AT&T vs Gen Mobile: Who Should You Sign Up With?

Anyone who's looking into either switching their cell phone plan or getting one for the first time knows the amount of research it can take to decide whether one company is better than another. There’s a lot of factors that can go into this decision including but not limited to price, coverage, new phone options, hotspot capability, international benefits, and add-on perks. Whether you’re a heavy data user or a light one, you might have your options narrowed down to a few providers including AT&T and Gen Mobile.

AT&T is one of the “big three” in wireless alongside Verizon and T-Mobile. They offer their famous “truly unlimited” data plan along with some other great options for the phone user on the go. And Gen Mobile is a MVNO under Sprint/T-Mobile, so they offer a fairly good amount of coverage, although maybe not with all the benefits, it is more budget-friendly. But a brief summary of the two companies won’t help your decision, it’s time to put them face to face and talk AT&T vs Gen Mobile.

• Quick Overview: AT&T and Gen Mobile
• What the Coverage Looks Like from Both Providers
• How the Plans Compare: From Price to Features
• The Verdict

Quick Overview: AT&T and Gen Mobile

Before we get too deep into comparing the two wireless companies, the first thing we should do is talk a little bit about AT&T and Gen Mobile as two separate companies so you can get an idea of what to expect as you read on.

-> AT&T

When you think of the words “wireless phone service” AT&T is probably one of the faces you picture. They have been around since the 80s and have grown at an exceptional rate, with millions of customers all over the region it’s expected that they have a pretty great track record. We mentioned it very briefly in the intro but one feature that sets AT&T apart from many other wireless providers is their “truly unlimited” phone plan. The AT&T Unlimited Premium® PL plan is the answer to every data junkie's question of, “can’t I just have a data plan that never slows down?”

No matter how much of your data you use you will never experience the dreaded “throttling” other phone plans have. Data throttling is “the dramatic slowing of your data speeds to the point that it becomes almost unusable.” And this will happen when a person goes over the data allotment number for the month. You’d find these numbers either listed on the plan itself or in small text under the plan. But AT&T has a plan for those who are always using data and never want it to slow down. 

AT&T has both postpaid and prepaid phone plan options which is great for those looking for a range of options. One thing that’s good to note is AT&T plans can get expensive, for instance their Unlimited Premium plan is $85.99 per month for one line, so if you don’t have the funds then they may not be the option for you.

-> Gen Mobile

Gen Mobile is a MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) that was acquired by Dish Wireless in September 2021 and is currently under the T-Mobile/Sprint umbrella. On the Gen Mobile website it says that all plans include NATIONWIDE SPRINT® NETWORK* and since T-Mobile acquired Sprint officially in 2020, Sprint coverage is under T-Mobile’s umbrella. Lots of umbrellas to keep track of- we know.

A MVNO describes a smaller wireless provider that instead of owning their own cell towers they will instead partner with and piggyback off of the signal of a company that does own their own towers and in Gen Mobile’s case it’s Sprint. So if you’ve been a fan of the coverage T-Mobile/Sprint has to offer- (we will go over that in the next section), then you may be raising your eyebrows in intrigue at Gen Mobile as they are definitely a less expensive option. 

Gen Mobile plans don’t go higher than $60/mo. but don’t feature the data options like AT&T has so there’s a lot to be discussed as we head deeper into our breakdown. 

What the Coverage Looks Like from Both Providers

AT&T’s postpaid and prepaid plans, (with the exception of their Unlimited $40/mo prepaid plan which does not offer 5G), all offer the same levels of 5G and 4G LTE coverage respectively. You don’t need to worry about “paying more” for a plan to get better coverage. 

AT&T has been between Verizon and T-Mobile in the coverage race for a long while now. Verizon is known to have the best 4G LTE coverage while T-Mobile is the leader in 5G, but according to many statistics AT&T is not too far from either. 

Just like every wireless provider AT&T has their own Coverage Map you can zoom in and out of and search your own address to see if there is suitable coverage in your area.

AT&T reaches not just the United States but also parts of Mexico, Canada, and Puerto Rico. 

Now although Gen Mobile is a part of the Dish Wireless and T-Mobile/Sprint family, since they are a MVNO they do not have the level(s) of coverage that you would get if you were to sign up directly to T-Mobile. 

See AT&T’s full Coverage Map here.

Already the surface area has been diminished, although they do cover Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands along with Hawaii which is not pictured above, they are limited compared to AT&T’s immense coverage. But for a MVNO it’s pretty good as any other researcher of MVNOs knows having Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Hawaii on your list is still a great deal. 

See Gen Mobile’s full Coverage Map here.

How the Plans Compare: From Price to Features

Now that we know the coverage information of both providers it’s time to compare their plans, first on the table we have AT&T’s postpaid plans to look at, here are their three most popular plans:

And then here are the other two “value-friendly” plans:

These listed prices are all if you sign-up for their AutoPay feature, plus they don’t list taxes and fees which also affect the final price. Besides those two things to take note of you’ll see that all their plans are pretty similar in terms of perks, the main advantages come in their data thresholds and hotspot feature(s).

Now let’s talk Gen Mobile, they have six plans to choose from where you can either pay monthly or every three months and if you pay for any of their plans for three months at a time you get a discount! (These discounts range in percentages so we’ve put both the monthly and three month price(s) on each plan so you can see those potential savings).

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As you can see the prices are definitely more budget-friendly, but if you’re a heavy-data user then most of these plans don’t compare to AT&Ts. Their “unlimited” plans have a data threshold of 35GB and then after that your speeds will be throttled until the start of your next billing cycle. 

Another good thing to note is Gen Mobile’s data is deprioritized. Data deprioritization is “the temporary slowing of data speeds for certain customers in order to give priority to other customers.” Meaning that when you’re in a “high traffic area” like a concert hall, sports stadium, or airport, your speeds might be slower because of all the other phones in the area. Or when there’s network congestion, aka there’s too many transmissions and signals trying to go through, your data will be deprioritized in order to give priority speeds to direct customers of the parent company- in this case it’s T-Mobile. 

Besides the data and price comparisons AT&T offers their security app and more international benefits while Gen Mobile does offer some international benefits though not to as many countries. 

The Verdict

AT&T’s data benefits are hard to beat, with their non-deprioritized and throttled plan it’s safe to say that any heavy-duty data user will easily fall in love with that plan if you don’t care about the number attached. While Gen Mobile’s unlimited plans do catch the eye of a mid-tier data user as their threshold number being 35GB is still quite high. 

The “special” features from both providers don’t capture too much attention, though for any frequent travelers having more readily available service in Canada and Mexico on the AT&T plans is definitely a huge plus. You still get “unlimited international calling to 100+ destinations” from all of Gen Mobile’s plans no matter what tier you are. 

It seems like if you are attached to the hip with your data and you absolutely need those higher numbers and aren’t ever connected to wifi for extended periods of time then AT&T is 100% the way to go. While those who often don’t find themselves out in the wild surfing the net on their data and don’t mind the occasional slower speeds when they are out might like Gen Mobile. For our non-committal types Gen Mobile is a no-contract wireless provider so you can easily try out their service without being tied down. If it isn’t for you you can come back to view AT&T’s plans.

The fun doesn’t stop there. Need to narrow down your list even further? Don’t forget you can compare and contrast AT&T and Gen Mobile to over 1,200 other phone plans so you know you’re getting the service that’s right for you, all thanks to the REALLY compare page which allows you to look at pricing, coverage, what phone plans are available, current deals and steals, and how you can make the most of your potential phone bill.