Dumb T Mobile prepaid question
m...@privacy.net
gold member
I "assumed" that once I was a Gold member ANY
denomination of refills would yield 1 cents/minute
rate.
Now.... I am thinking I misunderstood that and ONLY
$100 refill cards yield 10 cent/min rate.
Yes or no?
SMS
Yes, you misunderstood. What "Gold" buys you is that even the lowest
cost refill is good for a full year.
m...@privacy.net
>Yes, you misunderstood. What "Gold" buys you is that even the lowest
>cost refill is good for a full year.
Crap!
So I must buy $100 refill cards to get lowest rate of
10 cents/min?
<sigh> I thought so but please confirm again
larry
no, i'm gold (second time) and currently at 12.4 cents a
minute, and it gets worse with each $10 card I add each year ;-)
First mistake was starting with a $30 card. Second time
around, mistake was not using the two $50 cards at the same
time. No matter what lies the reps will tell you, you will
loose gold and even your remaining balance if you make
changes to your account. (especially involving porting)
My next wireless might be some form of wi-max :-)
SMS
This is true. You must buy the $100 card. Or cut your losses now, and
switch to PagePlus, a Verizon MVNO where the _most_ expensive minutes
are 10 cents, and minutes go as low as 4 cents. Much better coverage
too. But a yearly minimum of $30 ($10 every 120 days), rather than the
T-Mobile minimum of $10 a year (for "Gold").
Vic Smith
wrote:
Ilogical crap without knowing usage.
First, look at the big picture in terms of coverage..
California coverage means NOTHING to those not using the phone in
California.
So where you use your phone is what determines the coverage you need.
I've been using T-Mobile prepaid since it started maybe 6 years ago,
and have never had trouble with coverage between Illinois and Florida.
If you don't intend to go where some joker pimping a particular
company says there is better coverage, but want to brag about coverage
in places you never go to, or are insecure enough to think "I *might*
go there sometime, and what cell phone coverage will I have?" then
price doesn't matter anyway. Same goes if you use your phone for
business travel - you pay for coverage.
And get a sat phone too, in case you go sailing in the middle of the
Atlantic.
Easiest way to determine if the coverage you want is provided by a
cell company is not to look at a coverage map, but simply ask other
people who go where you go. Nearly everybody has a cell phone now.
Ask at least 3-5 people using a particular service, because some will
just lie - people often lie because their ego tells them that what
they have is the best, regardless of reality.
Other people like to complain, so they'll tell you all about no
coverage or dropped calls.
You end up with a reasonable version of the truth.
Secondly - and this is what fools many people - for those who don't
use a cell phone heavily, cost per minute is meaningless.
Prepaid plans are for light users. For those people just cut to the
chase and see what yearly cost is.
Here's some real examples.
******
Wife's T-Mobile prepaid.
She uses the phone maybe every other day to call from the road or
store, and yaks with the kids when we are on vacation.
It's our goto phone when we're together on the road.
There is no roaming charge - any time, any where.
No texting, just call and talk when you want to.
Year 1 - $100 for 1200 minutes (some kind of special deal)
Year 2 - $100 for 1000 minutes, bringing it to up to about 1600
minutes because you keep unused minutes.
Years 3-6 - $50 a year.
I just looked at her account, due for renewal in August to keep the
minutes, and she has 634 minutes left.
Think about it. That's 10 1/2 hours of yakking left.
So it'll be $50 bucks in August for another year.
Adds up to maybe $70 a year so far, and going down.
******
My T-Mobile prepaid.
Year 1 - $100 for 1000 minutes.
Year 2 - $10.
Year 3 - $10.
I looked and I have 793 minutes left.
Just did the re-up last month, and saw how the $10 minutes are more
expensive. Did I buy a larger amount to save money on cost per
minute? Heck no. I'm basically keeping minutes from 3 years ago
alive. We take this phone with us on vacation to use minutes.
I hardly ever use it, but like having it when I'm out of the house
since it's hard to find a pay phone nowadays.
Adds up to $40 a year so far, and going down.
******
Son's U.S. Cellular.
I did the on-line pay for him until recently, so know a little about
it. He uses texting, and some fancy stuff I don't know about or care
about. He never complained about coverage from Illinois to eastern
Tennessee, but roaming charges are real expensive.
I make him take my T-Mobile prepaid phone when goes with his
girlfriend to Tennessee to visit her family. A lot cheaper.
He was paying an average of about $100 a month for about 4 years.
That's 5 grand if you think of it that way. I do.
I think they tied him in with 2 year contracts.
I recall he uses about 600 minutes per month.
I was on his case about that all the time, and when it was time to
renew he squeezed them for a plan that's costing him about $50 a month
that suits him.
Here's the bottom line.
Prepaid is for light users.
Light users should figure yearly cost, not cost per-minute.
T-Moblile is very frugal for light users.
Paying more for coverage at Squaw Valley if you don't go to Squaw
valley is a complete waste of money.
Signing up for a contracted monthly plan when you can do the same
thing cheaper every year with a prepaid plan is a total waste of
money.
Coverage isn't rocket science. Ask around about it.
Almost everybody can clue you in on that.
One other thing - renewing once per year is 3 times better than
renewing 3 times a year. Less chance of losing your accumulated
minutes because you forgot to renew in time.
One more thing, that most probably aren't aware of, and will fit a
segment of cell users.
