MVNO Red pocket now supports all 4 major network operators here in America. Previously, the only other MVNO that was able to offer this was TracFone. Red Pocket’s president Joshua Gordon was quite bashful about this accomplishment when responding to questions from Fierce Wireless but clammed up about exactly who the underlying providers were. Maybe he did this due to some type of contractual obligation but this didn’t stop him from giving some very obvious hints as to who these providers might be. These clues are easily found on Red Pockets website. When a customer is about to select a plan they are presented with a list that looks very familiar. Red Pocket lists the first letter of each carrier’s name and even color codes them in the list that can be seen here.
I’m not Sherlock Holmes but if my hunch is correct that blue GSMA option might be AT&T, the red CDMAV option might just be Verizon, that pink or magenta color definitely looks familiar and I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that GSMT might be code for be T-Mobile and the yellow CDMAS option might very well be Sprint. What do you think? I hope John Legere or any of the other presidents don’t come after me now that I’ve uncovered the secret. Also important to note, when choosing one of these product lines and you intend to bring your own phone, you should be aware of whether your phone utilizes GSM or CDMA technology. If you use a CDMA phone, your choices will be between CDMAV and CDMAS. If you have a GSM phone then your choices will be between GSMA and GSMT. There is also something else that is interesting about the lists that are provided. The last two options, T-Mo, I mean magenta and yellow, have a 4G LTE logo attached to them while the red and blue options do not. I wonder why the two slower networks are so willing to provide LTE while the two faster ones don’t. I could only guess that the last two were just cheaper.
Red pocket has four plans that they offer on all operators which they’ve dubbed “Flagship Plans”. All plans offer unlimited text and talk. What separates them are the data plans. The cheapest is a $29.99 option that allots 500MB of data. It is important to note that Red Pocket does not offer high speed data on this plan and my guess is that they probably restrict you to 3G and will then cut you down to 2G once you have gone over the 500MB 3G limit. The next plan is priced at $39.99 and offers 500MB of data at high speed and throttling will begin at 500MB. The next plan gives you 1GB high speed data before throttling and is priced at $49.99. The last plan is priced at $59.99 and gives you 3GB at high speeds. Red Pocket now stands in direct competition with TracFone which has been in the business since 1996, basically giving them a ten year head start in terms of familiarity with customers. Red Pocket seems to offer better plans at a more reasonable price in comparison to Tracfone. Unless TracFone’s customers are extremely strapped for cash, it will only be a matter of time before their budget minded customers leave them in favor of Red Pocket.