Opting out of ATT seems like the most obvious no-brainer, but are there options for phone service that are actually halfway decent?
Or as an alternative, would it be feasible to get some kind of internet phone/texting service, use that over wifi, or maybe have a basic data plan to go with it at most?
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that won’t work without telling us your region. the largest part of the world doesn’t even know what is AT&T, let alone ATT
Generally speaking, if someone asks/talks about some local topic without bothering to specify where they live, you can just assume they live in the US :)
true, but I thought it would be important to know the state too
US.
ok but don’t the available providers vary by state?
Just use the phone number to register to a secure messaging service and remove the sim.
You can do it in a crowder place with no cameras
If a messaging service requires a phone number then it’s not “secure” lol.
What about Signal then?
Not the person you replied to, but the phone number requirement is one of the main reasons that I don’t use Signal.
If I recall, Signal has gotten better in recent years in that you don’t necessarily need Google Play to use it anymore. But my issue with it is that their backend still seemed pretty centralized the last time I checked, which could get increasingly problematic moving forward, since they’re based in the US.
I meant that you need a phone number for registration.
No idea if they store the phone number, probably not.
they do, you log in based on your number so they have to store it one way or another
I have my phone on airplane most of the time and use Wi-Fi with VoIP for calls and SMS. If I need mobile data, I have a Silent Link eSIM for mobile data only. If you ever need to make an emergency call you don’t need a sim card or provider, emergency calls always work. While the main motivation is privacy, it’s nice that it olny costs about $3 per month on average.
This sounds amazing and all but in most parts of the world a) you don’t have exclusively mobile internet SIMs b) you don’t have eSIMs and eSIM compatible devices c) mobile connections are metered (and expensive), so people talk on the ordinary cellular phone connections d) mobile data is slow and laggy, so calls frequently drop/are choppy/don’t connect at all e) you don’t have wifi in a lot of places f) people aren’t necessarily familiar with VOIP services
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently as well. I decided that I wanted to ditch using any cell carrier in favor of a VoIP provider. I made a post here: https://lemmy.ml/post/26192657.
The two recommendations that came up the most were voip.ms and jmp.chat. Both require at least $15 to get started but you can port your old number over to both services too. From there jmp.chat is $5 a month, which comes with unlimited texts and 120 min a month.
With voip.ms the call and messaging is subtracted from your balance at a predetermined rate (per min and per text) which I haven’t worked out the math on how much mileage $15 will get you initially.
From what I could see jmp.chat looked like it was the easier option to setup, with the Cheogram app for your phone and a Jabber app for the computer. Here’s a wiki entry detailing how to setup jmp.chat: https://kb.above.im/jmp-chat/
I settled on discontinuing my mint service and setting up jmp.chat on my phone and computer, and then supplementing the limited minutes via Signal for calling. Seems like a pretty good alternative to me. I still have a week left on my phone plan, and then I’ll be taking the plunge. I’d been using my phone less and less lately so it wont be too much of a shock, and I’ll save myself an extra $20/month going from the $25 mint plan to $5/month jmp.chat plan.
Follow up in a week. I would like to see how this works for you!
I’m not sure about decent, but in my experience, Verizon has been better than AT&T.
Visible. $25/line
Why us mobile data such a privacy concern and wifi is so much better? I understand using standard calls and text is bad but if you use mobile data and not your phone number whats the difference between that and public wifi?
Most carriers know your name, your internet usage metadata, and your location all the time using cell tower triangulation. There have been multiple reports of phone providers selling location data and sercurity breaches. If you have a phone that provides MAC address randomization and you use a VPN then I think using public WiFi is more private than having your mobile data turned on all the time.
OK thanks for the point, I should probably try and use wifi networks wherever possible ig.
