These days for newer devices, especially data-intensive applications that leverage 5G, unlimited data in a phone plan isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s table stakes. Giving customers enough high-speed data is essential for delivering the best experience on today’s devices.
Up until now, consumers were forced to choose between these two types of plans:
- Traditional plans that offer “unlimited” data but at throttled 2G speeds.
- Plans with fast data and a high-quality experience, but in too limited quantity or too expensive for most budgets.
But in 2021, many carriers including US Mobile launched Unlimited plans that offered truly unlimited or very generous amounts of uncapped data. We’ve done the research factoring in coverage, speeds, perks, and prices and give you plenty to consider. The plans we’ll be comparing are Magenta Max from T-Mobile, Unlimited Elite from AT&T, Get More Unlimited from Verizon, and Unlimited All from US Mobile.
Confirm your coverage
The most important thing to consider for any cellphone plan, even more than the price or perks, should be covered.
4G LTE coverage
It’s almost impossible to give one recommendation based on LTE coverage because all the carriers basically have the country blanketed with LTE coverage. However, Verizon’s constant innovation around network technology like MIMO and Carrier aggregation make it the fastest, and most reliable, even in rural areas.
Still, the best way to know for sure is to test it out yourself or ask friends or family in that area about their experience. If you’re curious about how these networks stack up against each other in most areas, here’s some insight from field tests that Sacha Segan from PC Mag ran:
| AT&T | T-Mobile | Verizon | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top download speed(Mbps) | 473.1 | 643.3 | 2011 |
| Top upload speed (Mbps) | 76.3 | 96.4 | 63.2 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 26.2 | 24.1 | 23.7 |
5G coverage
All the carriers are steadily building out new 5G networks. To confirm coverage you should probably check out the coverage map on their sites.
One thing to keep in mind is that 5G operates on 3 different types of frequencies—low, medium and high.
| LOW BAND Travels the farthest and can even go through things like walls but is only about 20% faster than 4G. |
| MEDIUM BAND Doesn’t travel as far as low band but is 2X-4X faster than 4G. |
| NARROW BAND Doesn’t travel as far as lower band ones but have signals that can give data speeds of up to 2Gbps. |
In summary, low band covers a lot of space, slowly, medium band covers less space at faster speeds, and the high band covers the least space at super-fast speeds.
Here is our assessment of the 5G coverage and access on each plan complemented by the availability from the PC Mag report.
| Unlimited Elite | Magenta Max | More Unlimited | Unlimited All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LOW BAND | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
| MEDIUM BAND | ✅ | Coming soon | ✅ | |
| NARROW BAND | ✅ | Coming soon | ||
| Availability | 38% | 54% | 4% |
Through our partner networks for Super LTE and GSM LTE we’re able to offer coverage on all the available bands.
International Calling & Texting from the US
Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T offer different amounts of talk and text to a range of countries. If you frequently text or talk abroad you should take a look at this table:
| Unlimited Elite | Magenta Max | More Unlimited | Unlimited All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Texting | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Talk | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
We currently don’t have an international outbound calling and texting program but you can receive texts and calls from an international country just like regular calls and texts at no extra cost.
International Coverage
The big carriers do give you access to calling, texting and data that’s reasonable in Mexico or Canada. For destinations off the continent, talk, text and data can get expensive or Or you get unlimited data but it is too slow. Because rates are so expensive, think $200 for 1 GB of data in the UK, this sort of coverage is basically emergency use only.
| Unlimited Elite | Magenta Max | More Unlimited | Unlimited All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mexico & Canada | Unlimited talk, text and 2G data | Unlimited talk, text and 2G data | Unlimited talk, text and 2G data | ❌ |
| Other International | $10 Day Pass | Unlimited 2G | $10 Day Pass | Up to 10GB LTE Data |
At US Mobile we don’t offer calling or texting abroad, but we do offer eSIM enabled high-speed data abroad. Users on Unlimited All plans do get up to GB for free and users on smaller unlimited bundles get up to 5GB for free. And if you need more you can buy data at better-than-local rates too. For example, you can get 1 GB of data in the UK for $5. That’s magnitudes cheaper than the other carrier’s rates. Not only that, that same data plan can also be used across Europe without having to worry about changing SIMs, plans, or rates.
Line pricing
These carriers also offer escalating discounts as you add more lines. Here’s the comparison of the per-line cost of each carrier’s Unlimited plan as you add more lines. We did the math for you. just count the number of lines you have and see how much you’d be paying per line below.
| # of Lines | Unlimited Elite | Magenta Max | Get More Unlimited | Unlimited All |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $85 | $85 | $90 | $45 |
| 2 | $75 | $70 | $80 | $30 |
| 3 | $60 | $57 | $65 | $25 |
| 4 | $50 | $50 | $55 | $25 |
Insider info on data
Most unlimited plans have a high-speed data threshold that they’ve put in place to protect their networks against abusive use. From our experience and analytics, it’s about 0.1% of the user base who use their SIMs in uncertified devices or illegal ways who are ever affected by these thresholds. You shouldn’t worry about this for a normal type of use, but if you’re someone who streams in 4K or games online a lot here’s what you should know.
| Carrier | Limitations? |
|---|---|
| Unlimited Elite (AT&T) | None |
| Magenta Max (TMobile) | None |
| Get More Unlimited (Verizon) | Data may feel slower for users using >50GB/mo/line. |
| Unlimited All (US Mobile) | Data may feel slower for users using >75GB/mo/line on Super LTE and >50GB/mo/line on GSM |
Discounts for professionals
The other thing to keep an eye out for is the discounts and perks that the carriers offer. You can be eligible for discounts depending on your profession. So if you are one of these people make sure to see what the latest available discount is. T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon all offer some sort of discount for students, first responders, teachers, nurses, military, seniors, and corporate discounts.
US Mobile offers free Starter Kits to all students and will offer a monthly discount per line to all students soon as well. Businesses of any size can also reach out to us at any time for business-only pricing.
Lowdown on Perks
In addition to the discounts, each carrier also offers perks that range from streaming to photo hosting services. Here’s a breakdown of perks that each carrier provides, and the number of months then provide that perk for (in brackets).
| Unlimited Elite | Magenta Max | Get More | Unlimited All |
|---|---|---|---|
| HBO Max Stadia Pro (6 mo) | Netflix SD T-Mobile Tuesdays | Disney+ bundle Discovery + (12) Apple Arcade (12) Google Play Pass(12) Apple Music AMC+(12) | YouTube Music Spotify Audible Pandora Apple Music LiveXLive Netflix Disney+ bundle HBO Max Apple TV Apple Arcade Stadia Pro XBox Live Gold PS Now PS Plus And a whole lot more |
US Mobile’s one-of-a-kind customizable perks program allows us to offer a lot more choices to our users.
I see that the chart there shows that the Unlimited All has talk text and 2G data in Mexico and Canada, then the following paragraph says that US Mobile doesn’t offer roaming. I’m assuming the chart is a mistake? All the boxes say the same thing.
Thanks for pointing it out. It should be fixed now.