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It takes a lot to get us excited about a cellular offering these days. One feature that always gets our attention is a plan that offers unlimited texting and unlimited data within the U.S. plus unlimited calling to the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. So we’re excited to introduce Visible, Verizon’s very own MVNO. A few disclaimers are in order before we get into the specifics.
First, as with all MVNO’s, your usage is subject to throttling in high usage areas. So, if you regularly attend events with 100,000 other folks such as the Super Bowl, or the World Series, or the Masters, an MVNO cellular plan may prove disappointing. Second, we are an avid Visible user, and we offer a signup link that reduces our bill if you sign up. We do this to defray the costs of bringing you articles such as this one. Third, you only get the $25/month pricing if we can persuade 3 other like-minded readers to sign up for service. Otherwise, the monthly cost is $40. But we’re not too worried about that once you read this article. UPDATE: We now have over 60 people in our plan. Your first month of service is only $5 using our signup link.1 There are no signup fees or long-term contracts of any kind.
While Visible originally worked only with iPhones, most current generation Android phones can now be used as well including the Google Pixel 3 or newer, Samsung Galaxy S9 or newer, the Moto G7 or newer, and most other 4G and 5G phones that can operate on Verizon’s VoLTE (Voice Over LTE) network. Check your phone’s compatibility here.
Now, the good news. Visible uses Verizon’s nationwide state-of-the-art 4G/5G network. Your download speeds are capped at a whopping 200 Mbps. Tethering is unlimited but speed is capped at 5 Mbps unless you do a little educational surfing. When it comes to performance and coverage in the U.S., Verizon is the leader of the pack. AT&T’s Cricket MVNO has a competing plan for $55 a month with a 5 Mbps speed cap. T-Mobile’s MVNOs have no offerings with unlimited high-speed data at the $25 price point. The best deal is probably Mint Mobile with 30GB of high speed data with tethering capped at 5GB for $30 a month.
Finally, let us walk you through how the signup process will work. First, you sign up for new service here. After you register, Visible will send you a SIM via overnight delivery. When you receive the SIM, log into your Visible account with a web browser and follow the setup steps.
Here’s the important part. After your service is up and running either through our signup link or independently, you can then Join the Party Plan Here and then participate in what Visible calls their Party Pay Plan. You’ll get your own bill for $25 each month, and no further interaction from us or other members of the group. Please post a comment below just to let others know this isn’t a scam. We can also send you the signup link if you have problems signing up. We will not share your email address. For those that already have a Visible account and are paying more than $25 a month for service, you, too, are more than welcome to Join the Party. Please post a comment below confirming your interest. What’s the catch? There isn’t one. We all save $15 a month on our Visible bill every month forever, and we all continue to be billed and pay for our own service independently. Think of it as adding kids to your cellphone plan except you never have to pay your kids’ cellphone bills.
Come join the party! You won’t be disappointed.
Originally published: Wednesday, February 17, 2021
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- You’re also eligible for a $100 Mastercard Prepaid Virtual Account if you transfer your existing cellphone number when you sign up. [↩]
I think your ‘unlimited calling IN the U.S., Canada, and Mexico’ should have more accurately said ‘unlimited calling TO the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.’
[WM: You are correct. This is a cellular plan for U.S.-based customers.]
Hi Ward – when I use your link, I get re-directed to https://www.visible.com/sign-in. How do I get on your party plan?
[WM: Once you have a Visible account, just let us know you’d like to join our Party Plan. We then will send out signup links. If we don’t get at least 3 people, we will redirect you to a friend’s Party Plan where the same deal holds.]
Is there sales tax on the plans and is there one bill for your party?
[WM: No sales tax on the plans. Each party gets billed individually. That’s the beauty of the Visible offering.]
Can I port my number?
[WM: Absolutely. And see the footnote for an extra $100 bonus from Visible.]
I have a Note 10+ which is *not* the 5G version from Verizon. How does this plan allow it to get 5G service?
[WM: You have to have a 5G device to get 5G service. But 4G is still pretty sweet with this deal.]
