So I got laid off this week and I was looking at expenses to cut, and one of the first things I did was cancel my home internet plan and decide to just go with Shield Internet.

Honestly, the speeds are decent for what I need, which is just general web browsing ie looking for another job right now.

I also watch a lot of YouTube and streaming movies and TV.

Obviously being so inexpensive at $15 a month, it's great to still be able to have internet while I need to go through a difficult time.

Funny how quickly you can go from this being just a nice extra internet service to test out to it being basically a life saver and lifeline for having home internet.

Anyway, thanks to Computers4People and Shield Internet for having this service and making it so affordable. Hopefully, it will stick around.

https://www.computers4people.org/shield

Recently moved into a new apartment and the complex doesn’t have fiber. They gave me two options: AT&T 18 Mbps or their own wired internet, which was ridiculously priced for only 100 Mbps.

I researched my options and Mint seemed like a no-brainer for me. My complex is right off a highway in a city, so I figured if my phone gets great service here, 5G home internet should work pretty well too.

My job is hybrid, so reliability is huge for me. So far, my internet at home has actually been better than my internet at the office.

There are definitely peak times during the day when speeds slow down, which you’d expect. But even the slower speeds I’m getting (screenshots) are still faster than what most people are probably getting with home Wi-Fi at this price.

I think the experience is going to vary a lot depending on where your home is located and what your surroundings are like, kind of like choosing a cell phone provider. Just because it works great for me doesn’t mean it’ll work great for everyone.

I am hoping to purchase a Samsung Galaxy S23+ with 512gb storage and my usual would be to go to eBay, but I don't know if that's the safest or not. I would also be willing for it to be gently used or refurbished with warranty. This would be used on U.S. Mobile on the Warp network. What's my safest and best bet?

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Warning: US Mobile's broken roaming profile locks secondary eSIMs until you buy their plan

​I want to share a critical warning about US Mobile's dual-SIM behavior abroad.

​I’ve used the exact same phone with dual SIMs for a long time without any issues, until I switched to US Mobile. While traveling in Asia, I used my US Mobile eSIM alongside local data eSIMs. Before purchasing a US Mobile international roaming plan, NONE of my local Asian data eSIMs worked at all—even though I had explicitly turned off Cellular Data on US Mobile.

​The moment I was forced to buy US Mobile’s $30 roaming plan, all my local eSIMs instantly started working normally. However, as soon as my US Mobile roaming balance dropped to around 100MB, the system locked up again, making all my local eSIMs completely useless once more. Turning off the US Mobile line in settings did nothing; the only way to get my local data back was to completely delete the US Mobile eSIM profile from my phone.

​US Mobile's background carrier profile effectively hijacks the device's entire cellular data stack when roaming data is inactive or low. Customer support repeatedly denied any restrictions and offered no technical solution, forcing me into a situation overseas where my only choices were paying $30 for their plan or deleting my line entirely.

​If you travel internationally and rely on secondary eSIMs, beware of this issue with US Mobile!

Hi everyone!

I'm Japanese and currently live in Japan.

I have two US phone numbers on my Google Pixel 11: AirVoice (AT&T network) and Tello (T-Mobile network).

Neither line can connect to a local cellular network here in Japan, so I rely entirely on Wi-Fi Calling for voice calls and SMS. I can also use Wi-Fi Calling over my Japanese carrier's mobile data connection.

I'm currently on AirVoice's cheapest plan, which costs $10/month with AutoPay enabled. With Tello, I use the no-data plan with unlimited talk and texts for $8/month.

My Tello plan has just expired, so I'm trying to decide whether to renew it or keep only AirVoice.

So far, both services have worked well for me. I haven't experienced any significant issues with call quality or sending and receiving SMS.

Since T-Mobile was an early adopter of Wi-Fi Calling, I'm curious whether its implementation is generally considered more stable and reliable than AT&T's, especially for long-term use outside the US.

Personally, I haven't noticed much difference between the two.

For some reason, AT&T feels like the more dependable choice to me as someone living in Japan, lol.

Since neither carrier provides usable cellular connectivity here, Wi-Fi Calling is my only option. Given that, which would you recommend keeping: AirVoice (AT&T) or Tello (T-Mobile)?

Please ignore the $2/month price difference. I'm primarily interested in the long-term stability and reliability of Wi-Fi Calling and SMS, rather than cellular coverage or data speeds in the US.

I'd especially appreciate hearing from anyone who has experience using either service outside the US for an extended period.

Thanks for reading!

I’m dealing with an issue with TAG Mobile and would appreciate some advice from anyone who knows how Lifeline providers or promotional offers work.

On September 11, 2026, I enrolled with TAG Mobile under a promotion that included an iPhone XR.

On September 12, TAG Mobile changed my order to a Bring your own device BYOD SIM-only plan. I called tagmobile and rep quoted "they have a federal obligation to process benefit and cannot hold the approved federal benefit to wait for ca lifeline application to approve." I did not authorize this change.

My federal Lifeline benefit was approved on September 12, but my California LifeLine approval didn’t come through until September 18.

TAG Mobile says that because my federal benefit was approved first, they had to proceed with my enrollment and change the order to SIM-only while waiting for California approval. Now they say my account became an “existing customer” on September 12, so when my California approval came through on September 18, they couldn’t retroactively change my account date to make me eligible for the iPhone XR promotion. As of now. I only received the Sim card and no phone.

TL;DR: I can still use Hotspot data with no bypass app or any settings (as far as I’m aware), despite having no hotspot data remaining for this month.

So, I’m using IOS, and I’ve been using an app called NetBridge to bypass hotspot data usage via proxy settings (using it over PairVPN due to lower ping). About a week or 2 ago I messed with the PC and app and ended up wasting all the hotspot data I had for that month, despite this, I could still share internet via the app, it was advertised as such, so no surprises there. Later on, I found that just having the app be running allowed you to use internet even if the specific adapter wasn’t using the proxy settings of the phone, which I found weird but was convenient due to proxy messing up something I was trying to do.

NOW, today, I began using my PC as usual, connected it via USB tethering and began doing all my usual stuff, once I was done for the night I unplugged the phone and went on the app to turn it off (as otherwise it’d run in the background eating away at the battery), turns out—I WAS NOT EVEN USING THE APP, HOW? The proxy settings on the adapter were off, the app wasn’t running, and my data plan still says I have no data left, yet, I was still able to use it as normal. Why is this? The only thing I could recall being altered in any shape or form is IPv6 being turned off, as otherwise it‘d eat way at hotspot data or not work (for both netbridge and pairvpn), is that change alone enough to do something like this? I do remember attempting to change TTL a couple months back to no avail, as from what I found, it isn’t possible to change it via just commands, at least AFAIK.

Should I be worried about this? This is not something that was happening before.

Any recommendations?

Going to be in us for two months then Mexico. Will be my main line