Red Pocket mobile ebay plans

[jimindenver]

I have mentioned RedPocket in several other threads and having recently ordered and received the starter kit a few days ago I thought I'd make it a thread on it's own. There are two sources of the RedPocket service. First is their website, the second is ebay which has the better deals.

Their site

https://goredpocket.com/

The ebay deal I took
$5 a month plan

This plan is $60 a year or $5 a month for 100 minutes of talk, 100 text and 500 Mb of data. That sounds very limiting except the phone will always be connected to a hotspot with unlimited data as well as having Goggle voice and hang outs to make calls and receive text via the web. I could have ported my Cricket number to Freedompop but after being a forum pro for them I had seen more that one port go bad. I simply did not trust them to do it offered more talk, text and data.

They also advertise free calling to 72 countries.

With Red Pocket mobile you get to chose whichever carrier you want as long as your phone will handle it. I had hoped to go with Verizon but my CDMA phone was Sprint branded so I had to use them. This upset me at first but again the hootspots and Google voice makes the phones carrier a after thought. Luckily they send you a sim for each carrier so I did not have to reorder.

There are a bunch of different plans on their website and on ebay. For $99 a year you can get 500/500/500. For $179 a year you can get 1000 minutes of talk, unlimited text and 1 gig of data. For $24 a year you get unlimited talk and text plus 2 gigs of data. There are other plans with a wide variety of options.

I need to give a shout out here to the chat person that worked very hard to get me up and running after I messed up the activation thinking I could use the Verizon sim. She also assisted in the porting of my Cricket number and it was done before the chat was over. The phone works great on its plan and there is a acceptable lag in Google voice considering it gives me unlimited talk and text.

So now my $5 a month phone can piggy back off my $5 a month hotspot and should work just about anywhere. The rest of the sims can be used to activate a plan on a different phone. Just buy the plan and use the activation code.

I will let you all know if something goes amiss any time soon.

 

[Minivanmotoman]

You da man!, man. 
And as always, Max approved.

 

[sometimesido]

https://slickdeals.net/f/10708716-5...xt-500-mb-lte-data-per-month-plan#commentsBox

$52 - eBay - Red Pocket Basic - 1 Year 100 Minute / Text - 500 MB LTE Data Per Month Plan
www.ebay.com/itm/132288143818

$88 - eBay - Red Pocket Essentials - 1 Year 500 Everything Per Month Plan
www.ebay.com/itm/132043269270

 

[jimindenver]

I was just about to come post those, thank you for doing so. I think I would have gone for the 500/500/500 at $88 had I the chance.

I have always focused on the hotspots and data until recently. I can not believe how inexpensive phone service is now. I remember paying more a month for a limited amount of T&T than you can have it for a year now. Heck, my taxes and fees back then was more than TPO's $7.99 a month for unlimited T&T.

The only bad thing about all of these great phone deals is that unlike the hotspots I can only report on the deals. I simply do not need that many phone planes.

 

[RMtnMik]

I was looking on the Red Pocket Ebay site at their deals. Their $88 / year plan looks good to me because 500 minutes and 500 texts are more than I will use each month. However the 500 MB of data/month  is probably going to be ok in the short term but I am likely to need more in 4-6 months from now.  I have a CDMA phone which is activated with Sprint that I just bought; I also have a GSMA  AT&T phone, that is not activated. I talked to Red Pocket - they said that if I buy the 1-year prepaid plan I am stuck with it until the term ends and I can't upgrade to another plan until the 12 mos. are over with. My situation is I don't know how much talk or data I will need because I am a new cell phone user attempting to go all cellular in a few months and cut the cord with my land-line telephone provider. So I should not go for the 1-year commitment but I still like their monthly rates of $10. I will be following your posts for the latest deals!

 

[jimindenver]

With the 500/500/500 plan at $7.33 a month on sale on AT&T you could get a Verizon 3G hotspot at $5 a month and be connected just about anywhere. You can add data, talk minutes and text as you need it to the Red pocket plans but you could also connect the phone to the hotspot for unlimited data. Ad Google voice and now you have unlimited talk, text and data for $12.33. 3G isn't the fastest but it can be fast enough for streaming. I ran a speed test near Colorado Blvd and I-70 and got 3.1 Mbps which is more than fast enough.

 

[Ken in Anaheim]

Jim, according to the above; does that mean I could have web browsing, voice phone and texts for 12.33/mo ? Would that be able to handle running Netflix on ?.........................THANKS,  KinA

 

[mr_elijah_gardner]

If you want Netflix cellular data isn't really your best solution. Some plans and service can work ok. 

The a cheap redpocket plan is going to be out of data after a video or 2

I owned a prepaid cell phone store for 5 years. I sold H20 and Redpocket along with boost and some other oddball services.

