[brijar]

So just a couple days ago I ported my number to T-Mobile and signed up for their Simple Choice plan. The first hidden/not advertised fee that hit me was the $10 SIM card. I was expecting that after googling around a little. I brought my own recently craigslisted LG Optimus G E970 (AT&T version, but I bought an unlock code for it the previous day for $9 from cellphoneunlock.net using a 50% off coupon to make it $4.50). They required a credit check, which I wasn't expecting. I asked if it was mandatory and the lady said it was. I seem to have "passed" the credit check, though. There seemed to be some kind of promotion that waived the $35/line activation fee. I was then told that I could have up to 3 lines without a deposit. I asked how I could get 5 lines and she said that lines 4 and 5 would each require a $50 deposit. What she didn't tell me was that in order to get those deposits back, you had to have an active account in good standing for at least 12 months. That has CONTRACT written all over it. Basically an early termination fee in disguise. I went ahead and got everything set up. They gave me a temporary number. It took a few hours for my real number to get completely ported over. Voice, text, and data worked immediately and quite well where I live.
Something to note about prepaid vs rate plans is that most of the prepaid carriers I've encountered include taxes in their monthly rate. I discovered that at least T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon do NOT include cellular taxes in their monthly rates (their fine print always says this). These taxes are about 20% in Missouri. If I went with my plan to have 5 lines at $110 per month ($22 per phone), taxes will increase that to over $130 per month ($26 per phone). This makes it harder to convince my relatives to switch from their $30 per month prepaid plan, especially since they have to get gsm phones and if I ask them to commit to one year.


Conclusion and things to be aware of:
SIM card fee $10
Possible $35 per line activation fee
$50/line deposit on lines 4 and 5, refundable after 12 months
Cellular taxes ~20%

If you want to keep it really simple and reasonably priced, I would suggest a prepaid deal like Page Plus, Ptel, or T-Mobile's $30/month, 100 minute, unlimited text, 5GB data plan.

Hope this information helps someone.