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T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

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Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#141

Post by thaumasiotes »

p1mrx wrote: post #85
moosehawk wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even less if you don't talk much: http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans ($30/m for 5GB of 4G, unlimited text, 100 minutes)

I'm always worried that someone at T-Mobile will notice that plan, say "whoa, how did that get there?", and delete it. It's just so much cheaper than everything else on the market.

The plan can only be deliberate, egregious price discrimination. I found out about it because T-Mobile was heavily advertising it on their website. So I tried to sign up. You can't do that; you have to either order a SIM card from them (which is free), or get one from Walmart. I tried to get a SIM card from the local T-Mobile store. They don't sell those. I ordered a SIM card online and had to wait a week. When it arrived, I activated it on (surprise!) the T-Mobile website. I guess you can do that after all.

Note that in ordering the SIM card I did not indicate that I wanted any particular plan. The $30 plan just "happened" to be available for that card.

Was I willing to wait for one week in order to lower the bill for a large recurring cost by 40%? Yes. But T-Mobile seems to be gambling that most people aren't.

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#142

Post by gergles »

aditya wrote: post #92
potatolicious wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched with the iPhone 5S. Off-contract too. I rarely leave the city, so the lack of coverage in rural areas doesn't bother me. In NYC I have to say I've noticed a small improvement in reception over AT&T - buildings where I've been dead in the water before now have some connectivity. So far so good, this new announcement is just icing on the cake, especially as a Canadian expat. It used to be that when visiting…

Awesome. How's the HSPA/LTE network in the city? Can you do a quick speedtest and post results?

Outside in Greeley Square a week or 2 ago: http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/i/646728668. I just did one at work inside a tall building (9:15AM ET) with 2 dots of LTE coverage and got 32 ms ping, 5 down/5 up.

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#143

Post by cbr »

freehunter wrote: post #50
elq wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The still have that plan - http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans it's just a bit hidden.

$30/mo for 5GB 4G (then I assume 2G after) is quite a deal! If the minutes were higher, I'd use this as my primary provider. As a data-only plan though, that's not too bad!

3G after

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#144

Post by jbrowning »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #141
p1mrx wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always worried that someone at T-Mobile will notice that plan, say "whoa, how did that get there?", and delete it. It's just so much cheaper than everything else on the market.

The plan can only be deliberate, egregious price discrimination. I found out about it because T-Mobile was heavily advertising it on their website. So I tried to sign up. You can't do that; you have to either order a SIM card from them (which is free), or get one from Walmart. I tried to get a SIM card from the local T-Mobile store. They don't sell those. I ordered a SIM card online and had to wait a week. When it ar…

Actually SIMs aren't free, they're normally $10. You can sometimes find them for $1 if you look around hard enough [1].

I've been using this plan for about a month or so and coverage has indeed been a little spotty in my area but it's good enough for my needs. If you do want to try it out here's a tip port your number: do NOT do select the option to port during the online activation process. Sign up and activate your SIM FIRST and then call in to initiate a number port request. Once you've activated and signed up for the $30 plan with a port request, there's no way to get a temporary number while waiting for the port request to complete.

[1] http://slickdeals.net/f/6332098-tmobile-99cent-sim-card-sale...

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#145

Post by ninjac0der »

masklinn wrote: post #116
praxeologist wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about no Ma Bell in the first place... Grampa Graham got his telephone patent in 1876 then in the next 18 years there were 600 lawsuits to defend over 900 patents (state grants of monopoly). When these patents expired, there were soon 80 competing companies which captured 5% of the market, rising to over 3,000 companies with over 50% of the market by 1900. AT&T then lobbied for its monopoly status back, saying th…

Great, more revisionism. > When these patents expired, there were soon 80 competing companies which captured 5% of the market, rising to over 3,000 companies with over 50% of the market by 1900. And starting in 1907 and the return of Vail, Bell started massively buying them out, attracting the attention of the Justice Department and leading to the Kingsbury Commitment. Kingsbury was essentially repealed 8 years later…

How are you still ignoring that the patent system created the monopoly?

