Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
Over the years, I’ve heard many misconceptions about prepaid carriers — claims such as you can’t get device protection, all prepaid plans are slower than postpaid, or that they lack roaming. While there is a glimmer of truth to some of these claims, many prepaid carriers today buck these outdated trends.
What about domestic roaming, do prepaid carriers offer it? Yes and no. While some carriers offer no form of domestic roaming at all, most larger prepaid providers have introduced at least limited domestic roaming in recent years.
You won’t find any prepaid provider that openly offers roaming on all of the big three networks. Instead, you will likely find that prepaid roaming will primarily target rural areas where AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile have limited coverage.
We’ve already discussed the best alternatives for those who want higher network priority at a lower cost than postpaid. For this guide, let’s dive into prepaid providers with domestic roaming policies to better understand how they compare to the big networks. We’ll also explore whether domestic roaming is crucial for you.
How important is domestic roaming to you?
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A few things to consider about domestic roaming before diving in
Be aware that most prepaid providers don’t provide much clarity on their roaming partners or terms, but we’ve done our best to dig deep and provide a bit more detail where we can. The carriers that responded to my inquiries about domestic roaming were typically vague in their responses but that’s not shocking really. While the big three networks might provide prepaid carriers with service it can resale to their own customers, the big carriers don’t particularly like advertising that sentiment.
This is why carriers like US Mobile use the words Dark Star (AT&T), Warp (Verizon), and Light Speed (T-Mobile) to represent the big three networks. They can’t disclose anything more than that. We imagine this remains true for roaming agreements too.
One thing we can tell you is that most prepaid carriers with domestic roaming have a low limit on the amount of data you can use in a month while roaming but it’s almost impossible to get any information on these exact figures. To be clear, this is true of the big carriers as well. For example, most T-Mobile postpaid plans limit you to just 200MB. Unless you opt in for additional roaming, you’ll typically pay nothing extra calling and texting while roaming but you won’t have any data access.
AT&T based prepaid plans with domestic roaming
Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
While there aren’t any AT&T prepaid providers that mention roaming across T-Mobile or Verizon, AT&T prepaid, Cricket Wireless, and Consumer Cellular run on AT&T’s network and provide some level of domestic roaming.
Interestingly Cricket is transparent about the domestic roaming networks it uses, with a dedicated support page on the topic. In fact I checked over a dozen prepaid carriers and this was the only provider with this level of clarity. I found it ironic that Cricket (also owned by AT&T) lists things out so plainly, but AT&T prepaid doesn’t. At the very least I’d expect the same roaming you’d get from Cricket.
Consumer Cellular doesn’t spell out its partnerships either when I asked other than to say the very vague “We use reliable 5G network carriers for domestic coverage”, but based on its coverage map and Reddit discussions, it’s safe to assume its coverage is similar to Cricket and AT&T prepaid.
T-Mobile based prepaid plans with domestic roaming
Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
Based on my research and email queries, only a few prepaid providers on T-Mobile’s network offer domestic roaming. While I may have missed some of the smaller players, the biggest providers are T-Mobile prepaid, Mint Mobile, Metro by T-Mobile, and Google Fi. Unfortunately, none of these providers list their roaming partners clearly, including T-Mobile itself.
T-Mobile prepaid appears to offer domestic roaming according to its support page, but it clarifies that each plan will vary as to how much roaming data you get and so they recommend contacting support directly for more details. There’s also no word on the exact roaming partners used by T-Mobile’s prepaid plans. I have contacted T-Mobile and will expand this post if I get any additional details on how its prepaid domestic roaming works.
So far Google seems to be the most promising when it comes to roaming. I found Google support pages with anecdotal user reports suggesting that Google Fi can roam on Verizon and AT&T, though often only in select regions. In other words, if T-Mobile coverage is unavailable in an area, you’re not guaranteed to have coverage from Verizon or AT&T but it’s a possibility.
The good news is that Google Fi explicitly lists one of its roaming partners at least: US Cellular. It’s likely Google Fi supports other rural-based roaming networks as well.
