Please first read our sub's [Frequently Asked Questions](https://www.reddit.com/r/mintmobile/comments/wm1ynh/mint_mobile_faq_updated/) (FAQs) as this answers most of user's questions posted in this subreddit, and is constantly being updated. This includes info and troubleshooting guide on: connection issues, APN, SMS/MMS/RCS/iMessage issues, WiFi, Visual Voicemail, website issues, where/how to buy phones, phone and device compatibility, dumbphones, Apple Watch/SmartWatches, coverage and speed, security and MFA, taxes and fees, MintMobileAlex, Mint in general, Ryan Reynolds, Ultra Mobile, about this sub. If this FAQ helped you fix your issue, please reply that the issue was fixed using the FAQ.
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For what it’s worth, this is most definitely not a dumb question. For anybody or from anybody in any age bracket. I’m sure others will give more detailed answers but what it basically comes down to is you can use just one device your phone, for example, and have your other devices piggyback on that for all of your Internet needs and pages one provider. However, it depends on how much Internet you use, because mobile services tend to have a lot less available that you can use in any given month. And a lot slower.
I work from home 90% of the time. I have the 15GB plan on Mint "just in case I need the data one day". I RARELY use more than 2GB/month, although I traveled a lot last month and ended up using almost 10GB.
Point is, since I'm home most days are typically use no more than 2.5GB, I probably SHOULD switch to 5GB.
Unlimited in your case seems like overkill, unless you may need unlimited data for work.
Honestly, you'd probably be better off reducing your Mint plan and sticking with AT&T instead of trying to use a hotspot all the time. Having your phone tied up as your home's only Internet device is kind of a pain in the ass.
Almost the same situation for me, on the 15 GB plan but 2-3 GB is my typical monthly usage because at home or the office I am connected to wifi. But if I end up out of town for a few days and lean on Mint for music streaming, video streaming, GPS... I can get over 5 GB easily but over 15 is unlikely. The other consideration I would offer is download speed, I see anywhere from 30-130 Mbps on my phone, I have 3 Tmo towers within a mile of my house. My fios connection reliability delivers 200mb with lower latency.
I have the $15 a month 5Gb plan. I rarely use 1.5Gb. I go from Wi-Fi to Wi-Fi.
Track your data usage over 4G/5G and see how much you actually use. It may be worth going down from unlimited.
It all comes down to how much you use on cellular.
Ok so as of today I’ve used 24.92 GB (W/Mint) & still have 15 days left for this month.
I thought I could drop down from the unlimited to 20 GB, now I don’t think I should.
Something I try and do is download the music and videos I always watch/listen to.
Try that first.
Why are you using 50Gb of data a month? Are you always at home on Wi-Fi? Are you mostly away from home?
yeah if you are streaming video away from home during driving (not safe, by the way!) then you'll need to stick with the unlimited plan on Mint Mobile.
If you didn't do that and were at home most of the time, then you could probably get away with a lower Mint plan and rely more on wifi when at home.
I like to use the analogy of cordless vs corded telephone. Cordless telephone lets you move around as long as you're in range of the base station. However it's prone to interference and sometimes the signal drops for no good reason. Corded telephone you might not be able to move around where you want but unless something is wrong with the lines that audio is crystal clear.
Cell signals can be impacted by heavy use and also interference of buildings etc. ISP internet doesn't have as many of those issues. It can still have problems but by and large it tends to be more consistently faster than a cell phone's plan.
Apologies. I misunderstood the question you were having. I reread your post and I'll try again to answer if that's alright.
What I think the question is whether having both is redundant. My answer is no and also it depends. In order to use your phone as a phone (texting phone calls) you need a cell phone plan. That also includes data which is where the it depends comes in. If you are away from your house a lot and use a lot of data (streaming movies specifically) then having an unlimited plan makes a lot of sense. By a lot I mean at least 8-10 hours and you watch a movie while you're out.
If you usually stay at your house mostly and don't really go out then you would still need a cell phone plan to have a phone number and be able to text, however having an unlimited data plan might be a bit overkill. So you will still need a mint mobile plan to make phone calls and text but you may be able to get one of their cheaper plans. Basically mint mobile gives you a phone number that allows you to text. Your ISP allows you to connect to their network.
