Your TextNow number and the number in phone settings are NOT the same. This has not changed from the old provider.
Thanks for checking.
Have you noticed any differences in terms of service quality with t-mobile versus sprint? My phone would never ring when I was not on wifi with my sprint phone. I have good t-mobile service in my area and I am hoping this will be a usable phone now.
if you have tmobile service at all you will most likely be fine. I do not believe textnow is deprioritized but could be wrong
I suspect that the no-ring issue is more 'phone' dependent than carrier-dependent-- it's a common problem with VoIP apps, since they don't seem to stay connected to the network at all times. I've seen some people have success with excluding the VoIP app from battery optimization, and allowing it to run at all times in the background.
I wanted TextNow to work for me but I have to say, it's not ready for prime time. I first had the CDMA sim and even bought a Moto 5 play for it to try it out. But like others have said, it rarely ever rang on incoming calls. Yes, I turned battery opt. off for the app and said to keep wifi active and even got an app that stops the phone from sleeping for 2 hours but nothing worked! Even with wifi off and using the 'cell' signal the same problem exists. Oddly, as soon as the call would fail and I would hang up the TextNow phone would give me a notification that I had missed a call. I put the sim in another cdma phone I had and got the same results. So I was glad when I saw they were coming out with a GSM sim so I quickly ordered one thinking my problems would be over. But no such luck. After trying the GSM sim in 2 different phones I still had the SAME issue. Rarely would it ring on an incoming call. (maybe one time in 10) Like others have said, I did have to call CS to activate the GSM because they have to Deactivate the old cdma sim first and this can't be dome online without calling CS. So I have to vote NO on TextNow. But with companys like redpocket now offering 1 year of 200 min, 1000 texts and 200mb of data EACH month for 12 months for ONLY 30 bucks on Ebay, it seems a small price to pay for NO ads and reliability. Hope this helps someone.
I thought about trying it but the hassle seemed a too much to save so little. It is great there are so many cheap options nowadays.
Tracfone is another good alternative. With a hsn bundle and using a referral code you can get enough for 2 years of service with a single $30-40 payment.
There is also the ultra mobile $3 a month plan. Which although gives less than the redpocket plan has some advantages. It has some add on bundles that would work better for those who need a burst of minutes/texts/data for a few days or a week or two in the year. As well as more overseas roaming flexibility.
These are all great low-usage options. We currently have Tracfone and the Red Pocket plan, and I have no complaints with either. I really want to try the Ultra plan, but I don't need another low-usage line.
Still, even with those options available, I'm thinking about a TextNow line to use when I need to call customer service somewhere, and don't want to burn through cellular minutes. For that application, I don't really care whether the phone reliably rings on incoming calls.
Yes you know what I forgot about the $4.99 a year option to keep the number active. That was my main issue. No way I'd remember to keep it active otherwise. It would come in handy sometimes to hand out when you don't want to risk getting spammed. And if you get a good number it may work for 2fa. Lately there have been some duds mixed in that don't.
Just a reminder, you can use TextNow on the web for free. No phone or sim needed. Incoming and outgoing work great and text as well.
Here's my data point on TextNow's Free cellular plan.
Mine is on a Sprint-only phone. It's working for me as of right now - knock on wood. I plan to keep it going until they force me to buy a new GSM sim, at which point I will have to decide whether I want to stick around or leave.
Just read through an interesting discussion on Howard Forums:
Little tidbits:
Apparently VoLTE is required for proper activation. The SIM will install, but LTE won't work and the VoIP app doesn't work. Odd, since they won't get any use out of VoLTE anway. (VoIP voice.) Phones still locked to T-Mobile will activate.
One iPhone user reports that iMessage doesn't work on the GSM SIM, but did with a Sprint SIM. (I'm wondering if this might be the lack of an iPhone carrier bundle-- a problem several converted-to-T-Mobile MVNO's are having. The other issues that show up due to the lack of a carrier bundle wouldn't likely be apparent on Text Now, since a phone there won't be using some of the other features that are missing without the carrier bundle.)
And apparently T-Mobile's Scam ID feature is tagging TextNow numbers as "Scam likely". Ironic, and a problem I hope T-Mobile and TextNow can address.
Unfortunately, for the same reason some places/providers automatically assign a high spam score to (or even outright block) the entire .science top-level domain, that may in fact be well-deserved...
Yes, it's possible some TextNow accounts are spammers/scammers. It seems likely to me that T-Mobile's Scam ID is targeting all VoIP providers that don't have verification procedures in place. (I think eventually that will be a design requirement.)
My thought: the biggest violators aren't going to mess with TextNow accounts when there are plenty of options for VoIP providers that are pretty much tailor-made for scammers/spammers, and they seem to aggressively market themselves for that purpose (despite protestations of innocence.) That said, I've seen several inquiries on other forums from individuals looking for traditional cellular providers that are 1) cheap setup cost, 2)allow truly unlimited texting, 3)allow frequent number changes, perhaps weekly. I can't imagine any possible purpose for that combination that doesn't involve spamming, so I guess there's a market.
The irony to me is that T-Mobile is powering TextNow's service. Whether there's a good reason or not for them to get ID'd that way, it seems to reduce the utility of a TextNow line.
While the GSM has been available - it is officially announced now:
https://blog.textnow.com/blog/2021/06/15/free-phone-service-with-an-upgraded-gsm-network/
If I get a TextNow SIM, could I get TextNow service on my unlocked ATT Sonim XP5? The ATT variant of the XP5, unlike the Verizon variant, doesn't do VoLTE.
That is a good question. One might guess that being data-only, it wouldn't matter whether the phone was VoLTE capable or not. But a user report on Howard Forums makes it sound like T-Mobile VoLTE is needed to get the SIM to activate for LTE at all.
https://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php/1922758-TextNow-Stand-Alone-Free-Plan-Network-Change?p=17177296#post17177296
That user tried a couple of phones that he knew did not have VoLTE on T-Mobile, and they either failed to have data at all, or showed only 3G with a non-working app.The block has got to be on the network side (T-Mobile).
It might be only for activation purpose. I tested the sim on an old Moto E2 which only supports 4G (no lte). It seems working fine.
You have to activate new SIM in VoLTE compatible (with T-Mobile) phone, otherwise you will get error during activation.
Next, Sonim XP5 is not smartphone as far as I see and it is not VoLTE compatible with T-Mobile VoLTE.
Obviously, you can not install TextNow app on this phone and you will not be able to use TextNow free plan.
I do not know if TextNow has non-VoiP paid plans (without their app), but even if so, without VoLTE compatibility and without 3G Band 4 (1700 MHz), this phone will be close to useless on T-Mobile.
Regarding TextNow free plan on non-VoLTE phones:
In some cases it just does not work on non-VoLTE phones. For example, the phone does not get data even if APN is correct.
In some cases you get weird glitches (the app is running but does not accept voice calls).
In some cases the phone is stuck with 3G/H/H+ (and the voice quality is very bad or calls do not work).
I managed to solve last problem by two ways
- in engineering menu I set network mode to LTE only
and/or (depending on phone) - manual search for network and select "Home LTE" network
Currently I am able to run TextNow App on T-Mobile LTE network on my unlocked Lg X Force M322 (formerly Xfinity Mobile phone).
This phone can not be used with regular T-Mobile plans/voice calls because it does not have VoLTE and even without VoLTE it does not have 3G Band 4, so it drops to 2G during voice calls, but after I locked it to "HOME LTE", I get very good data connection and TextNow app works without issues.