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Your take on T-Mobile $30 Prepaid plan (100 min, unlimited text, 5GB of 4G data)

  • Something like this would be great for me

    Votes: 356 79.1%
  • Not for me

    Votes: 94 20.9%

  • Total voters
    450
Just curious.. what's the benefit of doing this vs just porting during activation?

I ported after bc I wanted to test reception with tmobile in the areas i travel and work before I switched over all the way and cut off my verizon account. But there is no benefit other than if you wanted to test it out before porting over during activation.
 
So I guess when you set up talkatone with ur google voice in setting have ur cell phone answer ur google voice calls it uses minutes. I didn't know that! Quickly turned that off so I don't use my minutes lol..
 
I had this plan, but for an android phone, and was unhappy with it. They really get you on the 100 minutes. Good luck trying to stay under that, even using all the tricks in the book like Skype, Pinger, and free wifi hotspots. I still exceeded the 100 minutes every month, and i'm far from a social butterfly.

I figured living in southern california the connection would be great, cell towers everywhere, but it wasn't. Maybe its great in other regions though.

Also I got an important call on my phone, and I ended up having to do a factory reset on the phone (because it sucked) and lost all contacts and data. The only chance I had to get that number was the call log on the phone bill, but oops, T-Mobile does not give prepaid users a call log. And even when I simply asked them to give me that one number, telling them the time and date of the call, they refused.

I switched to a Sprint unlimited talk, text, and web family plan. Split between 5 people it costs me chump change.
 
I had this plan, but for an android phone, and was unhappy with it. They really get you on the 100 minutes. Good luck trying to stay under that, even using all the tricks in the book like Skype, Pinger, and free wifi hotspots. I still exceeded the 100 minutes every month, and i'm far from a social butterfly.

I figured living in southern california the connection would be great, cell towers everywhere, but it wasn't. Maybe its great in other regions though.

Also I got an important call on my phone, and I ended up having to do a factory reset on the phone (because it sucked) and lost all contacts and data. The only chance I had to get that number was the call log on the phone bill, but oops, T-Mobile does not give prepaid users a call log. And even when I simply asked them to give me that one number, telling them the time and date of the call, they refused.

I switched to a Sprint unlimited talk, text, and web family plan. Split between 5 people it costs me chump change.

What part of SoCal were you in?
 
Just switched to this plan. It's great when I got good signal. Unfortunately I don't get it at work. Changing the number is painful. I've been waiting since last Friday and was told that it would be done within 24-48 hrs. Called them 3 times already. My old T-Mobile number was disconnected immediately after the call on Friday.
 
Just switched to this plan. It's great when I got good signal. Unfortunately I don't get it at work. Changing the number is painful. I've been waiting since last Friday and was told that it would be done within 24-48 hrs. Called them 3 times already. My old T-Mobile number was disconnected immediately after the call on Friday.

Usually when done on a Friday/weekend it won't really work until Monday or Tuesday as I have read on a post regarding porting over a number. If it doesn't happen today then call them back and ask what's going on.
 
I have this plan with my iPhone 4S non-AWS and it's great. I use Talkatone with my GV # (which I ported over when I switched to T-Mobile), so when I'm at home/near WiFi I don't even need to be connected to a cell tower, heck I usually just put my phone in Airplane Mode and turn on WiFi, and texting and calling works great. I use <1GB of data a month and barely call anyone, so it works great for me.
I have a T-Mobile number that I don't use, but it's good to have if I need to make an emergency call, but don't have reliable internet access.
Saves me money over having StraightTalk, and the internet speeds are great (was getting .5mbps with "4G" on ST, now I get ~5mbps)
 
I'm very interested in this pre-paid plan (it would be my first smart phone), but does anybody know if you can buy the T-Mobile iPhone from the Apple store, and use it with this plan?

I'm guessing the iPhone would have a T-Mobile nano sim in the phone already and you could just call T-mobile to setup the pre-paid plan?

Can anybody confirm or answer these questions.

Thanks.
 
I'm very interested in this pre-paid plan (it would be my first smart phone), but does anybody know if you can buy the T-Mobile iPhone from the Apple store, and use it with this plan?

I'm guessing the iPhone would have a T-Mobile nano sim in the phone already and you could just call T-mobile to setup the pre-paid plan?

Can anybody confirm or answer these questions.

Thanks.
i purchased my first T-Mobile iPhone 5 from Apple. It included a T-Mobile sim.
 
i purchased my first T-Mobile iPhone 5 from Apple. It included a T-Mobile sim.

Great! Are you on the mentioned pre-paid plan ($30/month, 100 min talk unlimited text/data)? If so, what steps did you take after you got the iPhone from the Apple Store?
 