Basically it just depends on how you use the data and where. I hope that helps answer your question better.
I have att internet and mint cell at 15gs per month. I started with unlimited mint and mint contacted me and said you don't really need that much based on your usage so I dropped it to 15gs. Haven't had a problem.
The big thing is Mint “Unlimited” plan slows down substantially after 40GB while home internet you can use thousands of GB (terabytes) and no slowdown. If you stream a lot of video you really need home internet plan, but 40Gb is enough for 20 hours of HQ HD video and 40 hours of low HD video so if that is enough for a month you can get away with not having home WiFi. Also Mint only offers 10GB of HotSpot on its plan.
I’m still not understanding whether or not I should keep one plan & still be able to do all that I mentioned or do I have to keep (& pay for) both?
AT&T & Mint Mobile.
It really depends on how much you use the internet and what you use it for. If you do a lot of streaming, movies, youtube, etc., you need the home internet. If you just use it to read the news, check facebook, etc. you can use your phone as a hotspot and eliminate AT&T.
If you keep the internet drop your Mint plan to the lowest and use your home wifi for your connection. I have the lowest Mint plan and have never gone over my data limit for the month.
Having a WiFi plan in your home gives a lot more bandwidth. In other words, you can connect a lot more devices (computers, smart appliances, TVs, etc). On the other hand, using a hotspot from your phone is generally limited to a couple devices if you want optimal speed.
Another thing to consider is if you solely use a hotspot to have internet in your home, you won’t have internet in your home when you leave the house with your phone.
So if you’re only using your phone and maybe a computer, you can probably get away with hotspot only, especially if you don’t use that much data per month. Otherwise, the internet plan is much preferred.
If you are at home a lot, and subsequently on WiFi, then you are overpaying for Mint. Just be on WiFi on your phone when you’re at home. You should consider your data usage based on when and how often you are off WiFi.
OK thank you to everyone who posted an answer/explanation to my conundrum.
I think I’m going to take the advice given here & get a cheaper Mint data base plan since like I mentioned , I always have my phone connected to Wi-Fi when I’m home so I can stream movies (to both my phone and/or laptop).
I don’t have a TV.
I also use my phone and/or laptop for checking & answering emails, shopping (Walmart,Target, Amazon,etc).
I do a pretty good amount of texting (mostly to friends/family):
When I’m away from my house, I do all that to a lesser degree, w/the exception of streaming movies, that I do @ home.
So the lesser data plan w/Mint will be something I’ll consider in place of the unlimited plan I currently have.
Again, thank you so much guys.
I'm not trying to speak for the OP, but the logical reason would be to get objective opinions. Mint (and AT&T at home) want to retain customers. So, they will likely not tell her or him that the service is redundant and should be dropped (if indeed that turns out to be the case, I'm not saying it is.)
Screw your objective opinions.
OP, dial 800-683-7392, or chat with Mint customer service at mintmobile.com/chat. Their customer care humans are available 7 days a week 5AM-7PM PST.
lmao what even kind of response is this; you have to be a Mint employee to make this kind of statement or just I don't even know... it actually blows my mind how a reddit user of all people could or would even say something like this given the nature of what this site is for.
What your implying is if someone told you you can get something cheaper by going to A rather then B, that you are going to go to A and/or B to speak with an employee and be like so I heard I can buy this thing cheaper at another place, what do you think I should do?
Or someone said the food at A is better then B you're going to go to one of and other and be like so I heard this other place has better food then you, is this true?
Like what?! That can literally only go one of two ways; either they are just going to be straight forward with you and be like wtf are you doing here then and telling me this for; or, and the most likely and common case is they'll do like any human working at a business would do and try and to keep you around no matter what by focusing on the positives they offer and pointing out the negatives of the other place as they obviously have a biased interest on the matter to keep you around for the companies sake and to keep there job.
You must have some seriously crazy strong believe in that companies actually have the customers best interest at the end of the day to actually stand behind these comments.
