Visible

hickman · ‎03-12-2023

I got an email saying i needed to do a network upgrade. so I went to the website and changed from my 40 a month plan ive been on for years and I have the cheapest phone they offered back then the zte blade. after i did the network upgrade to the 25 a month plan it said i will be receiving a sim card but my phone does not take a sim card. now what do I do? did i even need to do the up grade? I have had pretty decent service with visible but trying to get customer service has been very confusing and a pain. now i dont know what to do. looking for someone who might be able to help.

Anonymous · ‎03-12-2023

The phone either uses a SIM card or it uses eSIM and I don't think your phone uses eSIM. You don't have to activate it when it shows up but you only have 7 days I think to activate the card otherwise it will become inactive.

At some point you will need to do the upgrade because Visible is shutting down old cloud based system the party pay plan is on sometime in the future but they have not announced a date yet. Visible uses the new core system that Verizon(Visible's parent company) uses. If you don't activate the card when it comes and if you don't upgrade to the system when the deadline comes you will lose service.

hickman · ‎03-12-2023

thanks for the reply, you are correct the phone does take a sim card after some research. I guess I just did'nt remember putting it in as I've been on the visible plan since about 2020. from what ive read it looks like the true unlimited hot spot will now go to prioritized. we live in a rural area and have no internet options so we use the hot spot alot. thanks again for your help.

Anonymous · ‎03-12-2023

The basic plan is pretty much the same as the legacy plan you are on. If you travel to Canada or Mexico you will lose roaming on the basic plan and you will lose international calling and texting. The old plan data was prioritized and even hotspot was limited to 5Mbps and that is the same on the new basic plan. The one thing the new plan does to hotspot is they limit it to one device but it only seems to be on certain phones, iPhones I think. I can use multiple device but usually I keep it to one and sometimes two at times but not often.

hickman · ‎03-12-2023

right on. I sure hope the performance stays as good or gets even better with this upgrade stuff. you sure are pretty knowledgeable about all this stuff. thanks so much.

Anonymous · ‎03-13-2023

I did see slight improvements on data speed but I have read some got worse so it is a hit or miss.

Thanks, I only know what I have read about and what I have experienced as being a customer. I am far from being tech savvy.

Your welcome!

RandyHut · ‎03-13-2023

Been a customer for several years! They are telling me i will have to buy two new phones to continue service after the upgrade! Yet when i check my phones imei number on the verizon network they say they will work, which i would expect since the yare both UW verizon phones. They say i can trade in my phone (offered mt $10 for one and $0) for the other or i can swap them for bottom end phone. I will be leaving visible at the end of the month. FWIW my daughter made the switch to the UPGRADED network, had so much trouble with the new SERVICE not working and being VERY slow - unusably slow. She could not get help to fix and already switched service providers! GOOD LUCK!

hickman · ‎03-13-2023

that sucks, I will give it a try and if it goes bad i will have to go to another provider. I sure hope it works though. thats the problem when you find something good in their beginning stages,that when they get bigger they screw it all up. it has been a godsend for us rurally for internet. I'm gonna X my fingers and hope for the best. thanks for the heads up.

Anonymous · ‎03-13-2023

Visible's IMEI database is flawed and is not updated very well. Even a phone I bought here in 2021 was all of a sudden not compatible when the new plans rolled out. I did buy a newer phone on eBay that was sold here in 2022 to get a good IMEI number. I used that IMEI number to get a card for the new plan 5 weeks ago, put that card in the old phone and activated it and I had no issues. There are ways to get around the checker to get a pSIM(wouldn't try it with eSIM) but I can't guarantee you will have success like I did activating it and I wouldn't try it with a phone that is more than 2 years old.

hickman · ‎03-13-2023

when i upgraded wouldnt it have notified me of my phone was not compatible before sending my new sim?

Anonymous · ‎03-13-2023

It will at the IMEI checker when you enter your number but that doesn't mean your phone is not compatible with Visible. To me if it passes the IMEI checker at Verizon there should be no reason the phone shouldn't work here. Visible is owned by Verizon and the new system is using their core system. The old legacy, or original, plan is using a cloud core/base system. At some point it will be shut down this year Visible just hasn't said when.

About a phone being not compatible. I had sent customer service a message last fall when these new plans rolled out and my phone then, actually still does, shows not compatible asking why. Their answer, my phone doesn't have the right technology. My next question was what technology doesn't it have and I couldn't get an answer. Funny it activated without issue. I was also told by another agent they were working on getting as many phones transferred from the old system as fast as possible, but it doesn't seem like they are working on it to hard. It's easier to sell you a new phone that is in their database.

hickman · ‎03-13-2023

so they sent you a sim card and when you went to put it in your phone and upgrade it then told you your phone was not compatable?

