I like T-Mobile's plans; I chopped my bill from $90/month to $30/month with unlimited data use by switching over and bringing my own phone.
What doesn't make sense right now is that their no-contract "Monthly4G" plans are a better value than the "value" plans. They have the same service levels at the same prices, but without the contract.
If 80% of their activations are choosing the value plans, are these people simply not noticing there's another option in the website menu? I can't imagine why you'd sign a contract for no benefit.
The main advantage of the value plan lineup is the truly unlimited data offering, which you can't get with the Monthly 4G plans (they are "unlimited" with throttling after a few GB, and trust me, you don't want to know how bad the throttled speed is). You can get 500 voice minutes and unlimited data for $55/mo, and though tethering isn't allowed they can't really stop you if your phone is unlocked. No other carrier offers anything remotely similar.
If you don't want to tether, though, Monthly 4G is definitely the way to go. $30/mo for 100 minutes and 5 GB data; all you need is a VoIP app and that's perfectly serviceable, and again no other carrier offers anything similar.
T-Mobile will block you if you tether on Monthly4G. Your phone data will still work, but if you use it for more than a couple minutes, the tethering will start going to dead links.
T-Mobile's tethering block works like this: They sniff your unencrypted HTTP traffic for user agents that look like they came from a Windows machine, and if they find one they hijack the connection and redirect you to their tethering upsell page. They can't sniff HTTPS connections, so HTTPS continues to work. For HTTP you can change your user agent, or just use a Mac (which their sniffer isn't smart enough to detect, yet).
If their sniffer becomes smarter in the future you can always switch to a VPN for your tethering traffic, which they wouldn't be able to distinguish from a VPN connection made by the phone itself.
Ultimately, as long as you have full control over your phone they can't stop you from doing what you like with the data you're paying for. Of course, I wouldn't recommend relying on routine tethering without paying your carrier for it, but it's really nice to have on occasion.
This has not been my experience. I have never been sent to dead links.
I have had them try to send me to a "mobile hotspot feature" upsell page when using Chrome from my laptop while tethering. I figured out that they were checking browser user-agents to determine whether a user was tethering or not.
But the Chrome app on Android allows changing the user-agent to the desktop equivalent with its "request desktop site" feature. So I called and yelled at them saying that they had no right to block me from using my phone in the way that I wanted. They flipped a bit somewhere and I haven't had a problem since.
Agreed. I set up my nexus 4 with a $30/month plan that has 100 min of voice, unlimited texts, and 5GB of data at non-lte 4g speed (throttled after that). I can't understand why you would opt into a binding contract at a higher price with a lower data cap. I'm betting that their new no-contract, no-subsidy model will work out well for them especially as the upfront prices of android phones drop.
Can't speak for Forax, but I just don't talk on the phone much. Everyone texts, even family. At $0.10/minute after the first 100 minutes, I'd have to talk for 10 more hours before my old plan would be the same cost.
I have the same setup. I do all my long phone calls at my computer anyway --- with GVoice + GMail, you can intercept your phone calls from your computer. And my family prefer skype as they can see me. I only use actual talktime when traveling, which is rare. Almost all coordination is now over text.
The value plan math starts to make sense when you go to family plans and/or routinely need more minutes. We currently have 3 lines, two of which come with 2GB data, with 1000 shared minutes and unlimited messages. $80/month plus taxes.
Exactly. The value plans start to look really nice as you add more users, especially with the $0 add a line promotion they had a few months back (and still might have).
> If 80% of their activations are choosing the value plans, are these people simply not noticing there's another option in the website menu? I can't imagine why you'd sign a contract for no benefit.
That's the case on a lot of carriers, not just T-Mobile. Off-contract plans are usually cheaper than on-contract plans. Verizon, AT&T, etc. just don't advertise their off-contract plans, so you have to ask for them explicitly.\
In T-Mobile's case, they're actually pushing the disadvantages of an on-contract plan (lock-in) with some of the advantages of an off-contract plan (cheaper bill, though I suspect still not as cheap).
Just got back from a Verizon store and wished I'd had this information. They told me that I had to pay the same price whether I had a prepaid phone or not.
I tried unsuccessfully to argue the logic with them that if they didn't need to subsidize the prepaid phone why couldn't they pass the savings through to me?
I was told by the manager that's the plan take it or leave it, so I left.
That's not clear from the website. The "value plans" page says in the footer:
> Credit approval, $35 per line activation fee, and two-year agreement with up to $200/line early cancellation fee required; deposit may apply. If you switch plans, you may be bound by existing or extended contract term (including early cancellation provisions) and/or charged a fee of up to $200.
What doesn't make sense right now is that their no-contract "Monthly4G" plans are a better value than the "value" plans. They have the same service levels at the same prices, but without the contract.
If 80% of their activations are choosing the value plans, are these people simply not noticing there's another option in the website menu? I can't imagine why you'd sign a contract for no benefit.