review: 1 year on H2O Wireless

overall

I’ve been using H2O Wireless for backup for the last year. It’s done exactly what I wanted for $100/year:¹

1. voice and data when I’m away from my main carrier (Visible in the van)
2. 2nd carrier (ATT) when primary carrier (Verizon) is unavailable
3. unlimited throttled data when the 1GB is consumed
4. SMS reminder of upcoming expiration

Of these, these first is the primary use. I think I had ATT but no Verizon once in the past 12 months, and have not consumed the monthly 1GB yet.

Is ATT better than TMO for backup purposes? I think so, but TMO really has come a long way in recent years.

quirks

The Upcoming Plan Cycles chart at the bottom of the account summary shows monthly entries even though the plan is annual.

After renewing online the email with confirmation came immediately:

To find out if your airtime loaded successfully, please check your account balance after 10 minutes.

… but website and SMS balance functions did not show an updated expiry. The charge does show up at the issuing bank. I sent a Contact Us email asking for clarification and will update here.

update April 9

After 24 hours my support ticket was answered by email:

We apologize for any inconvenience, Our system show the payment your account expire 04/11/2025 in that day our system, we kindly ask that you contact us at (800)643-4926 and speak with a live representative

Does not inspire optimism.

I called and navigated voicemail hell. I am generally quite good with accents from the Indian subcontinent² but this fellow was a mumbler and seemed bored out of his gourd.

The gist appears to be that the payment will not be applied to the account until the previous period elapses. Holy crap. The customer basically has no way to know if the service will continue and must just watch to see if it dies or works. Noice. I am 60% sure service will continue after the 11th, but that seems like something they could have answered in email.

tax rate at Escapees Livingston

My combined sales tax rate was 8.25% in DFW; it’s now 6.75% in Polk county.

1. $114.40 after taxes and fees. ↩

2. I like them so much I have all my text-to-speech voices set to Indian voices. I also like British-inflected Arabic accents. ↩