Consumer Cellular Coverage Map

What Is an MVNO?

Consumer Cellular is a mobile virtual network operator, that is, a cellular carrier that does not operate its own wireless network infrastructure. Instead, they lease the network of one or more providers. Since there are three primary cellular networks in the United States (Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile), the vast majority of cellular providers are, in fact, MVNOs.

In addition to Consumer Cellular, some other popular MVNOs include Mint Mobile, Cricket, Total Wireless, Straight Talk, Metro PCS, and Boost Mobile. Generally, the primary benefit of MVNOs is lower costs.

How Does Consumer Cellular Coverage Work?

Consumer Cellular utilizes AT&T’s network, giving its customers coverage throughout the majority of the United States, including Hawaii and developed parts of Alaska. Practically speaking, this coverage will work almost identically to having coverage on either of the parent networks. Calls, text messages, and data usage all take place through AT&T.

Consumer Cellular coverage is either 4G LTE or 5G, depending on the accessibility of 5G network hardware in your area. No major American network carries 3G signals anymore, so you can expect the phones you buy and the plans you sign up for will support 4G and possibly 5G connectivity.

The Limits of Consumer Cellular Coverage

There are several tradeoffs to getting cheaper plans on the same network coverage from an MVNO like Consumer Cellular.

An MVNO uses a deprioritized signal to offer cheaper coverage to the customers of smaller networks. This means that while Consumer Cellular users will have access to the same signal as AT&T users when the bandwidth is available, heavy traffic may potentially slow or drop data for Consumer Cellular users.

Luckily, this rarely affects phone calls or text messages; rather, it will mostly impact data speeds.

This also leads to limited roaming coverage, meaning Consumer Cellular users cannot switch to other networks when their coverage in a certain area is limited. Additionally, even unlimited data plans come with the limitation that after 50GB of data, the user’s upload and download speeds will be much slower.

To learn more about the different plans offered by Consumer Cellular, read our guide to Consumer Cellular plans.

Consumer Cellular International Coverage

To make calls, send messages, and use data internationally, Consumer Cellular customers must enable international roaming on their devices. Consumer Cellular charges per minute for calls to and from international networks. The charge amount differs by country. You can check their international rates for each country on their website.

Note that they offer an exception to these charges for calls from the United States to Canada or Mexico, which all Consumer Cellular plans offer for free. While traveling outside the U.S., you may have to rely on international roaming charges, which vary by country but can be anywhere from 5 to 29 cents per minute, message, or MB of data.

Consumer Cellular now utilizes digital eSIM cards instead of physical cards. This means you’ll be able to use international roaming on these digital eSIM cards, just as you would have with physical cards.

Who Is Consumer Cellular Best For?

Consumer Cellular is a major MVNO that uses one of the biggest network providers in the country to give its customers great coverage at plans as low as $20 per month. It supports 5G coverage where applicable and has plenty of unlimited talk and data options (text is always unlimited).

They’re a great fit for casual users who want a cheap way to get unlimited talk and text from reliable providers without needing the fastest data speeds. If you want to be a network’s priority, both here and abroad, you may want to get a plan with the larger carriers directly.

To help you decide if this MVNO is right for you, be sure to check out our detailed comparisons between Consumer Cellular and larger networks: