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   Waldo Jaquith (waldoj@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 17-Apr-2023 11:32:57 JST Waldo Jaquith

   Is there a word or phrase that describes a prepaid SIM for a data plan, that doesn’t have a monthly fee, but is just a metered cost? I want to buy one of those but I can’t figure out how.

   “Prepaid,” in the US, seems to mean “a monthly plan where you pay a fixed fee in advance,” rather than “you load it up with 5 GB of data for $10 and, when that’s used up, you can pay for more data if you want.”

   • Embed this notice
     Waldo Jaquith (waldoj@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 17-Apr-2023 11:32:57 JST Waldo Jaquith

     in reply to

     The consensus is that it's "pay-as-you-go," but, wow, this is *not* a service that's available in the U.S., like in the rest of the world. Every provider insists that you pay a base monthly fee, which strikes me as strong evidence that U.S. mobile companies are an oligopoly.

     I just want a SIM so I can have my network failover to a cellular router when my Brightspeed connection goes down (as it does a few times a week now, though I hope it'll be less often when I have gigabit fiber shortly).

   • Embed this notice
     Dr. Matt Lee ?:verified: (mattl@social.mat.tl)'s status on Monday, 17-Apr-2023 11:32:57 JST Dr. Matt Lee ?:verified:

     in reply to

     Take a look at the Calyx Institute. They have some plans which may suit your needs while being a nonprofit organization you can make a tax deductible donation.