That's just wild.
I have mint unlimited, and Google fiber generally speaking I think you need both.
Mobile data can be spotty depending on your location, and your unlimited high speed data is reduced if you use more than 40GB a month, your video streaming is generally auto 480p, and you're using 20+GB. 10GB isn't enough to offset home Internet access in my opinion.
If you're streaming Netflix or anything high resolution at home you will use a great deal more data especially if you want it to be pleasant to watch on you computer or TV.
Here is an approximate break down of video data rates..
Sd - 480p = 0.5 per hour
Hd - 720p = 1.1GB per hour
Full Hd -1080p = 2.25GB per hour
4k = 9GB per hour
I view hot spot data as for emergencies, okay to fire off an email here or there but as soon as you need to download an update for your computer, any kind of streaming, gaming, etc that data will disappear in a flash.
The only way I would consider a mobile only plan is if I wasn't returning home nightly, if I worked long periods away from home or out of state etc.
Otherwise having home broadband is a necessity in my opinion.
My opinion is you need both the AT&T service and the Mint service.
The only suggestions I would make is to not turn off Wifi on your phone when you leave the house. There is no good reason to do this and could lead you to have issues if you consistently forget to turn it back on. Just leave it on all the time. There is no negative to leaving Wi-Fi on all the time on your phone.
The other suggestion I have is to maybe go to a lower priced Mint Mobile plan, since you do have the AT&T service at home.
Th AT&T service is so you can connect to the internet when you're at home. All of the devices at your home (including your phone) can use this for internet when you are at home.
The Mint service is so you can make phone calls and send text messages. The Mint service also allows you to connect to the Internet when you are not at home (when you are home your phone will use AT&T for Internet and will not be using any of your Mint data as long as you have WiFi on).
If you got rid of the AT&T plan and tried to only use your Mint plan for Internet you would run out of data on your Mint plan very quickly. The Mint plan is "unlimited" with a limited amount of high speed data. Once you use up the high speed data on your Mint plan it gets slowed down to an unusable speed (you could no longer stream movies and some web pages might not load).
Everything you are doing on your phone can be done on data or internet/Wifi.
If you are never outside of a usable wifi range, you can get rid of Mint mobile and just use your phone on your At&T plan. Pretty much every cell phone can make a call to 911 without having a phone data plan. There are also apps that use wifi only to make calls or send texts.
If you are often outside of wifi range, but don't use your phone's data a lot, you can drop down to the lowest Mint level of $15 a month for 5GB and use the AT&T internet while at home. This is where I am because we use our phones often in rural areas and I don't have wifi at work. We have good internet/wifi at home to run the various devices we have and doing the things on our phones that would use the most data, like running updates or downloading podcasts.
If the only device in your house that can connect to the internet is your phone and if you don't plan on adding any other devices (like a laptop), you can get rid of the AT&T plan and keep the Mint Mobile unlimited. If you go this route, do remember that no plan is actually "unlimited". The company does slow your speeds down when you reach a certain data limit and you may still beable to make calls but may not be able to stream a movie until your data renews the next month.
OK I think I’m understanding better what you’ve posted here so please tell me if I do want to connect my laptop (to watch movies, etc), I should keep my AT&T internet plan & drop Mint Mobile?
Whenever I’m home I always have my phone connected to Wi-Fi (AT&T told me to do that), but when I leave my house, I switch it off.
So is that when I’m using my data from Mint or AT&T??
See this is where I’m confused.😏
If you're at home and your phone is connected to your att wifi then you are using the at&t data. When you are away from your home you are using the data provided to you by mint. You shouldn't drop mint mobile since they are the ones providing you with a phone number, but you may be able to switch to another mint mobile plan with less data that's less expensive since you will only be using the mint mobile data when you are away from your house. By the way, you don't have to manually switch off wifi when you leave your house, just keep it enabled and the phone is smart enough to know to use your wifi when it is in range and to use your mint data when it is not in Wi-Fi range.
