Does it matter which phone carrier you have?

[Android Central Question]

I currently have Verizon but want to switch to Total Wireless. Will that be an issue with Android Auto? I only ask because when searching for compatible phones on the Honda site only the major carriers were listed.

 

[hallux]

Android Auto shouldn't care what carrier you have, as long as your phone has service to be able to access data for maps or voice service for calls. The omission of anything besides the major carriers was more likely to be that it's extremely time consuming to test against every possible carrier and phone combination.

The other thing to consider is that the smaller carriers don't run their own networks but rather use one of the major carrier's networks. For example - Spectrum's new Spectrum Mobile service runs on Verizon, Project Fi (sold by Google) runs on T-Mobile Sprint and US Cellular.

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[Rukbat]

Total wireless isn't a carrier, that's probably why, they're a virtual network operator (MVNO) using Verizon's network.