Carriers/TMobile

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In the United States, T-Mobile (an affiliate of Deutsche Telekom) offers GSM SIM cards on pre-pay and pay monthly plans.

T-Mobile also offers GSM service (with GPRS) in other countries, not yet listed in this article.

Contents

United States

A cursory glance on http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans at 08:58 UTC 2007-07-26 indicated that without entering zip code data two types of plans are available. 2-year contract plans (I think you have to talk to some for the 1 year plans) and Prepaid plans.

Contract Plans

  • 08:58 UTC 2007-07-26 It seemed to me all their contract plans are 2 year terms unless you try to get one by calling or visiting a store "For a 1-year contract, call 1-877-387-4324 or visit one of our T-Mobile stores" at the bottom of the page
  • 08:58 UTC 2007-07-26 They have either Individual/Regular Individual/MyFav Family/Regular or Family/MyFav plans
  • 08:58 UTC 2007-07-26 Mobile To Mobile "...Note: Service in North and South Carolina, Iowa (area codes 319, 563, and 712), Wisconsin (area code 608), and Michigan (area code 906) is provided by T-Mobile roaming partners so calls will not be rated as mobile-to-mobile in these areas. Calls from or to locations outside of the US will not be rated as mobile-to-mobile."
  • Needs more info..

Prepaid Plans

http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/Default.aspx?plancategory=4

  • Once you have spent $100 on minutes, you are a "gold" customer, your minutes don't expire for a year, and you get slightly better rates on the cheaper cards. Best to just dump $100 into it initially.
Refill value Premium Minutes Cost/Min Min Use Avoid Waste Expiration Gold Premium Minutes Gold Premium Expiration
$10 30min 33.3cent/min ~1min/3day avg 90days gold+5min gold+330days
$25 130min 19.2cent/min ~4min/3day avg 90days gold+20min gold+330days
$50 400min 12.5cent/min ~9min/2day avg 90days gold+60min gold+330days
$100 1000min 10.0cent/min 1year gold+0min gold+0days
  • 08:58 UTC 2007-07-26 You lose your number after 90 days of no service... "...To keep your mobile number active, refill within 90 days after your minutes expire. After 90 days, your account will be canceled and you will lose your phone number. If you want to restart service, you will need to activate new service."
  • Inside Information: If you want to buy prepaid plans, it is best to go with the $100 gold plan. The catch is there is a $10 activation fee, so you end up paying $110 to get a SIM card with 1000 minutes valid for 1 year. Their base line phone is $30 (2007-08-01) if you want a backup phone.
  • Look into the T-Mobile Flex plan: Pay as you go $39.99 for 1000 minutes, evenings and weekends free! No contracts (or so the salesman said). Still costs $20 to buy a sim card from the store.
  • T-mobile Flex-plan : It is the same as a plan (MyFav, Individual plan etc etc) expect you pay 5$ more, and there is no contract, you can quit whenever you want. You can add Sidekick on it if you want.
  • They demanded an ID card from me to set up a contract plan. Offering a $500 security deposit got the store manager to agree to go ahead, but the "activation center" refused. This was not an issue with prepaid plans.

Data Access Plans

  • T-Mobile does not offer data plans on pre-pay accounts Information from T-Mobile Store in the US on 2007-08-01
  • Presumably, there is data service on the Sidekick pre-pay plans, but it might require social engineering to get a Sidekick plan without a Sidekick. (Can anyone with a sidekick plan confirm or deny data service?)
  • GPRS data access in the US works fine with Phase 1 phone and instructions on Manually_using_GPRS
  • FIXME: Add information here
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