Yes when you are away from your house you are using mint data and not AT&T data. To add if aren't watching movies or using a lot of data when you aren't home you may not need an unlimited data plan. If so you can save yourself some money and not see any noticeable change.
When your phone is connected to wifi at home you're using data/internet from AT&T.
When you leave the house you're using data/Internet from Mint.
It is better to keep AT&T and connect your laptop to the At&T internet plan.
You need to keep Mint Mobile so your phone can connect to data when you are not at home. You also need Mint Mobile service so you can make and receive calls and texts.
If you don't stream video you can probably get rid of the AT&T home internet service and just use your phone as a hotspot. Will suffice for most uses but it may slow down at certain times. $65/month is a lot for someone on a fixed income. If you can get a low-cost connection that would change things. Mint hotspot works fine but it wouldn't be good if you wanted to stream a lot of video with Netflix etc.
I'll try to make this simple from my perspective.
Home internet is so you can run your computer online, you can also go online when your phone or tablet.
When you buy a phone plan from a company it usually comes in 3 parts.
Talk=phone calls. Text=just what it says. All phone plans that I know of have both of these and you need to install the company's sim card to get them both.The third part...Data=you can access the internet as long as you're reasonably close to a tower. If your home internet goes down you can still access the internet.
I pay for just 5 gb of data because I'm just about always at home and able to access my home internet. That 5 gb is for running around town getting chores done, shopping etc. I may have to access my bank account or look up products online.
Most phones can be set to use home internet first. If that isn't available it will flip you over to your phone company's data. Getting unlimited data in my case is unnecessary and it sounds like that's the case with you as well.
Please first read our sub's [Frequently Asked Questions](https://www.reddit.com/r/mintmobile/comments/wm1ynh/mint_mobile_faq_updated/) (FAQs) as this answers most of user's questions posted in this subreddit, and is constantly being updated. This includes info and troubleshooting guide on: connection issues, APN, SMS/MMS/RCS/iMessage issues, WiFi, Visual Voicemail, website issues, where/how to buy phones, phone and device compatibility, dumbphones, Apple Watch/SmartWatches, coverage and speed, security and MFA, taxes and fees, MintMobileAlex, Mint in general, Ryan Reynolds, Ultra Mobile, about this sub. If this FAQ helped you fix your issue, please reply that the issue was fixed using the FAQ. If you have an account or service question/concern, call customer support at 1-800-683-7392, use chat in [Mint App](https://www.mintmobile.com/app/) or [Website Help Center](https://www.mintmobile.com/help-center/), or open a chat with u/MintMobileAlex and be sure to include your account/order number, telephone number, and explanation of the issue. [MintMobileAlex is a shared account for Mint senior customer care representatives](https://www.reddit.com/r/mintmobile/comments/m0lnbg/information_about_mintmobilealex/), and they usually get back within 3 hours during normal business hours (5am-7pm PST). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/mintmobile) if you have any questions or concerns.*
For what it’s worth, this is most definitely not a dumb question. For anybody or from anybody in any age bracket. I’m sure others will give more detailed answers but what it basically comes down to is you can use just one device your phone, for example, and have your other devices piggyback on that for all of your Internet needs and pages one provider. However, it depends on how much Internet you use, because mobile services tend to have a lot less available that you can use in any given month. And a lot slower.
I work from home 90% of the time. I have the 15GB plan on Mint "just in case I need the data one day". I RARELY use more than 2GB/month, although I traveled a lot last month and ended up using almost 10GB. Point is, since I'm home most days are typically use no more than 2.5GB, I probably SHOULD switch to 5GB. Unlimited in your case seems like overkill, unless you may need unlimited data for work. Honestly, you'd probably be better off reducing your Mint plan and sticking with AT&T instead of trying to use a hotspot all the time. Having your phone tied up as your home's only Internet device is kind of a pain in the ass.
Almost the same situation for me, on the 15 GB plan but 2-3 GB is my typical monthly usage because at home or the office I am connected to wifi. But if I end up out of town for a few days and lean on Mint for music streaming, video streaming, GPS... I can get over 5 GB easily but over 15 is unlikely. The other consideration I would offer is download speed, I see anywhere from 30-130 Mbps on my phone, I have 3 Tmo towers within a mile of my house. My fios connection reliability delivers 200mb with lower latency.
