Talk:List of mobile network operators in the United States

Untitled
We need mobile phone company defined. Mathiastck 17:26, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I managed to sum up the subscriber figures and got 239 million, or about 80 % penetration, a low figure compared to Europe. Mobile phones seem not to be so big in the US. There are still soap operas shown on TV (from US) where they use pagers and answering machines, but no cell phones. -- BIL 20:54, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Wow pagers? What soap opera is that? The US is too vast in some areas to provide as saturated coverage as is possible in europe. That is the main reason, it is getting much better though. Strunke 17:52, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
 * When I wrote that, "Sex and the City" was on the TV (Swedish Television). Maybe an old episode, but the series started in 1998 in the US, and that year mobile phones were well established in Europe. Also that show took place in a big city which should have good coverage. -- BIL 22:57, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
 * There is one episode on now. It was made in 2003. Carrie does not own a cell phone. Right now she visits Paris and calls from a public phone. The evening before she expected a visit from a frenchman. He was late and she had to wait without knowing why. But it appears that the frenchman has a cell phone. At the moment Carrie's friend in the US is listening to her answering machine messages, and people want to talk to her. Conclusion: USA has not discovered cell phones very much, but Europeans have. Isn't the US leading when it comes to technology ? -- BIL 22:40, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

We need to update stats on millions of users — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.49.100.136 (talk) 13:42, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

When displayed in order of number of subscribers...
-Providers with 9 million subscribers are above all others with 10+ million because it starts with a 9. -Qwest Wireless is shown out of order because of the ~ sign.

I would fix it if i knew how without messing it up. I'd guess putting a zero in front would fix it, but I'm not sure. 69.81.206.94 (talk) 02:37, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

...and now Qwest is completely gone. 69.81.206.135 (talk) 11:51, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Update on the above sorting problem...
I found that Thumb Cellular's "Subscriber" cell had an error or something wrong with it. I found out that if I increased the number of subscribers from 0.037 to 0.1 or above, everything on the page sorts perfectly. Also, if i remove the link and date after 0.037, it also sorts perfectly. But it's when 0.037 AND the link and date are in it, everythin sorts wrong.

It looks like the other two carriers listed with a number less than 0.1 don't have a link or date next to it either. I assume that's because numbers less than 0.1 don't sort well with links. So I removed the link and date from the "Subscriber" cell of "Thumb Cellular."

If anyone knows why this exact problem is occuring, please let me know. Thanks. 69.81.206.84 (talk) 09:37, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Claro
Why is Claro included in a US list? They do not seem to have a presence in the United States Kinglag (talk) 20:10, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Cellular one of Bermuda
Bermuda is not part of the US. Is Cellular one of Bermuda listed for any particular reason? Ryan (talk) 15:43, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Removed. Ecbf (talk) 01:08, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Why include virtual operators here?
The list of virtual operators is not maintained well. A lot of outdated information. There is a better article List of United States mobile virtual network operators. I suggest we remove the virtual operators from this table. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ecbf (talk • contribs) 01:05, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Defunct Companies
Mispot is no longer operating as of November 2014. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.106.149.50 (talk • contribs) 16:20:27‎, 19 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Updated, thanks! Lonaowna (talk) 16:54, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Verizon subscriber count
Hello, Wikipedia editors! I work for Verizon and have a conflict of interest, so I will not edit this article myself. But I wanted to give you a heads up that the Verizon figure here is incorrect and is not verified in the inline citation provided in the article. Could the figure be removed? I cannot provide an updated number, because Verizon does not report its wholesale numbers.

I dug through the edit history to see how this article got to where it is today. The article previously cited a FierceWireless story for estimated subscribers in 2018, but then the figure was updated several times, sometimes without adding new sourcing for verification. Then on July 25, an editor swapped AT&T into the first-place spot, moving Verizon to No. 2, but did not move the number of subscribers. This had the effect of assigning AT&T's former subscriber count to Verizon. On Aug. 6, the figure was updated to 156.1 million. But 156.1 million is not in the source material. My best guess is that the editor added 451,000 (the number of new connections reported by Verizon) to the incorrect 155.7 million figure (the leftover figure from when AT&T was in the No. 2 spot on this article), coming up with 156.1 million.

My understanding is that without a source clearly stating what the figure is, it should not be included in a Wikipedia article. Can someone look into this?

Lastly, I was not sure if I should add the connected contributor (paid) banner to this Talk page with this request. If editors deem it necessary, I'm happy to add it! Thank you, VZEric (talk) 12:03, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Seeing how much effort you put into this article, I value your opinions on this request. Thank you, VZEric (talk) 18:47, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Mostly, I am just removing vandalism here. I have not added a lot of substance. But in principle, there should be citations for all the figures quoted. So if Verizon does not publish numbers, then the subscriber count should be reverted to the most recent figure that appeared in a trade publication such as FierceWireless. Drahtlos (talk) 13:34, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I reverted the Verizon sub numbers to Q3 2018 results. AFAIK, this was the last time FierceWireless published Verizon results which included wholesale numbers.Jmoz2989 (talk) 01:30, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for taking a look at this and updating the article. I'll be on the lookout for independent coverage to see if anyone reports an updated subscriber count. Thank you, VZEric (talk) 00:10, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Incorrect/Outdated subscriber totals
Many of the subscriber totals listed have not been updated in 1 year. Additionally, the ranking is likely incorrect, since AT&T considers any active SIM card on their network to be a "customer", while the other carriers do not report their totals that way. Each carrier reports their customer totals differently, making a direct comparison impossible. For example, this article claims that T-Mobile surpassed AT&T in customers, and is now #2. The article admits that the ranking is inaccurate, so why are the numbers listed at all if they are incorrect? Dnywlsh (talk) 16:26, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Mobilelinkusa and Cricket Wireless
Hi! I just want to inquire about cricket wireless, isn't it merged with MobileLink USA?

MINT Mobile
Should we add info about this operator? ShapirDoron (talk) 12:25, 19 August 2022 (UTC)


 * I was just going to comment that Mint Mobile was missing on the list. Yequene (talk) 20:13, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Mint Mobile is an MVNO and as such is already listed in List of United States mobile virtual network operators where it belongs (i.e. not here). Drahtlos (talk) 20:18, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Numbers are out of date
Spectrum Mobile has well over 6 million subscribers. The list of the top 5 needs to be updated. 68.114.35.5 (talk) 18:36, 17 January 2024 (UTC)