The Essentials and Magenta plans will not throttle back your data speeds until you've used 50 gigabytes or 100 gigabytes of LTE data, respectively, which is quite a lot. Those aged 55-plus can also subscribe for discounts on any of the three tiers. WIRED: 5G data speeds are available on every tier, as is international texting and unlimited talk, text, and data in Mexico and Canada (possibly nonfunctional 2G data speeds on Essentials, 5 gigabytes of 4G LTE on the Magenta plans). The Magenta Max plan offers 40 GB of hot spot data and is a good value if you tend to use more than 50 GB of data a month and hate being throttled, or if you plan to travel abroad a lot, since it also includes international data. Check out our guide to cheap phone plans if you don't want unlimited data.Įssentials is the basic, best choice for most people with big families. It's been a fixture of cell service plans for years-even on so-called unlimited plans.īelow, we've highlighted what each of the major carriers offers for “unlimited” individual and family plans to help you figure out which unlimited plan is best for you, and your budget. Data throttling is the practice of reducing your data speeds after you hit a certain threshold of data used in a month or during times of congestion. Yet there are still many differences in the services they offer, and from tier to tier within each company.Ĭheaper “unlimited” tiers, too, still have rules on how much unlimited data you get before they start limiting you. Mercifully, all of the Big Three cellular companies have, by now, ditched throttling on their highest-paid tiers and include 5G data access in all their unlimited plans. 'Unlimited' is a funny term, because it often comes with a whole long list of footnotes, terms, conditions, and exceptions.

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