Anonymous · ‎03-13-2023

No. Here is the steps I went through and will apologize now for it being long. Last fall the new plans come out and tells us to make the upgrade. In the app you click the upgrade button it automatically tells me my phone isn't compatible but you have options or something on those lines. I went to the website and click upgrade and select plan it sent me to the IMEI checker, I enter it from my phone and again it shows not compatible with the new plans. I didn't want to buy a new phone so I started trying to find one on eBay that was newer but all the unlocked phones that had listed an IMEI number were not compatible, this was on the same make and model phones that Visible sells. I eventually found a used phone that was sold by Visible in 2022, a Motorola G Power(2022) with a valid IMEI number. That was back in November. I decided to wait to upgrade as I didn't want to pay more than I had to. At the beginning of February when the $5 valued member discount came out I decided to upgrade since it was the same price, this was 5 weeks ago today. To get the card I used the IMEI number from the newer phone and had a card shipped. When the card showed up I decided to see if I could actually activate it in the old phone and I did successfully. I am not sure what technology it is supposed to have but it did and it works just fine. Since I already have the newer phone I have moved the card to it and will use the old phone for backup.

If your IMEI number passes the checker you should not have any issues getting a card. Now if you have an older phone the IMEI checker might flag it as not compatible, it is hit or miss. The system seems to be more friendly to iPhones than Android phones since any newer iPhone that still gets OS and security updates will bypass the IMEI checker all together, more or less iPhones that are 6 years old or newer. If you have an Android phone there are ways around the checker to get a card if yours is not compatible but not sure how old of a phone I would try that on to get a card and activate it. My G Power(2021) is running Android 11 with the current updates to the system. Anything older than that I am not sure I would try it on.

hickman · ‎03-13-2023

weird, now i went to the website on my pc not on my phone because the app had never worked on my phone. " i updated the app the other night and now it does" when i found out about visible i went to the website to get all set up and I have always used the website on my pc to make payments and never used the phone app. i did the same, jumped on my pc and went to the website to make the so called upgrade and it never asked me anything about an imei. i just chose a plan and it said my new sim card is on the way and sent me a tracking number. guess i will see what happens when it gets here.

Anonymous · ‎03-13-2023

Do you have an iPhone by any chance?

I did some checking a while back and if I select an iPhone X or older it will ask me for an IMEI number but if I select an iPhone XR/XS/XS Max or newer it bypasses the checker and ask which option eSIM or pSIM.

Now for Android as mentioned it is a different story. It is pretty certain if you didn't buy it through Visible in 2022 to current the checker will likely tell you it is not compatible. I am hoping that some work will be done to the database in the future to pass more phone through the checker. I for one certainly didn't want to buy a new phone and found out even though it was not compatible it worked just fine. I did get a really good deal buying a like new used phone for less a little more than 1/3 the cost of buying it here, but unless you find an android phone that was sold here 99% chance it will show not compatible.

hickman · ‎03-14-2023

I bought the cheapest android visible had. back in 2020. guess I'll x my fingers and hope for the best.

hickman · ‎03-16-2023

just wanted to let you know so far the upgrade has gone fine but the data speed is horrible about 2mbs. other wise the upgrade went fine

Sundog · ‎04-08-2023

This is interesting.

I have a Motorola Moto G Power (2021). I'm getting notices from VIsible saying I have to upgrade my phone.

Which was (is) very confusing, because they never say why... other than they've upgraded their network.

When I look at their options for upgrading my phone, they list the Moto G Power 2022... same as the one you have.

I simply do not understand why the 2022 works and my 2021 doesn't.

Upgraded Android? (12 in Moto G Power 2022)

After reading your post, you put the NEW Sim in your older phone and it worked.

Seems to me, if I get a new Sim card, there's a pretty good chance it will continue to work in my Moto G Power 2021.

How can I get a new SIM card? I mean, can I just order a sim card?

This all seems pretty crazy.

Anyway, I like my Moto G Power 2021. I'm in no mood to buy a new phone.

Advice is appreciated!

dnataylor65 · ‎04-10-2023

I think I can provide an answer or two...just got off the Chat with visible about this exact issue. I have a Motorola G Power 2020 version that they say is incompatible with the upcoming network upgrade. So I bought an eBay open box Motorola G Power 2022, unlocked for any carrier and it just arrived today. I plug in the IMEI as part of the upgrade process, and I'm told THAT one is also incompatible! The very same phone that Visible sells on the website, which is Out of Stock at the moment, BTW. Upset, I started a chat with them to see what's happening...
They tell me that it's all about the IMEI number which determines the AP Bands used for Visible/Verizon lines and that what is needed are AP Bands 2, 4, 5, 6, 13, and 66 for the 4GLTE network. But the catch is, there's no way to know this from the settings on the phone, or the Specs provided about the phone. The only way to know is to plug in the IMEI number to the checker. So having bought it on eBay, or even Amazon, you are not told this before purchasing. No one wants to give out that number first.
So it seems Visible is really trying to push their own phones first and foremost.
At this point, I'm not sure I want to deal with them if the new network data is so slow anyway. We use two phones and their hotspots currently to power computer and TV at home, so this has been very convenient and inexpensive for a solution until now.
They will not let you just order a sim card unless you say yours is lost or damaged, and that will not make a difference if the phone's AP Bands are not supported on the new network WHEN IT IS IN EFFECT which it is not yet. So anyone using the newer SIM card in an older phone is wrong in assuming it's fine on the new upgraded network, because it may not be.

trekker1234 · ‎05-04-2023

I had a lot of trouble when I made the switch that I changed back to the basic/regular plan. What service did you switch to?