T-Mobile Simple Choice Plans

[brijar]

I just recently noticed T-Mobile's new cellular phone plan here:
http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/family-plans.aspx

I'm curious what you all think about it. I've never been a fan of cell phone contracts. Paying over $50 per month for service for one phone is a nightmare for me. And almost all cell companies force you to buy data if you're going to use a smartphone.

I currently buy service from Page Plus, which is a company that uses Verizon's towers (and some Sprint towers) and sells service in a prepaid or monthly fee fashion. I am on their "standard plan" and buy an $80 PIN from them which puts $80 on my account. They deduct 4 cents per minute I use and 5 cents per text sent or received. If I use any data, that costs $1 per MB (which is incredibly high, so I just don't use cellular data). I attend a university with campus wide WiFi, so I use Pinger on my HTC EVO 4G LTE (bought off-contract on Craigslist) for the large majority of my texts. For the past two years, I've only had to buy an $80 PIN once every six to eight months or so (roughly $12 per month). This system has worked alright for me, but I would enjoy the ability to send and receive as many texts as I want without having to be connected to WiFi. But it isn't worth much more than $25 per month to me. I think I would be fine without any cellular data, since I don't use any right now.

The things I like about the new T-Mobile plan are that there doesn't seem to be any overages as long as you don't make international calls. You can't exceed their unlimited minutes or texts and when you run out of high speed data, they simply throttle your data to 2G speeds. The price is quite reasonable for 4 or 5 phones ($25 or $22 per phone per month, each line gets 500MB of 3G/4G data) for what they advertise. Their coverage isn't super impressive, but there are no roaming fees (though they may cancel your service if you roam A LOT). Page Plus charges me 27 cents per minute for calls while roaming. They do restrict you to 10MB of roaming data, but then they just turn roaming data off after that. No overages that I can see. And, the icing on the cake: they don't make you sign a 2 year contract. From what I can tell, you can cancel the service at any time without an early termination fee.

So, I'm just curious what y'all think about this plan. Maybe I'm crazy and it's perfectly reasonable to pay the cost of several flame sticker brand batteries every month for cell service. The only problem I have with it is that I'll have to get a GSM phone and find three or four other guys to split a plan with. And we'll all have to have the same area code, so someone might have to change numbers.

Thoughts?

[BrianG]

I stopped reading shortly after the beginning of the third paragraph. No offense to you or your writing skills, but I just loathe cell phone plans of any kind. The last thing I want to do before making a call is wondering if I should wait until the weekend, or after X o'clock, or whatever. I pay significantly more than $50/mo for two lines, but have a plan where the limits are well high enough that I do not worry about overages. Maybe I'm too simple, but I feel cell plans shouldn't resemble the complexity of IRS tax forms.

My only other gripe about cell companies in general (other than their convoluted plan structures) is their tethering policy. Why should I pay extra for tethering as long as I don't go over my plan limits? There's just some times where content is more conveniently consumed on a 7"+ tablet vs a 4"-5" phone screen. I think data is data and you should be allowed to use it wherever and however you want as long as you stay in plan limits.

[bdebde]

Originally Posted by BrianG

I stopped reading shortly after the beginning of the third paragraph. No offense to you or your writing skills, but I just loathe cell phone plans of any kind. The last thing I want to do before making a call is wondering if I should wait until the weekend, or after X o'clock, or whatever. I pay significantly more than $50/mo for two lines, but have a plan where the limits are well high enough that I do not worry about overages. Maybe I'm too simple, but I feel cell plans shouldn't resemble the complexity of IRS tax forms.

My only other gripe about cell companies in general (other than their convoluted plan structures) is their tethering policy. Why should I pay extra for tethering as long as I don't go over my plan limits? There's just some times where content is more conveniently consumed on a 7"+ tablet vs a 4"-5" phone screen. I think data is data and you should be allowed to use it wherever and however you want as long as you stay in plan limits.

I agree with the tethering... not only should they allow it on any data plan... they should encourage it... go over your limit and they can charge per MB at the highway robbery rates!

[brijar]

Haha sorry, I'm rather long winded on certain subjects.
I guess it's worth it to most people for the peace of mind of not having to worry about going over your plan. I just like to get the best deal that I can. I love the concept of having unlimited voice, texts, and data, but if I only use 300 minutes a month (overestimating at 10 minutes per day) and several thousand texts, it seems like a waste to pay for unlimited minutes and data too.

Some of those legacy plans are pretty good! Before companies realized the value of data services.

Tethering is a great feature, but I guess it slows the data network down if lots of people are doing it. I don't know how often people get caught for tethering with a rooted Android, but I think that's the way I'd go if I had a data plan and needed to tether. From what I can tell, Sprint will only terminate your contract (good way to get out of one early?) if you use excessive amounts of data (>100GB per month).