Verizon based prepaid plans with domestic roaming
Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
Several prepaid carriers on Verizon’s network offer at least limited domestic roaming. The four largest options are Verizon prepaid, Total Wireless, Visible, and US Mobile.
To be fair, US Mobile also is capable of running on Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile (at a charge of $2 and a limit on how many shifts per month) but the only roaming agreements I could find concrete information on are for Warp (Verizon), which supports LTEiRA.
Based on my research, Visible also supports LTEiRA as its only roaming option. The same may apply to Total Wireless as well but I couldn’t find much information either way.
Verizon prepaid is a bit more confusing. Based on its service page, it seems that while you will get Extended/Roaming coverage to some degree, you won’t have access to data at all. What’s less clear is if you’re getting full access to Verizon’s roaming partners for calling and text, or whether these are just limited to LTEiRA as well.
Okay, so I’ve mentioned it a few times but what is is LTEiRA exactly? LTE in Rural America (LTEiRA) is a program launched by Verizon in partnership with regional providers across the U.S. Some of these providers are owned by Verizon, while others remain independent. The program aims to cover regions where the big three networks have limited or no coverage.
Do you really need the Big Three’s wider roaming coverage?
Before diving further, let’s clarify what domestic roaming offers. For example, if you’re on AT&T but move into a region where Verizon provides Extended LTE coverage, you’ll still be able to call and text, but your data experience will likely be limited to 2G speeds. This should suffice for basic tasks like loading Google Maps or checking emails, but not much else.
So do you really need wider roaming coverage? It depends. Ask yourself this:
- Do you often take road trips or travel outside the city? If so, domestic roaming might be crucial to avoid being stranded in areas without the ability to call or text for help.
- Do you live in a big city and primarily travel by plane? In this case, domestic roaming might be a nice perk but probably isn’t a dealbreaker, as coverage is generally reliable wherever you go, even if slower due to congestion.
Will I encounter dead zones with a prepaid carrier offering domestic roaming?
While domestic roaming is a useful feature, most carriers don’t clearly define its scope, making it hard to rely on. That said, if you take a cross-country trip, you’ll inevitably encounter dead zones — it’s almost guaranteed.
Prepaid carriers with domestic roaming should offer coverage in extremely remote areas (thanks to regional carrier agreements) where the big three don’t have a strong presence. The bigger challenge arises in regions where one big carrier dominates, as most prepaid carriers don’t allow roaming onto larger networks.
To be fair, even the big carriers with their robust roaming agreements have dead zones, which is why satellite roaming is gradually becoming more prevalent.
Should you prioritize domestic roaming over savings?
Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
Prepaid carriers not only can save you a lot of money, but some of them actually have better priority than the cheapest postpaid plans from AT&T, Verizon, and AT&T. Still, is it worth losing out on more robust domestic roaming just to save some cash? It depends on how crucial constant service is to you.
If your job depends on coverage (truck drivers, salespeople, etc) then I would likely stick to one of the big carrier’s postpaid plans.
For those who don’t travel that often or research ahead and ensure their main network has decent coverage, the savings probably outweigh the risk of being caught somewhere with no phone coverage. You’ll still run into the occasional dead spot as they can’t be avoided entirely, but you should have more than good enough coverage the majority of the time.
If domestic roaming matters to you to some degree but you’re willing to make some sacrifices for prepaid, I highly recommend giving Google Fi a look. At least based on what I could get through a combination of research and PR inquiries, Google Fi Wireless not only is one of the few T-Mobile MNVOs with higher priority data, but it also has some of the best domestic roaming available too.
You can get a Google Fi Unlimited plan for as low as $50 for one line, or $25 each for four lines or more. Looking for a new phone? You can also take advantage of a Google Fi deal that gives you $650 off on the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, which brings it down to just $649. To be clear, you’ll actually only get a $200 discount initially and will pay $1,099.99 upfront, but you’ll get back another $450 via bill credits over 24 months.
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