For Netflix if your in a large city Sprint or TMobile or nvmo's of those services is the way to go. $40 or so a month could get you working Netflix, but leave the main part of town you won't have any service. 

I use an ATT mvno and have good coverage and have alot of data. Something like that is going to more in the $60 range and you still likey won't be able to binge watch Netflix everyday.

 

[Blanch]

I am using the $5 Verizon plan to watch Netflix right now. It works fine, sometimes it buffers, sometimes the towers are pretty busy and it won’t work, but most of the time it is fine. Netflix allows you to change the streaming quality and I always set it to the lowest. I connect my iPad to my mifi and it works. Is it perfect? No. But for $5 I am not going to complain.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mr_elijah_gardner]

I have very little to no experience with Verizon. They aren't licensed in my region. $5 a month for hotspot sounds like a great deal. I'll have to look that up.

 

[John61CT]

Usually "region" implies multiple states.

Where is this area? Doesn't Verizon at least have roaming agreements there?

Nationwide they do have the greatest geographical coverage, but ATT isn't that far behind.

 

[mr_elijah_gardner]

Bowling Green KY. They do have roaming agreements with a local carrier. However it's has to be post paid service. I'm not aware of any prepaid service that can roam.

 

[jimindenver]

Jim, according to the above; does that mean I could have web browsing, voice phone and texts for 12.33/mo ? Would that be able to handle running Netflix on ?.........................THANKS,  KinA

If you got native Verizon in your area then yes you could watch netflix. It depends on signal strength and such of course.

As far as Sprint and T-Mobile out in the boonies. There have been times that without them I would of had no signal or a very limited one. Even at that I thought I could drop them as Verizon and AT&T was good enough until I got into the Rockies where my system was developed for. Verizon was 2G and very congested. AT&T was 4G and a little better but still congested. Sprint was roaming off of the local towers and flying while T-Mobile was coming over the ranges from 30 miles away. It really was proof of concept for the system.

 

[Ralph Furley]

If you got native Verizon in your area then yes you could watch netflix. It depends on signal strength and such of course.

As far as Sprint and T-Mobile out in the boonies. There have been times that without them I would of had no signal or a very limited one. Even at that I thought I could drop them as Verizon and AT&T was good enough until I got into the Rockies where my system was developed for. Verizon was 2G and very congested. AT&T was 4G and a little better but still congested. Sprint was roaming off of the local towers and flying while T-Mobile was coming over the ranges from 30 miles away. It really was proof of concept for the syste

You seem to know a lot about cell phone reception, where can I explore in the USA, location and/or cordinates, without cell phone coverage?  Even going somewhere that is limited to only 2G sounds good?

 

[John61CT]

Greenbank WV

Why would you want that? Torture the kids?

 

[jonsun]

so what is the $5 data? It apparently isn't a legit thing cause I cant find it.

 

[John61CT]

Verizon 3G
https://vanlivingforum.com/showthread.php?tid=16510

 

[jimindenver]

You seem to know a lot about cell phone reception, where can I explore in the USA, location and/or cordinates, without cell phone coverage?  Even going somewhere that is limited to only 2G sounds good?

Okay. I was at the bottom of a jeep trail on FR 549 off of 525C between Cottonwood and Sedona. Verizon and AT&T were very challenged by the terrain, Sprint and T-Mobile were not there at all. Now get up top and the big boys improved but nothing like Sprint that ran at near 30 Mbps down.

In Prescott I had a site with rock outcrops on three sides with the forth side pointed away from town. It took the booster set up even to get a weak signal on AT&T.

The Grand Canyon and that whole area is very challenging due to the fact that most of it is on local towers. It use be considered a dead zone until Verizon bought up some small company/s and have a tower at the south rim.

Getting out of range in the Rockies is easy due to mountain ranges blocking signals and small companies controlling whole areas. As I scouted out new sites I ran all the hotspots without the booster and found places that there was no internet like Kenosha pass. I may have been able to get a signal on one of the hotspots with the booster gear, other places have shown no internet until I set up the antenna.

 

[jimindenver]

A few days ago I tried texting someone and it did not go through. I sent them a PM to send one my way and never got anything via the phone. Yesterday I tried to make a call and it didn't go through and called my number and it said not in service. huh?

I got a hold of CS on line chat and they reset up the account. I asked what happened and they said the account did not renew. Oddly it wouldn't have renewed for two more weeks. I wondered why I wasn't getting any responses to my ads.

 

[sometimesido]

That is strange about the account renew...

and more deal:
Redpocket 1K Talk + Unlimited Text + 1K MB data / month -- 12 month for $165 @ ebay
https://slickdeals.net/f/10804379-r...d-text-1k-mb-data-month-12-month-for-165-ebay

On that thread is people talking about lower price on black Friday.