Hello mobile experience

I decided to try out Hello Mobile and signed up for their unlimited plan for $25 for the first 2 months. Initial payment threw up a failed error but when I logged in it had apparently gone through. So not the best of starts but okay and they allowed me to use a prepaid card. I used a non sprint phone and it was easy enough to get them to send me a T-mobile sim. Ordered Monday and received the sim on Thursday with a new number. Sim worked and they pushed me the pwg apn and mms settings.

I'm getting pings of 60ms, 30Mbps down and 6-10Mbps up which is what I usually get with tmobile.

Hotspot works. It allows multiple connections but seems to struggle. I can get away with 1-2 extra connections before it all gets unstable. Pings shoot up and speeds drop to 5Mbps or so. It seems like they are fighting for a limited bandwidth. I've tried to use a mango router but same issue. If all you need are 2 or 3 connections this should work but if you need more then look elsewhere.

Only other issue is that now and then the sim stopped working and asked me to sign in to the network. Upon clicking it it comes up with a failed to reach qlinkwireless page. Toggling airplane mode fixes it. I haven't seen it for a while so hopefully that is gone.

Website and app have a lot of info including detailed usage logs which is nice.

International calling works.

So overall I am pretty pleased with it. Hotspot could be better but at least it works. I prefer visible overall for the same price but this isn't too far off.

Did they change to exclusively T-Mobile GSM-based service?

Not that I know of. Sprint mainly.

As an update I've been having a lot more data issues (asking me to sign in every 10 minutes) so after the initial pleasant experience it quickly turned sour. A friend has the same issue and others on reddit report similar.

Customer service are useless.

Not recommended. At least not for their tmobile sim.

I believe Hello Mobile still defaults to Sprint service. If you submit an IMEI that is not Sprint capable, you'll get T-Mobile.

Is the voice/text working OK?

I'm thinking of getting a T-Mobile version of HelloMobile for use on a dual SIM phone for my voice/text access. For data, I would use a T-Mobile data-only plan ($10 for 2gb + unlimited music streaming).

When I am kicked off the network everything is dead temporarily. I am wondering though if they are just doing this when I have tethered. I assumed it was supported since there is no mention of it not being. I've been using it for a few days without any tethering and it has been working fine. Will test some more.

Take a look at liberty wireless. They have a $60 annual plan with unlimited talk and text on ebay. Tmobile as well.

Not getting kicked off any more when using pdanet to tether.

How is Hello Mobile working out with the tmobile network? Any further thoughts or feedback?
Thanks in advance

Mine has settled down now. Even tethering directly causes no issues. Don't know why it fixed itself.

No issues other than the initial teething problems with my first month. Customer service is useless so you are on your own but I don't forsee any other issues.

I wouldn't recommend porting your number to them personally but for service if you.can get past the first 2 months with working service you should be good.

With Sprint officially gone, anyone signing up now would be getting T-Mobile SIM, right?

I guess this is the negatives of Hello Mobile.

Hello Mobile's$25plan does not support the following:
VoLTE
Wi-Fi calling
Visual voicemail
Domestic roaming
International data roaming
eSIM
Adding a smartwatch to this plan

Looked up "Auto-connect to FREE Wi-Fi at 10 MILLION locations with My Mobile Account App"

Seems Hello Mobile is run by Q Link Wireless...

Correct:
https://www.nthcircle.com/forum/other-services/2682-new-ish-sprint-mvno-hello-mobile-q-link-mobile?start=0

Called to ask. Agent says yes but when I ask if he is just guessing, he reverts to that we will find out the SIM type after we receive them, so that is a maybe. Hopefully it switches to T-Mo for sure in a couple of months.

If you want T-Mobile, I think the safe route is to enter the IMEI for a GSM-only phone. You can put the SIM in a different phone, but it should force the system to issue T-Mo.

Interesting, I entered the sim of our gsm only phone, and it returned as not compatible. Does anyone have an imei of a gsm only phone which will return as compatible that they can share?
Thanks in advance.

PMed you one that checked as compatible.

Edit: Just occurred to me, als, the compatible IMEI I just sent you is from a Xiaomi phone that is certainly GSM compatible but may also have bands that make it compatible with certain CDMA networks, although I seriously doubt it would be compatible with Sprint. Anyway, maybe someone with a definitely GSM only phone can provide you with a IMEI. I would but my other phone are unlocked and compatible with all networks. My AT&T Cingular flip phone was deemed compatible.

I've checked the following GSM-only devices which clear the BYOD test on Hello Mobile:
#1 AT&T Prepaid Alcatel Ideal: GSM only, unlocked, LTE, and I already know it is not compatible with T-Mobile VoLTE
#2 AT&T Prepaid ZTE Trek II tablet: GSM only, unlocked, LTE (No phone dialer at all, so it's a data-only device.)
#3 Netgear Unite MiFI, unlocked GSM only, LTE. (also a data-only device.)
#4 Nokia 3.1, factory unlocked, GSM only, LTE, and known to support T-Mobile VoLTE.
#5 BLU Dash L3, factory unlocked, GSM only, 3G (no LTE, so obviously no VoLTE support)
#6 A ringer: Tracfone Rebel 2, still locked to Tracfone & as far as I know Verizon only, even if was unlocked.
#7 Another ringer, just to repeat results of #6: Tracfone Huawei Sensa, locked to Tracfone, Verizon only.

I've had one 'Not Supported" result.
BLU Advance 4.0 L2, factory unlocked, GSM only, 3G (no LTE).
This failure surprised me, since spec wise it's nearly identical with the BLU that does clear. I haven't dug it out to confirm that I didn't kludge the IMEI in my spreadsheet.

I'm positive that none of the units above are whitelisted for the legacy Sprint network.
My takeaway: Hello Mobile isn't doing any deep analysis of these IMEIs. With the sole exception of the one BLU, every non-Sprint device I can throw at it passes, regardless of whether it would actually work. At best. they're checking ESN's against the Sprint whitelist database, with Yes/Sprint-SIM and No/T-Mobile-SIM being the only discriminator.
(But my thought doesn't account for Isamorph's AT&T Cingular flip phone.... ??)

If that's correct, Isamorph's Xiaomi should suffice for obtaining a GSM SIM.
To be on the safe (safer?) side, I'll send the IMEI for a definitely non-CDMA-capable phone to als.

Oops-I checked my Cingular Flip phone again and I had inputted the wrong IMEI number, so it was accepted with the correct number. Corrected my post above.

https://www.prepaidphonenews.com/2020/09/hello-mobile-unveils-new-15month-plan.html

In case anyone thinks Hello Mobile $25 for 1 line is unsustainable. Looks like a new plan for $15/mo with 4GB LTE.