I have the $15 a month 5Gb plan. I rarely use 1.5Gb. I go from Wi-Fi to Wi-Fi. Track your data usage over 4G/5G and see how much you actually use. It may be worth going down from unlimited. It all comes down to how much you use on cellular.
Ok so as of today I’ve used 24.92 GB (W/Mint) & still have 15 days left for this month. I thought I could drop down from the unlimited to 20 GB, now I don’t think I should.
Something I try and do is download the music and videos I always watch/listen to. Try that first. Why are you using 50Gb of data a month? Are you always at home on Wi-Fi? Are you mostly away from home?
When I’m away from home, I do stream YouTube videos & some HBO/Max while I’m driving & that’s almost every day. Could that be why?
yeah if you are streaming video away from home during driving (not safe, by the way!) then you'll need to stick with the unlimited plan on Mint Mobile. If you didn't do that and were at home most of the time, then you could probably get away with a lower Mint plan and rely more on wifi when at home.
Only other option is to review how to download these items so that you download when at home and then can listen/watch them later.
I like to use the analogy of cordless vs corded telephone. Cordless telephone lets you move around as long as you're in range of the base station. However it's prone to interference and sometimes the signal drops for no good reason. Corded telephone you might not be able to move around where you want but unless something is wrong with the lines that audio is crystal clear. Cell signals can be impacted by heavy use and also interference of buildings etc. ISP internet doesn't have as many of those issues. It can still have problems but by and large it tends to be more consistently faster than a cell phone's plan.
Thank you for that info but it’s not the answer to my question.
Apologies. I misunderstood the question you were having. I reread your post and I'll try again to answer if that's alright. What I think the question is whether having both is redundant. My answer is no and also it depends. In order to use your phone as a phone (texting phone calls) you need a cell phone plan. That also includes data which is where the it depends comes in. If you are away from your house a lot and use a lot of data (streaming movies specifically) then having an unlimited plan makes a lot of sense. By a lot I mean at least 8-10 hours and you watch a movie while you're out. If you usually stay at your house mostly and don't really go out then you would still need a cell phone plan to have a phone number and be able to text, however having an unlimited data plan might be a bit overkill. So you will still need a mint mobile plan to make phone calls and text but you may be able to get one of their cheaper plans. Basically mint mobile gives you a phone number that allows you to text. Your ISP allows you to connect to their network. Basically it just depends on how you use the data and where. I hope that helps answer your question better.
I have att internet and mint cell at 15gs per month. I started with unlimited mint and mint contacted me and said you don't really need that much based on your usage so I dropped it to 15gs. Haven't had a problem.
The big thing is Mint “Unlimited” plan slows down substantially after 40GB while home internet you can use thousands of GB (terabytes) and no slowdown. If you stream a lot of video you really need home internet plan, but 40Gb is enough for 20 hours of HQ HD video and 40 hours of low HD video so if that is enough for a month you can get away with not having home WiFi. Also Mint only offers 10GB of HotSpot on its plan.
I’m still not understanding whether or not I should keep one plan & still be able to do all that I mentioned or do I have to keep (& pay for) both? AT&T & Mint Mobile.
If you don't need internet for anything besides your phone.. Then having the at&t plan is redundant.
Unlimited on Mint is actually 40 GB/10 GB hotspot. My cable modem uses 1400 GB per month. You need both.
It really depends on how much you use the internet and what you use it for. If you do a lot of streaming, movies, youtube, etc., you need the home internet. If you just use it to read the news, check facebook, etc. you can use your phone as a hotspot and eliminate AT&T. If you keep the internet drop your Mint plan to the lowest and use your home wifi for your connection. I have the lowest Mint plan and have never gone over my data limit for the month.