Anyway, I'm thinking about trying Ting for a while. They charge you for what you use each month. And I can bring my Sprint EVO LTE and won't have to get a new phone. No contract so I can switch if it isn't working for me as well.

Anyone else have any reasonably cheap plan for one or two phones?

[Arct1k]

Legacy plan for me unlimited data for $24 a month :)

[Arct1k]

I think Walmart has some unlimited plan for a reasonable price.

[brainanator]

My work pays for an AT&T unlimited plan for me. (unlimited data for AT&T is 4GB/month).
For my girlfriend, who only uses her phone to text me pretty much, we use Wal-Mart's Straight Talk service. $15 for a sim card, and I think $45 a month for unlimited everything. I think it uses AT&T towers. I know the sim cards work with AT&T locked phones too. She's just using an old original iPhone I bought from a buddy. Works for us.

I too hate plans, and phone locking, and "unlimited" having limits, and charging out the butt for simple crap.

[_paralyzed_]

Is this spam?

[brijar]

Originally Posted by _paralyzed_

Is this spam?

Nope! Just asking what y'all think about cell phone plans. Thought I'd found a somewhat decent one but maybe not. I was hoping someone here might actually be using it and could comment on it.

[_paralyzed_]

Originally Posted by brijar

Nope! Just asking what y'all think about cell phone plans. Thought I'd found a somewhat decent one but maybe not. I was hoping someone here might actually be using it and could comment on it.

I was joking. It's all a ripoff.

[gtxracer]

I figured I'd pop in here and give my opinion since its my job and income while in school to sell phones and plans.

I used to sell all four carriers - ATT, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile. I have also had each carrier, at one point or another, as my personal cell phone provider. So I have experience on both sides of the fence.

Overall, I wanted a job at one of the big 4. I narrowed it down to ATT or T-Mobile. They both had great customer service and work ethic/business ethic. Both interviewed me, both offered jobs. I chose T-Mobile for numerous reasons but mostly due to their awesome perks and benefits as well as a product and business plan that I know will prosper.

So whats this mean to you guys?

Basically, the game is changing. T-Mobile got rid of all 2 year contracts earlier this year in March. The only contracts you'll see are existing service contracts and phone payments. Phone payments have no early termination fees, just pay off the phone.

Our data is also unlimited now and we launched our LTE network. This is a completely different company and we have changed the game. Be on the lookout and go to a corporate T-Mobile store if you really want to find out about the new (cheaper) plans with NO CONTRACT and truly unlimited data!

/end sales pitch

[nativepaul]

Interesting with contracts changing in the states, maybe things will start changing over here too if it catches on. Is that the first plan in America with unlimited data? is tethering included? Unlimited data is fairly common over here but normally not with tethering (unless you root and steal your tethering) I use my phone tethered to my PC for internet at home and use around 100gb a month, need unlimited tethered data for that as I don't want to steal it, which limits me, at the moment there is only 1 plan I am aware of in the UK that gives unlimited tethering which is the "one plan" on the three network but I pay £32/$48 for it, Maybe if Tmobile and O2 bring out competing plans the price will come down a little.

[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.

[gtxracer]

Originally Posted by brijar

The first hidden/not advertised fee that hit me was the $10 SIM card.

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.

Cellular taxes ~20%

I take it you haven't had a contracted plan in a while?

The new plans are no contract. Yes, they run credit. Every major company runs credit, its a service and the company is taking a risk by signing a person and letting them make payments on a phone or give them a discounted device. It's business and technically you're placing items on credit. Thus, your credit is run. You should also note they don't charge you interest.

As for your deposit - that's based on your credit class. You have decent credit and therefore didn't have a deposit on your first 3 lines but in order for T-Mobile to give you full access on 5 lines they wanted a little assurance that you'll continue to pay your bill. It is NOT a contract.

If you're wondering why other carriers may not do that, it's because they'll charge you a lot more and get their money back much more quickly. Think about it - 2 phones, with payments, unlimited talk, text AND 4G web, with insurance, is $176 plus tax. Wanna know how much it is at Verizon? Go shopping, you'll see its near $300. I know this because I used to sell all four major carriers, like I said earlier.

The problem with the market right now is people want a great phone for free and they want an unlimited plan for $25 a month without a contract. Not gonna happen.

By the way, cellular taxes are from the state and federal government. They'll get their hands on the prepaid stuff eventually but for now the state has us paying sales tax on every prepaid transaction.

There are no more activation fees, the $10 sim charge is for replacement sim cards for the life of that phone line. Would you rather keep paying the $35/line activation fees on the bill or $10 right there in the store?

But, alas, no matter how hard we try to please our customers there's always one that doesn't appreciate the deals we give them and is a cellular detective, able to insert clear and precise insight into our business with Google search as backup.

[brijar]

I am merely sharing my experience and thoughts. I commend you, sir, on your well written reply.