On Friday June 6, I received my Assurance Wireless SIM card. Assurance Wireless is a Lifeline cellular service provider. They provide free cellular service to low income households. Lifeline is available to 1 per household, and that means you can’t have Lifeline service with 2 carriers. While every provider is slightly different, Assurance Wireless provides 3,000 minutes, unlimited SMS/MMS, and 4.5GB of data per month. I must use the service provider at least once every 30 days. And while the have premium phone service plans, I have chosen to stick with the base plan.
This phone number is not my primary phone. I still pay for service with my primary carrier. This means I will likely not use it as much as someone that might actually need the service. The reason I acquire this service is I wanted an Android phone that had data service for a couple of apps not available on iOS. With that said, I will use the “secondary” Assurance Wireless line as a backup, or if I was to call an entity that I don’t really want calling my primary number.
Assurance uses the T-Mobile network of towers. If you do not have good T-Mobile coverage, you will not have good Assurance Wireless coverage. However, with roaming agreements with the various carriers, this is less of an issue since most modern phones will support all 4G and 5G bands.
The Good
The service is well worth the price. For free, you get 3,000 minutes which I will imagine is good enough for anyone not constantly on the phone. This consist of 100 minutes a day which is almost 2 hours. With many people communicating via RCS, or SMS – this is likely not a problem. And even if this was my primary phone line – I don’t use 3,000 minutes, but as for friends that I talk to on the phone, it is very limited. At least for me, and anyone in need of cellular phone while living on low income, this is a good option.
I also like that they don’t force you with one of their phones – however on the other side of the coin, they don’t provide free phones. The problem with many Lifeline providers is they will give you a “free” phone which in my opinion is not worth the hassle and trouble you would have about it being a free phone. Since I can bring my own device, I can pick a $200 phone all then way up to a $2,000 phone, and Assurance does not care, however there was a hiccup which I will get into later.
The voicemail system works the way it should. When someone calls, and get my voicemail, they will hear my greeting, and a tone to leave a message. Some providers instead give you instructions after the greeting on how to use a voicemail service. This is insulting the intelligence of anyone under the age of 65 who already knows how to use voicemail, and had experience with either an answering machine, or a voicemail system. Heck, even some pagers offered voicemail. This is the normal way to leave a message for the person you are calling, and is available on just about any phone line. I am getting the impression that any carrier using the T-Mobile network doesn’t “dumb” things down for people.
The Bad
While the service is free, they will charge for calling a toll-free number. This means that if you need to call Social Security for example, you will call their toll-free number. Both you, and Social Security is charged for the call. In my opinion, this should be illegal, but for some reason, it isn’t. Every carrier does this though, so Assurance Wireless is not an exception to the rule. I do not know if they will charge for 611 calls.
While Assurance Wireless allows you to use your own phone, they do not support eSIM. This is in my opinion rather silly. Some people may have 2 numbers (1 work, and 1 personal). Many new phones these days offers 1 physical nano-SIM slot, and 1 eSIM. If your phone is already using the SIM card, you would have to see if the carrier will allow you to convert to eSIM with their service. It’s either that, or buy a new phone. In my case, it didn’t matter as much as I had plans on using an Android phone anyways. However, for some that can’t afford to buy a new phone, this might be a hinderance.
The Ugly
While they say that activation was easy, it was far from easy. I got home, charged the new phone up. At 10:15AM, I called to activate the number. The system told me that the number is activated, and wait 15 minutes. I then turned off the phone, and waited until 10:45AM to where I turned the phone on confident that the service will be active. It however was not. I had to call customer service from my primary phone, and deal with the representatives in getting my phone service activated. At first, she wanted both IMEI numbers, and told me that the second IMEI was not valid which I knew that since they don’t support eSIM. I had to repeat the IMEI 1 number a few times for her to eventually get everything working. I also had to provide the ICID number from the SIM card. She put me on hold for about 15 minutes, and told me to reboot my phone. I then called my home line to make sure that service rang the home phone. The rep was courteous, but again – more trouble than value at least for now. This could be a deal breaker with someone trying to setup their phone, and they only have the one phone. I had to use my iPhone to call customer service to get service activated on my Razr, and then I had to call my home phone to make sure everything is working. Many low income people will simply not have those resources available to them.
Conclusion
While still in the honeymoon stage for both the Razr, and the cellular service, this will take some time to make sure I have no issues. If not, then I will probably start recommending Assurance Wireless to qualifying people. I don’t expect any reward for referrals, but if Assurance Wireless wants to provide me with a referral code, then they will be more than welcomed to.
As mentioned, your phone must support a SIM card. In addition, T-Mobile turned off their 3G network, so the only options is for 4G or 5G. If you have a 3G phone, you will need to buy a new phone. I would like eSIM support, and while I feel it is should be an option for all carriers – I made due without it. You would need to as well.
3,000 minutes while sufficient for most people may not be enough for some that are heavy talkers. Keep the fact that the 3,000 minutes applies to both incoming, and outgoing calls. I do like the fact that the carrier doesn’t dumb down people with regards to voicemail.