Mint Mobile does not have any wireless towers of its own. Instead, Mint Mobile provides wireless service by using T-Mobile’s network towers. Now for contractual reasons, the company is not allowed to explicitly state that it runs on T-Mobile’s network. But the coverage map on Mint’s website makes it abundantly clear. They offer full access to T-Mobile’s 4G LTE and 5G networks. But be forewarned, that does not mean that if you subscribe to Mint Mobile you’ll have the exact same coverage that you would with T-Mobile. T-Mobile has agreements with other carriers to allow its subscribers to use their networks in places where T-Mobile does not have its own network built out. These are called roaming agreements. T-Mobile’s roaming agreements do not extend to Mint Mobile customers. So there will be some places where Mint Mobile subscribers do not have coverage but T-Mobile customers do.
Coverage Is The Same But Data Speeds May Not Be
Although Mint Mobile customers get to use all of T-Mobile’s 4G LTE and 5G network towers, they may have a different experience on those networks than T-Mobile customers do. This is due to something called network quality of service (QoS) prioritization.
Network QoS prioritization takes place when a carrier network becomes busy with a lot of subscribers trying to access it at once. When it kicks in, customers on Mint Mobile may experience much slower data speeds than those customers that are directly with T-Mobile. T-Mobile’s direct postpaid customers are paying a premium for their service so they will get faster feeds under this scenario. These QoS prioritization policies help to ensure that T-Mobile subscribers have the best possible experience on the network at all times. It’s a classic case of you get what you pay for. That’s not to say that Mint Mobile subscribers will have a subpar experience on the network, it’s often quite the opposite. As long as T-Mobile’s network is not busy in a given location, Mint subscribers will experience data speeds similar to T-Mobile subscribers.