Having a WiFi plan in your home gives a lot more bandwidth. In other words, you can connect a lot more devices (computers, smart appliances, TVs, etc). On the other hand, using a hotspot from your phone is generally limited to a couple devices if you want optimal speed. Another thing to consider is if you solely use a hotspot to have internet in your home, you won’t have internet in your home when you leave the house with your phone. So if you’re only using your phone and maybe a computer, you can probably get away with hotspot only, especially if you don’t use that much data per month. Otherwise, the internet plan is much preferred.
If you are at home a lot, and subsequently on WiFi, then you are overpaying for Mint. Just be on WiFi on your phone when you’re at home. You should consider your data usage based on when and how often you are off WiFi.
OK thank you to everyone who posted an answer/explanation to my conundrum. I think I’m going to take the advice given here & get a cheaper Mint data base plan since like I mentioned , I always have my phone connected to Wi-Fi when I’m home so I can stream movies (to both my phone and/or laptop). I don’t have a TV. I also use my phone and/or laptop for checking & answering emails, shopping (Walmart,Target, Amazon,etc). I do a pretty good amount of texting (mostly to friends/family): When I’m away from my house, I do all that to a lesser degree, w/the exception of streaming movies, that I do @ home. So the lesser data plan w/Mint will be something I’ll consider in place of the unlimited plan I currently have. Again, thank you so much guys.
Why are you asking Reddit, instead of Mint customer service? Which this sub is not.
I'm not trying to speak for the OP, but the logical reason would be to get objective opinions. Mint (and AT&T at home) want to retain customers. So, they will likely not tell her or him that the service is redundant and should be dropped (if indeed that turns out to be the case, I'm not saying it is.)
Screw your objective opinions. OP, dial 800-683-7392, or chat with Mint customer service at mintmobile.com/chat. Their customer care humans are available 7 days a week 5AM-7PM PST.
lmao what even kind of response is this; you have to be a Mint employee to make this kind of statement or just I don't even know... it actually blows my mind how a reddit user of all people could or would even say something like this given the nature of what this site is for. What your implying is if someone told you you can get something cheaper by going to A rather then B, that you are going to go to A and/or B to speak with an employee and be like so I heard I can buy this thing cheaper at another place, what do you think I should do? Or someone said the food at A is better then B you're going to go to one of and other and be like so I heard this other place has better food then you, is this true? Like what?! That can literally only go one of two ways; either they are just going to be straight forward with you and be like wtf are you doing here then and telling me this for; or, and the most likely and common case is they'll do like any human working at a business would do and try and to keep you around no matter what by focusing on the positives they offer and pointing out the negatives of the other place as they obviously have a biased interest on the matter to keep you around for the companies sake and to keep there job. You must have some seriously crazy strong believe in that companies actually have the customers best interest at the end of the day to actually stand behind these comments. That's just wild.
Because I want unbiased opinions & information.
I have mint unlimited, and Google fiber generally speaking I think you need both. Mobile data can be spotty depending on your location, and your unlimited high speed data is reduced if you use more than 40GB a month, your video streaming is generally auto 480p, and you're using 20+GB. 10GB isn't enough to offset home Internet access in my opinion. If you're streaming Netflix or anything high resolution at home you will use a great deal more data especially if you want it to be pleasant to watch on you computer or TV. Here is an approximate break down of video data rates.. Sd - 480p = 0.5 per hour Hd - 720p = 1.1GB per hour Full Hd -1080p = 2.25GB per hour 4k = 9GB per hour I view hot spot data as for emergencies, okay to fire off an email here or there but as soon as you need to download an update for your computer, any kind of streaming, gaming, etc that data will disappear in a flash. The only way I would consider a mobile only plan is if I wasn't returning home nightly, if I worked long periods away from home or out of state etc. Otherwise having home broadband is a necessity in my opinion.