Great! Are you on the mentioned pre-paid plan ($30/month, 100 min talk unlimited text/data)? If so, what steps did you take after you got the iPhone from the Apple Store?

Honestly, it depends on your luck. I activated my pre-paid plan ($30/month, 100 min talk unlimited text/data) by purchasing a SIM Starter Kit directly in-store from Walmart. My local T-Mobile store was not able to activate my nano-sim because it did not come with an activation code.
 
Honestly, it depends on your luck. I activated my pre-paid plan ($30/month, 100 min talk unlimited text/data) by purchasing a SIM Starter Kit directly in-store from Walmart. My local T-Mobile store was not able to activate my nano-sim because it did not come with an activation code.

I'll have to call customer support and see what the best way of doing this would be.

On a side note, how do you like your 32gb phone? (I'm also torn between 16 and 32). My 16gb 1st gen iPad has 2-3gb of space on it, and I'm nervous that that amount space might not allow for a lot of photos/video on the phone.
 
Great! Are you on the mentioned pre-paid plan ($30/month, 100 min talk unlimited text/data)? If so, what steps did you take after you got the iPhone from the Apple Store?


i just called t-mobile directly and they didn't require an activation code for this plan.
 
Great! Are you on the mentioned pre-paid plan ($30/month, 100 min talk unlimited text/data)? If so, what steps did you take after you got the iPhone from the Apple Store?

If you get it in the Apple Store it will have a SIM in it, but not an activation code for prepaid.

What you need is a SIM starter kit from T-mobile. You can get one here:

http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/phone-sim-card

It doesn't actually matter if you get the regular or micro SIM since you won't use it anyway. What you really want is the activation code. These were $0.99 when I got mine. I didn't click through on the link to see what they cost now, but they should be cheap. Apparently you can also get this kit at Wal-mart...not sure of cost there.

Then just follow the directions inside the kit. Instead of typing in the number from the SIM they sent you, use the number on the nano SIM that came with your phone. You will be prompted to choose your plan, decide if you want to port a number, etc. Pretty straight forward. The key is that the activation code isn't paired to the SIM in the kit, so you can use it with the nano sim that comes with your phone. Alternatively you can get the full size SIM and a SIM cutter from eBay and just cut down a full size SIM to nano and use it.

Edit: I did just click through now and see T-mo wants $10 for these now. Maybe it's cheaper at Wal-Mart. I liked doing it online because I was able to see exactly what plan I was buying, etc. T-mo customer service is pretty good, but sometimes mistakes happen and then it can be a nightmare to correct later.
 
If you get it in the Apple Store it will have a SIM in it, but not an activation code for prepaid.

What you need is a SIM starter kit from T-mobile. You can get one here:

http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/phone-sim-card

It doesn't actually matter if you get the regular or micro SIM since you won't use it anyway. What you really want is the activation code. These were $0.99 when I got mine. I didn't click through on the link to see what they cost now, but they should be cheap. Apparently you can also get this kit at Wal-mart...not sure of cost there.

Then just follow the directions inside the kit. Instead of typing in the number from the SIM they sent you, use the number on the nano SIM that came with your phone. You will be prompted to choose your plan, decide if you want to port a number, etc. Pretty straight forward. The key is that the activation code isn't paired to the SIM in the kit, so you can use it with the nano sim that comes with your phone. Alternatively you can get the full size SIM and a SIM cutter from eBay and just cut down a full size SIM to nano and use it.

Edit: I did just click through now and see T-mo wants $10 for these now. Maybe it's cheaper at Wal-Mart. I liked doing it online because I was able to see exactly what plan I was buying, etc. T-mo customer service is pretty good, but sometimes mistakes happen and then it can be a nightmare to correct later.



or you can try your luck with just buying it at the apple store and calling t-mobile and tell them you don't have an activation code but want to sign up for that plan. it worked for me.
 
or you can try your luck with just buying it at the apple store and calling t-mobile and tell them you don't have an activation code but want to sign up for that plan. it worked for me.

I'll try my luck. I guess I have nothing to lose; if it doesn't work, I'll just have to go to WalMart. No big deal.

Will this process be the same if I choose to get a 4S, instead of a 5?
 
I'll try my luck. I guess I have nothing to lose; if it doesn't work, I'll just have to go to WalMart. No big deal.

Will this process be the same if I choose to get a 4S, instead of a 5?

I don't think the 4S will come with a T-mobile SIM installed, since there isn't a T-mobile optimized version of this phone. So there you would need to get the SIM kit from T-mobile and you could just choose the micro one from the link I gave earlier. The 4S uses micro SIM and the 5 uses nano SIM.
 
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