FWIW, you can buy a prepaid SIM with a phone number at https://prepaid.t-mobile.com/home for $25. If you then buy a phone at Visible you can save as much $200 (less the $25) on a new 5G phone and keep your existing phone number and plan. Not a bad deal for buying a 5G phone. BTW, 5G is new territory with different versions of 5G on even the same network. Very confusing but be aware of the Ultra Wide issue on Verizon/Visible.
Looking forward to joining the "party"!
Signed up and waiting for SIM to arrive. Hopefully can keep the 25 a month rate
Activated the plan, do we have a Party yet?
[WM: Party will be active shortly. We will contact you.]
Plan activated; any chance you can post the invite link to join Party Plan?
[WM: You will receive an email shortly.]
I’m in! Please sir, may I have a party invite! : )
[WM: Done. Welcome!]
I’m in and loving it! Unlimited Verizon wireless service for a heck of a lot less money.
Great plan. If any of you would use your American Express cards to pay a bill for cellular, check the AMEX online portal for an offer of $15 statement credit/month each time you use the card to pay for a cellular bill this year. You have to select the offer and add it to your card.
[WM: Apparently only available on certain AMEX cards, not ours.]
Hi Ward – I’m in – please forward a party invite. Thanks!
[WM: Done. Welcome!]
Hi Ward, May I get the party code?
]WM: Absolutely. https://www.visible.com/p/Hulls ]
20 members and counting. Party On!
Thanks! I’ve signed up and sent a request to join the party.
Just a cautionary note about one more trade off I didn’t realize I was making: the reliability of Visible Service is also less than what I’ve ever received from the MVNO cell plans I have been using for 15 years:
After 3 1/2 months of service working well, 10 days ago my phone stopped getting any bars and any data or voice service in the town where live and had been using it. As far as I could tell, Level 2 support for the ticket I opened 9 days ago comes from Verizon engineers and was also "deprioritized". I read online that swapping the SIM back to another carriers’ then back to Visible’s sometimes fixes that type of problem and my experience has been: it was necessary but not sufficient. I tried that every couple days to no avail. Today when I contacted customer support again, they told me someone from Verizon finally touched the ticket again and suggested temporarily swapping the SIM again. This time, the swap seems to have been successful. Depending who I listened to at Visible, I was also told 1 week is about the average time for a level 2 response for customers in this type of situation. Apparently the level 2 support is "deprioritized"? But I’ve never needed level 2 support before.
My phone is a Samsung Galaxy S9+, purchased as unlocked from Amazon 2 years ago. It runs off the Android Samsung distributes (v10), the phone has never been rooted, nor had a rom flashed, nor has it ever received customization that would break the warranty.
[WM: We’ve reached out to Visible for comment.]
Here’s a video that was very helpful in setting up my Galaxy S8+ I bought from Ebay with Visible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcAAMj2AwcY
I thought I would need a different phone because I bought an "AT&T" unlocked phone. Just had to enter the correct APNs.
Just wanted to add in that I’ve been a customer of Visible for the last 9 months or so now. Not bad overall. BUT I too have a Samsung 9 phone that EVERY billing cycle of my own and my wife’s I have to do the old sim new sim trick to get my service back online. Visible can’t fix it, and it it only affects my service not my wife’s on her iPhone. Except for this really weird quirk, we are both very happy with the switch to 25 a month and the savings of nearly 120 a month over our normal longterm Verizon plans.
I just sent a request to join the party. I signed up for Visible using your link about 3 weeks ago and I’m very happy so far. Download speeds have been at least 30 Mbps and quite often around 60-70 Mbps at my house in Melbourne FL. I switched from T-mobile where I was getting 10-20 Mbps for $70/month with a senior discount. I hope they don’t oversell their capacity but it seems like every time I turn on the TV I see that "12 Degrees of Kevin Bacon" Visible commercial.
That seems like a great price. Does it work with Teracube?
[WM: Sounds like you’re good to go from this report.]
We joined the party this week! It looked like it was 38 strong when we joined and if all goes well with us testing it we will add more lines! Thanks for putting this together!