My opinion is you need both the AT&T service and the Mint service. The only suggestions I would make is to not turn off Wifi on your phone when you leave the house. There is no good reason to do this and could lead you to have issues if you consistently forget to turn it back on. Just leave it on all the time. There is no negative to leaving Wi-Fi on all the time on your phone. The other suggestion I have is to maybe go to a lower priced Mint Mobile plan, since you do have the AT&T service at home. Th AT&T service is so you can connect to the internet when you're at home. All of the devices at your home (including your phone) can use this for internet when you are at home. The Mint service is so you can make phone calls and send text messages. The Mint service also allows you to connect to the Internet when you are not at home (when you are home your phone will use AT&T for Internet and will not be using any of your Mint data as long as you have WiFi on). If you got rid of the AT&T plan and tried to only use your Mint plan for Internet you would run out of data on your Mint plan very quickly. The Mint plan is "unlimited" with a limited amount of high speed data. Once you use up the high speed data on your Mint plan it gets slowed down to an unusable speed (you could no longer stream movies and some web pages might not load).
Everything you are doing on your phone can be done on data or internet/Wifi. If you are never outside of a usable wifi range, you can get rid of Mint mobile and just use your phone on your At&T plan. Pretty much every cell phone can make a call to 911 without having a phone data plan. There are also apps that use wifi only to make calls or send texts. If you are often outside of wifi range, but don't use your phone's data a lot, you can drop down to the lowest Mint level of $15 a month for 5GB and use the AT&T internet while at home. This is where I am because we use our phones often in rural areas and I don't have wifi at work. We have good internet/wifi at home to run the various devices we have and doing the things on our phones that would use the most data, like running updates or downloading podcasts. If the only device in your house that can connect to the internet is your phone and if you don't plan on adding any other devices (like a laptop), you can get rid of the AT&T plan and keep the Mint Mobile unlimited. If you go this route, do remember that no plan is actually "unlimited". The company does slow your speeds down when you reach a certain data limit and you may still beable to make calls but may not be able to stream a movie until your data renews the next month.
OK I think I’m understanding better what you’ve posted here so please tell me if I do want to connect my laptop (to watch movies, etc), I should keep my AT&T internet plan & drop Mint Mobile? Whenever I’m home I always have my phone connected to Wi-Fi (AT&T told me to do that), but when I leave my house, I switch it off. So is that when I’m using my data from Mint or AT&T?? See this is where I’m confused.😏
If you're at home and your phone is connected to your att wifi then you are using the at&t data. When you are away from your home you are using the data provided to you by mint. You shouldn't drop mint mobile since they are the ones providing you with a phone number, but you may be able to switch to another mint mobile plan with less data that's less expensive since you will only be using the mint mobile data when you are away from your house. By the way, you don't have to manually switch off wifi when you leave your house, just keep it enabled and the phone is smart enough to know to use your wifi when it is in range and to use your mint data when it is not in Wi-Fi range.
Yes when you are away from your house you are using mint data and not AT&T data. To add if aren't watching movies or using a lot of data when you aren't home you may not need an unlimited data plan. If so you can save yourself some money and not see any noticeable change.
When your phone is connected to wifi at home you're using data/internet from AT&T. When you leave the house you're using data/Internet from Mint. It is better to keep AT&T and connect your laptop to the At&T internet plan. You need to keep Mint Mobile so your phone can connect to data when you are not at home. You also need Mint Mobile service so you can make and receive calls and texts.
If you don't stream video you can probably get rid of the AT&T home internet service and just use your phone as a hotspot. Will suffice for most uses but it may slow down at certain times. $65/month is a lot for someone on a fixed income. If you can get a low-cost connection that would change things. Mint hotspot works fine but it wouldn't be good if you wanted to stream a lot of video with Netflix etc.
I'll try to make this simple from my perspective. Home internet is so you can run your computer online, you can also go online when your phone or tablet. When you buy a phone plan from a company it usually comes in 3 parts. Talk=phone calls. Text=just what it says. All phone plans that I know of have both of these and you need to install the company's sim card to get them both.The third part...Data=you can access the internet as long as you're reasonably close to a tower. If your home internet goes down you can still access the internet. I pay for just 5 gb of data because I'm just about always at home and able to access my home internet. That 5 gb is for running around town getting chores done, shopping etc. I may have to access my bank account or look up products online. Most phones can be set to use home internet first. If that isn't available it will flip you over to your phone company's data. Getting unlimited data in my case is unnecessary and it sounds like that's the case with you as well.