mobile seems to disable the manual network selection and there is no access to the APN settings. I am still on a iPhone 6S Plus so it's harder to determine the speeds part. Need to figure out how to backup the voicemails so the filename would have both the phone number of the caller as well as the date/timestamp when I actually find time for it and then move to a new phone which was originally going to be the iPhone 17 Pro Max with 1TB but probably will be a iPhone 18 Pro Max now.

I was asking Xfinity about the sales tax bit on internet and they finally researched it.

Basically, the current plan at $70.00 month for the Internet, the gateway rental says included and the unlimited data says included. The sales tax is on the gateway at $1.30 as it's based on the $15.00/month gateway rental price before the $15.00/month credit.

My previous plan when they started charging $25.00/month for xFi Complete which is basically unlimited data which includes the modem. The sales tax is $0.71 per month because the package looks like this:
$16.67 or 66.67% or 2/3rd goes to the gateway rental
$8.33 or 1/3rd goes to the unlimited data
so it seems that the sales tax was charged on the unlimited data and not on the gateway rental. While it's supposed to be the other way around, the lower amount is what matters.

This explains why the February 10, 2026 bill shows a $1.88 sales tax instead of $1.30 because originally I got charged $0.71 before switching to the current plan so it resulted in $0.58 added to the January 15, 2026-February 14, 2026 plus the current $1.30.