T-Mobile has 2 prepaid plans, one is Pay as You Go, which I use and
described above.
I just noticed they have another plan called Pay per Day.
Seems you have to sign on to an account to get to this description, so
don't click unless you have an account.
https://support.my.t-mobile.com/doc/tm23610.xml#5
From reading this, it looks like you can get unlimited non-prime-time
minutes for $30 a month *if* you're calling another T-Mobile plan
phone. Looks real good for inveterate yakkers and lovers who talk a
lot after 7 PM..
Basically it costs $1 for each day you use the phone.
Here's what it says about minute charges.
"When am I charged the $0.10 per minute charge with my T-Mobile
Prepaid Pay By The Day rate plan?
You will be charged $0.10 for any domestic calls to or from numbers
that are not other T-Mobile customers between the hours of 7:00 a.m.
and 6:59 p.m."
--Vic
m...@privacy.net
>This is true. You must buy the $100 card. Or cut your losses now, and
>switch to PagePlus, a Verizon MVNO where the _most_ expensive minutes
>are 10 cents, and minutes go as low as 4 cents. Much better coverage
>too. But a yearly minimum of $30 ($10 every 120 days), rather than the
>T-Mobile minimum of $10 a year (for "Gold").
Point taken on PagePlus
But what I'm really thinking abt doing is buying an
unlocked Nokia GSM that also has WIFI built in and
using Skype for the times I'm in WIFI hotspot yet
having the T Mobile option when OUT of WIFI hotspot.
I am university student so around wifi spot a lot.
Would PagePlus still prove cheaper than above strategy
of WIFI use in your valued opinion?
Thanks
SMS
If you use the phone very little with T-Mibile minutes, then it makes
sense to buy the $100 card to become "Gold," then buy the $10 card once
a year to keep the account active. It's the cheapest way to keep a
"glove box phone" active.
That's a good idea to use Skype over WiFi. You'll still pay a little
more than 2 cents per minute to call non-Skype phones though.
It's also going to be interesting to see what Google does with Gizmo,
which they purchased. Unlike Skype, you coud have used Gizmo at no
charge, but they aren't taking sign-ups anymore. I expect that they'll
soon integrate Gizmo into Google Voice, which will likely put Skype out
of business.
Of course you could do the same thing you're doing for Skype with a
phone on PagePlus, but it's more expensive to get a CDMA phone that will
support Skype.
m...@privacy.net
>Of course you could do the same thing you're doing for Skype with a
>phone on PagePlus, but it's more expensive to get a CDMA phone that will
>support Skype.
Yes.... that's an idea
I'm kind of wanting to stay prepaid (no
contract).....get lowest cost.... AND upgrade to a
smart phone
Hard to get all three at once but am trying.
Are there any low cost smart phones that have wifi but
work under PagePlus system?
The other reason Id like a wifi capable cell phone....
is being able to check email and surf net while in
between classes
Rod Speed
> SMS <scharf...@geemail.com> wrote
>> This is true. You must buy the $100 card. Or cut your losses now,
>> and switch to PagePlus, a Verizon MVNO where the _most_ expensive
>> minutes are 10 cents, and minutes go as low as 4 cents. Much better
>> coverage too. But a yearly minimum of $30 ($10 every 120 days),
>> rather than the T-Mobile minimum of $10 a year (for "Gold").
> Point taken on PagePlus
> But what I'm really thinking abt doing is buying an
> unlocked Nokia GSM that also has WIFI built in
> and using Skype for the times I'm in WIFI hotspot
Fring will do skype on most decent cellphones.
> yet having the T Mobile option when OUT of WIFI hotspot.
> I am university student so around wifi spot a lot.
> Would PagePlus still prove cheaper than above strategy of WIFI use in your valued opinion?
Hard for anyone to say because it isnt clear how often YOU can use wifi.
If its most of the time, wifi would certainly be cheaper.
SMS
> SMS <scharf...@geemail.com> wrote:
>
>> Of course you could do the same thing you're doing for Skype with a
>> phone on PagePlus, but it's more expensive to get a CDMA phone that will
>> support Skype.
>
> Yes.... that's an idea
>
> I'm kind of wanting to stay prepaid (no
> contract).....get lowest cost.... AND upgrade to a
> smart phone
>
> Hard to get all three at once but am trying.
>
> Are there any low cost smart phones that have wifi but
> work under PagePlus system?
Yes/No. Recently Verizon stopped a bunch of smart phones from working on
PagePlus. See
"http://wiki.howardforums.com/index.php/Smartphone_Ban_FAQ". Apparently
Verizon was extremely upset over the PagePlus plans that include data
(not unlimited data, but 20MB or 50MB of data). They see these as a
direct threat to their business model.
So you might be better off with your original plan of a GSM smart phone
on T-Mobile.
> The other reason Id like a wifi capable cell phone....
> is being able to check email and surf net while in
> between classes
One really nice thing about PagePlus, that you don't get with T-Mobile,
is that you have data connectivity via 3G, albeit at $1.20/MB, when you
really need it. T-Mobile does not (yet) offer data on their prepaid
plans. I've spent less than $10 on 3G data on PagePlus in two years, but
there have been times while walking or cycling that it was really useful
to have 3G data access to look stuff up. Of course with a WiFi device
you could find the nearest Starbucks or other hotspot, but sometimes
that's not very convenient.