What's the best cell phone carrier for a single user?

project fi

To be clear, that's not an average month for me. Average is probably around 7 per month, but sometimes I have to travel for extended periods and have to be using data to continue working.

I always use wifi at home or in the office.

Cricket! Uses AT&T towers and they have great plans.

LINK

You've never been to Southwest arkansas, have you.

Cricket is an option. Their unlimited plan is only $65 with auto pay, but hotspot isn't available on their their unlimited plan so that could be a deal breaker if you need that feature. They also have a 10 GB plan that's $55 with auto pay and you can add hotspot for another $10. At&t also throttles Cricket customers to 8 MBS down, but really that's still plenty for most things on a phone.

Another option is Metropcs. T-Mobile doesn't throttle Metro users and they have an unlimited plan for $60 which also includes 8 GB of hotspot data at no charge. T-Mobile's network may not be ideal for everyone, but it's head and shoulders above Sprint and just as good or better than Verizon or At&t for a lot of people. You really should test them out before deciding. Speed tests are completely zero rated so you can get a cheap Tmo SIM without a plan and run tests in areas that you frequent.

The major MVNOs use the same networks as the big 4 so service is almost identical to the parent company in most cases. The main differences in service is that the parent company may have more roaming agreements than available on an MVNO, and MVNOs are prioritized lower than the parent company's customers on network towers. Most of the time this doesn't result in any significant difference in service, but it can be noticeable on congested towers. Bands also make a difference, you want to make sure that you have a phone capable of picking up all of the frequencies used by the carrier that you choose. Non-service related, MVNOs generally have lower quality customer service and miss out on some of the perks that the big 4 may offer in a trade-off for lower prices.

ETA: The price differences between the MVNOs and the big 4 are actually more pronounced than just their listed plan prices because prepaid plans generally include taxes and fees while the majors add those on top of the plans.