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#146

Post by dasil003 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #140
dasil003 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow I've been overpaying by going into a store. I use T-Mobile pay as you go whenever I come to the States (twice a year for 2-week stints usually). Do you know if I buy a SIM card and activate it for that deal will I be able to let it lapse and then re-up it when I come back in 6 months? Or will I have to buy a new SIM card every time?

I was on that plan and let it expire. My account page still displays the plan, while noting that it's unfunded and I can't use it, so it seems that you can let it lapse and re-up. I've been curious whether that will still be true come the new year.

I have been living in London since 2011, so I let me old T-Mobile plan lapse. When I came back my SIM was dead, so I bought a pay-as-you-go SIM in the store. They told me if I don't top it up every 3 months it is not guaranteed to work. However after I am typically gone for six month cycles, and the last 2 times it was still active.

I'm very keen on trying this new plan though as $3/day on top of pay as you go is not a good value on a 2 week trip. I'd be very happy to just pay $30 and get a reasonable amount of mins/texts along with great data.

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#147

Post by j_s »

DrewRWx wrote: post #107
elq wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It is quite a deal. I pay .10 per minute after the small allocation is used up, but I've only use all 100 minutes twice in the last year I've had this plan. If I were less lazy and needed more minutes, I'd setup grooveip (or something similar) with my google voice account.

Donating to GVGW ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6524728 ) to use the GSM codec combined with csipsimple ( http://code.google.com/p/csipsimple/ ) has actually been surprisingly usable over HSPA+.

First link wrong? Seems like a useful service.

https://simonics.com/gvgw/

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#148

Post by csmatt »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #81
adventured wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would kind of like to see Softbank merge up Sprint and T-Mobile US (if it could be purchased), to give them even greater scale to put serious competitive pressure on AT&T / VZ. Softbank is good at attacking entrenched markets, the more market leverage they have the better.

That could be a short term challenge since Sprint is all CDMA and T-Mo is all GSM. Wouldn't have any short term benefits, but the long term could be big.

I was going to disagree due to the Tmobile-MetroPCS merger, but it looks like Tmobile was just looking to pick up the spectrum and are phasing out CDMA within it. http://bgr.com/2013/06/17/t-mobile-metropcs-merger-cdma-migr...

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#149

Post by brendanf »

klausjensen wrote: post #124
brendanf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get unlimited data plans in Europe for 10-40 euro per month.

That work in all of Europe? Or in individual markets?

I believe they will work in most of the EU for carriers like Vodafone, but you may have to pay roaming. You can also get roaming packages from some of the carriers such as Alditalk http://www.alditalk.de/web/internet-prepaid-tarif/eu_interne...

Re: T-Mobile to offer free unlimited international data, texts

#150

Post by thaumasiotes »

jbrowning wrote: post #144
thaumasiotes wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plan can only be deliberate, egregious price discrimination. I found out about it because T-Mobile was heavily advertising it on their website. So I tried to sign up. You can't do that; you have to either order a SIM card from them (which is free), or get one from Walmart. I tried to get a SIM card from the local T-Mobile store. They don't sell those. I ordered a SIM card online and had to wait a week. When it ar…

Actually SIMs aren't free, they're normally $10. You can sometimes find them for $1 if you look around hard enough [1]. I've been using this plan for about a month or so and coverage has indeed been a little spotty in my area but it's good enough for my needs. If you do want to try it out here's a tip port your number: do NOT do select the option to port during the online activation process. Sign up and activate your…

I consider $10 with a $10 discount (applied before payment) "free". I ordered straight through T-Mobile's web site. Yes, I may have actually paid some amount under a dollar, and no, I didn't pay more than a dollar. I'm still willing to call it "free".
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