SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

??? Overview
Tom Antion explores whether discount phone services — often called MVNOs (Mobile Virtual Network Operators) — are a smart choice for entrepreneurs. These low-cost plans sound appealing, but as he explains, they come with strings attached.
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?? What Are Discount Phone Services?
Think of MVNOs like renters borrowing someone else’s house — they lease space on major networks (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile) rather than owning the network themselves. Popular examples include Red Pocket, Patriot, and Mint Mobile.
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? Pros (The Upsides)
• Low cost: Some plans advertise rates as low as $10/month.
• Unlimited talk/text/data: Technically true, but with limits (explained below).
• No contracts: Month-to-month freedom; no long-term lock-ins.
• Unlocked phones: You can bring your own device.
These perks make them appealing if you’re on a tight startup budget or just dipping your toes into business — like renting a desk instead of an office suite.
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?? Cons (The Hidden Catches)
• Deprioritization: When the network is busy, your data gets slowed down — like being moved to the back of the line at a crowded coffee shop.
• Data throttling: After a small amount of high-speed data, speeds drop to near dial-up levels.
• Limited perks: No device financing, limited roaming, and poor or online-only customer service.
• Weak for business: Slow speeds and limited data can cripple a serious entrepreneur who needs reliability.
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?? Tom’s Takeaway
These budget phone plans can be a “starter car” for new entrepreneurs — inexpensive and functional but not built for long business journeys. If you’re serious about growing your online business, Tom suggests investing in a reliable, high-speed service.
However, if you’re just starting out, need to cut costs, or want a secondary business phone, an MVNO can be a temporary tool — just don’t rely on it for mission-critical work.
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?? Additional Mentions
• Tom promotes his Automation eBook (screwthecommute.com/automatefree).
• He mentions his Internet Marketing School (IMTCVA.org) — the only licensed dedicated digital marketing school in the U.S.
• His Mentor Program offers business training plus a scholarship to the school (greatinternetmarketingtraining.com).

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Episode 1048 – Discount Phone Services
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey, it's Tom here with episode 1048 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today we're going to talk about discount phone services, the pros and cons. Could this be right for your business? Save you a lot of money. I know I spend over a thousand bucks a month on the various things I got going on the phone company, so I'm very interested in this topic myself. All right. Hope you didn't miss episode 1047. That was staying out of lawsuits. You can't always do it, but the more time you spend in court, the more money you're going to just throw down the drain. So a lot of ideas on how to stay out of lawsuits. All right. Pick up a copy of our automation book. screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Make sure you get version 3.0. That's the latest. And check out my school at IMTCVA.org. It's the only licensed, dedicated internet and digital marketing school in the country. Probably the world certified to operate by SCHEV, the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. But you don't have to be in Virginia because it's quality distance learning, and it's going to save you a couple hundred thousand bucks of getting getting your kids to learn how to protest and and have no usable skills. In fact, a bunch of the big corporations came out and said, we're not going to hire any college graduates. We hire them. Six months later, we got to fire them because they're worthless. You don't want your child to be in that boat this way. This school can give them immediately usable, in-demand skills in as little as six months and save you a couple hundred thousand bucks. So check it out. IMTCVA.org.

[00:02:05] All right, let's talk about discount phone services. I've been getting ads for these on the radio all day long when I'm driving. And I thought, you're not going to look into this. I spend a lot of money on phone service, and I wanted to see what's the deal with these? How can they say this is so cheap and you get unlimited? This, that, and the other one that comes to mind is Red pocket. There's other ones, Patriot and there's Mint Mobile, and there's all these other ones that are, you know, saying all this stuff. Now, these are technically called MVNOs, Mobile virtual network operators. And they use the big networks like Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. So you get coverage from all those services. For instance, red pocket. I hear him all the time. It's, like, indelibly etched in my head. $10 a month for unlimited service, talk, text and data. Well, that's true. That's exactly what they're giving you. However, there are caveats to this. So I'm going to give you the pros and cons of these kinds of low cost services. And you have to decide if this is right for you.

[00:03:21] Should I use these and then upgrade later if I need better service or you know what. What's the deal. All right. So what's the the pros of some of these things. Well they do give you unlimited talks talk text and data and they use the major networks. So that's all good stuff. And you can possibly and probably use an unlocked phone. So you don't have to be stuck with whatever service your phone was purchased on. And another pro is there's low commitment. It's like month to month. You're not stuck with years worth of contracts that you got to fight with. So that's a good thing. So these are good things if your needs are very low. But let's look at some of the cons and you might say, oh gee, I don't know if that's going to work for me or not. So the first con is called deprioritization. That means when things are busy, the speed to your service is throttled back. In other words, everything goes slower for you when things are busy, when the network is busy now, when they claim and I'm using air quotes, unlimited data. So maybe you get one gigabyte of high speed data which you could use up on streaming one movie. Okay. And then it's slower, as low as like Four kilobits per second, which is like almost dial up.

[00:04:56] It's so slow for the rest of the month. That's a definite big con if you're if you use your phone a lot and you're busy on it. Then another con is you have very few or little perks. In other words, roaming. And they're not going to be financing your devices, your phones for you. You may not be able to use a good hotspot, and customer service is very limited and probably online only. Never could talk to anybody if you needed anything. So I'm not against these services. If your needs are low, but you know, I'm trying to promote you to be a great online and or business person. Screw the commute, work out of your home. And if you're working out of your home, you gotta. And doing business, you gotta have high speed stuff. I mean, you can't do your business now if you're winding your business down and you want to just cut some costs or you're just playing around with a part time business, maybe you go ahead and get get a phone and dedicate it to that. But it's kind of against my principles of of really trying to ramp up businesses and be great at business, which you can't you can't really do with these kinds of slow speeds and small data allotments, even though technically it's unlimited. And also when things are busy, then your everything works slowly, slowly for you.

[00:06:24] So not in favor of them for the kind of business that I recommend. However, if you're on a really tight budget and you're trying to get started and you know, yes, $10 a month, go for it and just be extremely careful not letting your kids watch movies on the phone and everything, because it's going to screw your business over. In fact, you probably should dedicate a phone. You can get an unlocked phone, probably cheaper a used one and dedicate it to that service for your business. If you had to do it to get started on the on the cheap. All right. So that's so a little bit about discount phone services. Yes it can be good. But there's a lot of cons if you're really doing a lot of business that are just not going to work for you. All right. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Check out my mentor program. Greatinternetmarketingtraining.com. If you're in it, you get a scholarship to my school that I just mentioned earlier. And you can gift it to someone. And it would be one of the best legacy gifts you could ever give somebody that's close to you. So check it out at IMTCVA.org for the school and greatinternetmarketingtraining.com for the mentor program, and I will catch you on the next episode. Have a great weekend!