Ting, the Phone Service

b/Tech, Science & IT publicado por u/Caleb Hansberry April 11, 2015, 05:35:43 PM

Ting, the Phone Service

I'm looking at signing up for Ting. It's $14 for a SIM card to activate your phone, and then $6/month for line access, everything else is postpaid, which sounds good to me. Does anyone have any comments about this service, and since a referrer gets $50 off their service, is there anyone who is able to be a referrer?

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u/Yuki April 11, 2015, 05:42:11 PM

Never heard of it, but looks interesting. Does it work in Canada? (Given the current state of telephony services, I'd be surprised...)

u/Caleb Hansberry April 11, 2015, 06:52:14 PM

Nope, it doesn't work in Canada. Sorry

"The company doesn't have its own cell network. Instead, it buys network access from other companies at a wholesale price and then sells that access to people who sign up with the company. In the U.S., Ting buys access to Sprint's mobile network. Canadian providers Bell, Rogers and Telus have declined to participate, the company says." (cbc.com) So the big companies in charge of Canada's wireless are blocking the competition, whereas here, they would do the same thing except Sprint wanting to remain competitive in the face of giants AT&T and Verizon which is difficult and requires innovation - Ting is growing rapidly, so it's a deal for Sprint.

And international roaming doesn't work well on Ting, their website states.

u/Yuki April 12, 2015, 01:07:33 AM

Yep, that's something called a virtual operator, that is, an operator that buys access to other operators, and there's many of them, at least in Canada. But yeah, the industry is hyper competitive and wants to keep the prices ridiculously high. Which kind of sucks, not only for the customers but also for those wanting to get in the game, such as Ting. I also thought they were required to accept demands to buy network access? Or I probably confuse it with Internet infrastructure, which work kind of the same and are owned by nearly the same companies.

Anyway, if they manage to buy some access to one of the Canadian providers, be sure I'd jump on it.

Last Edit: April 12, 2015, 01:10:15 AM by Juju

u/Caleb Hansberry April 24, 2015, 01:27:40 PM

So I went with Ting, and for US residents, recommend it highly! The best thing about it is the ability to pay nothing for services you don't want to use, so for example, for starting I pay $6 for line access, then $3 each for 100 minutes, messages, and megabytes, so a total of $15 a month. And if I wished I could drop minutes and use data and messages. Or drop minutes too and only use data! Or not use data and then I could treat a smartphone much like a normal feature phone. There's a lot of possibilities, as long as you don't use a lot of service - if you do it'll rack up faster than unlimited packages.

My only complaint is the service I get where I live is much inferior to Verizon's, since through Ting I use Sprint's service. But away from my home the coverage is usually good.