List of mobile virtual network operators in the United States

Mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) in the United States lease wireless telephone and data service from the three major cellular carriers in the country—AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile US, and Verizon—and offer various levels of free and/or paid talk, text and data services to their customers. In April 2019, American MVNOs provided service to 36 million active subscribers.

Voice and data service operators

In general, the types of phones and other devices supported by the MVNOs are in line with the technologies used by the Mobile Network Operator (MNO), the underlying cellular network provider. All major and regional MNOs use 4G LTE / LTE Advanced and 5G NR protocols (2G and 3G having been deprecated and shut down), with GSM technologies.

However, many MVNOs tend to sell somewhat older phone models (e.g. ones discontinued by the host networks), which can affect whether all technologies supported by the carrier network are usable by MVNO customers. The acronym BYOD means "Bring Your Own Device", indicating that a customer can port a cellphone or other cellular device they already own to the MVNO, rather than having to buy/rent a new device from them (assuming it is compatible with the host network, has not been reported stolen, is not still locked into a contract, etc.). MVNOs often restrict the list of BYOD devices they'll support to a smaller subset than the host networks. MVNOs will often push/favor a specific model phone because it is locked into the host carrier "preferred network" that gives that MVNO the best deal/rates.

Providers supporting multiple host networks use only one of them for each device, depending on the specific phone model and/or SIM card used (except for Google Fi Wireless, which switches automatically between the different listed host networks based on factors such as relative signal strength).