New ask Hacker News story: Cellular service providers are charging 10x what the network costs
Cellular service providers are charging 10x what the network costs
3 by huntsmans | 1 comments on Hacker News.
I've been thinking about this for a while and the economics of cellular service providers in the US are genuinely fascinating once you dig into them. The infrastructure reality: Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile have largely sunk their tower infrastructure costs. The marginal cost of adding one more subscriber to an existing network is close to zero. Yet retail pricing for cellular service providers averages $60-80/month. The math doesn't reflect underlying costs — it reflects market power and consumer inertia. Where MVNOs expose the economics: MVNOs lease wholesale capacity from the big three and resell at dramatically lower margins. Same towers, same spectrum, same coverage. The only difference is QCI priority levels — postpaid gets slightly higher priority during peak congestion. For everyday use this is largely imperceptible. When you pay $65/month to Verizon you're paying for network access, retail stores, billion dollar marketing budgets and shareholder returns. MVNOs strip most of that away. Cheap cellular service providers at $6-15/month aren't inferior — they're just leaner. The annual tier nobody discusses: Monthly prepaid already undercuts postpaid significantly. Annual prepaid goes further. Carriers offering annual plans reduce churn costs and pass savings forward. Current annual landscape: Mint Mobile: $240/year — T-Mobile network Visible: $300/year — Verizon network US Mobile: $210-390/year — multi-network Infimobile: $75/year for 10GB, $125/year for 15GB — Verizon or T-Mobile, launched January 2026 My actual experience: Switched to Infimobile from $65/month postpaid earlier this year. $75 for the entire year on T-Mobile network — unlimited calls and texts, 10GB monthly. Coverage identical in every location I regularly use my phone. Honest limitations — annual upfront payment, no unlimited data, locked to chosen network for the year, slight deprioritization during peak congestion. The numbers: ProviderAnnual CostMonthly EquivalentVerizon postpaid$900/year$75/monthMint Mobile$240/year$20/monthVisible$300/year$25/monthInfimobile 10GB$75/year$6.25/monthInfimobile 15GB$125/year$10.42/month The consumer behavior puzzle: Switching cellular service providers is technically easy — number porting takes hours, eSIM activation takes minutes. The barrier is psychological. Consumers anchor to monthly pricing and perceive higher cost as higher quality. Cellular service providers understand this — marketing always shows monthly never annual cost. Infimobile at $75/year sits $165 below the next cheapest annual option and $705 below average postpaid. For light to moderate users that gap is purely inertia at this point. Curious whether others have analyzed cellular service provider economics similarly — and whether deprioritization impact is measurable in real world usage or largely theoretical outside dense urban areas.
3 by huntsmans | 1 comments on Hacker News.
I've been thinking about this for a while and the economics of cellular service providers in the US are genuinely fascinating once you dig into them. The infrastructure reality: Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile have largely sunk their tower infrastructure costs. The marginal cost of adding one more subscriber to an existing network is close to zero. Yet retail pricing for cellular service providers averages $60-80/month. The math doesn't reflect underlying costs — it reflects market power and consumer inertia. Where MVNOs expose the economics: MVNOs lease wholesale capacity from the big three and resell at dramatically lower margins. Same towers, same spectrum, same coverage. The only difference is QCI priority levels — postpaid gets slightly higher priority during peak congestion. For everyday use this is largely imperceptible. When you pay $65/month to Verizon you're paying for network access, retail stores, billion dollar marketing budgets and shareholder returns. MVNOs strip most of that away. Cheap cellular service providers at $6-15/month aren't inferior — they're just leaner. The annual tier nobody discusses: Monthly prepaid already undercuts postpaid significantly. Annual prepaid goes further. Carriers offering annual plans reduce churn costs and pass savings forward. Current annual landscape: Mint Mobile: $240/year — T-Mobile network Visible: $300/year — Verizon network US Mobile: $210-390/year — multi-network Infimobile: $75/year for 10GB, $125/year for 15GB — Verizon or T-Mobile, launched January 2026 My actual experience: Switched to Infimobile from $65/month postpaid earlier this year. $75 for the entire year on T-Mobile network — unlimited calls and texts, 10GB monthly. Coverage identical in every location I regularly use my phone. Honest limitations — annual upfront payment, no unlimited data, locked to chosen network for the year, slight deprioritization during peak congestion. The numbers: ProviderAnnual CostMonthly EquivalentVerizon postpaid$900/year$75/monthMint Mobile$240/year$20/monthVisible$300/year$25/monthInfimobile 10GB$75/year$6.25/monthInfimobile 15GB$125/year$10.42/month The consumer behavior puzzle: Switching cellular service providers is technically easy — number porting takes hours, eSIM activation takes minutes. The barrier is psychological. Consumers anchor to monthly pricing and perceive higher cost as higher quality. Cellular service providers understand this — marketing always shows monthly never annual cost. Infimobile at $75/year sits $165 below the next cheapest annual option and $705 below average postpaid. For light to moderate users that gap is purely inertia at this point. Curious whether others have analyzed cellular service provider economics similarly — and whether deprioritization impact is measurable in real world usage or largely theoretical outside dense urban areas.
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