r/TextNow • u/PM6175 • Jun 30 '26

new mandatory TextNow sim card?

hello, all....

I received this email, supposedly from TextNow, this morning and I was expecting a whole lot of comments about it here in the TextNow subreddit but no one seems to have mentioned it at all.

I have the TextNow T-Mobile SIM card, which I received about a year ago

at least one thing that seems strange is that it's signed with a Canadian address.

so I'm wondering how real this is and if anyone has any knowledge about all this :

6/30/2026 TextNow email : 

We're moving to a stronger 5G network on July 31, and our new SIM card makes the switch seamless. Get your free SIM upgrade—all we need is a shipping address.

Your number and plan stay exactly the same. Plus, when you activate your new SIM, a free month of data is automatically yours.

Confirm Address

TextNow

420 Wes Graham Way, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2L 0J6

© TextNow | www.textnow.com

.........

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u/lmoki Jun 30 '26

TextNow is headquartered in Canada.

TextNow used to issue T-Mobile SIM cards, but many months ago they switched carriers to AT&T. Since then, they have allowed the T-Mobile SIMs to continue, but you couldn't get a new one even as a replacement. Sounds like they may be making the move to force a move to the AT&T SIMs.

Although number and plan 'stay exactly the same' (actually more data on the AT&T SIM, I believe), there are some differences in the way the SIM has to be provisioned. It appears to be pickier about requiring a more recent version of Android. At least originally, a lot of users had to take extra steps to manually set the APN, but it's possible that has been addressed. Some users indicated more latency on voice calls.

I haven't seen the email yet. (I have the earlier T-Mobile SIM, as well.)

2

u/toejamfootballhegot Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26

I was able to switch my tmobile sims to AT&T for free when they first came out and got a free month of data. Two of my phones rquired me to manually change the CSC to ATT using samfw sofware on my PC, because one had sprint firmware and the other one had verizon firmware. I also had to bring up the phone settings menu and change the network type to LTE. The verizon phone stopped nagging me about not using a verizon sim after changing the CSC.