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Comment by kevingadd | Hacker News Reader

AT&T are scum and this sort of stuff is standard practice with them. You shouldn't be giving them your money if you can avoid it.

If you've got a GSM phone with the right radio bands, I suggest taking a look at the $30 plans here: http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/monthly-4g-plans

For CDMA I believe Sprint and Verizon offer prepaid plans without contracts at around $50 for talk/data.

The key is that IMO, a prepaid plan makes the terms of the arrangement clear, and if the carrier decides to try and overstep their boundaries, you can cut them off. They don't have the ability to take you to collections or withdraw from your account or increase your bill behind your back.

Of course, if T-Mobile tries to screw with you as a prepaid customer, they've got some leverage since your only alternative is AT&T. Not so great. Still, better than nothing...

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I love T-Mobile, and not just for their sane plans and prices. They are also, you know, nice to me. Every time I have called their support they have been friendly, competent, and helpful. I have never gotten even 1 of 3 from any of the other carriers.

Seriously T-Mobile, come up with more excuses for me to give you money.

It's funny how nice these corporations seem to act when breaking into new markets. Ask an european about T-Mobile and he will tell you pretty much the same stories that you tell about AT&T.

It is my goal to support the most desirable company in any market. Don't think that I would hesitate for a second to change carriers if T-Mobile stopped being nice, competent, and helpful and AT&T stopped being jerks and offering reasonable plans and policies. Vote with your wallet and all that, and right now, T-Mobile is the only cell phone service provider that I am aware of that doesn't suck in my market.

The tragedy - at least in my experience - is that in the long run they're really all the same. "Trust us, we want only your best! (your money)".

I can only second kevingadd's advice to try and not tie yourself to one with a longterm contract. The fewer customers they have locked in, the more careful they have to be about not pissing them off.

> their support they have been friendly, competent, and helpful

I've been a tmobile customer since 2007. In the middle of last year I took my line from a family plan into an individual plan. That involved speaking to 7 different people (several of whom contradicted each other as they then forwarded me to the next one) and being hung up on 3 times (as they messed up the transfers).

Then the bills I started getting were truly bizarre with numerous unspecified additional charges and credits. (My very first bill had 5 regulatory fees!) At one point when I called in again, the rep took 80 minutes to figure out the bill (ie what the various numbers were for) and then another 30 minutes dealing with the ones that shouldn't be there. It didn't help that what customers are shown on their bills and what the reps get to see are not the same, and took about 15 minutes to establish that.

Around the new year they sent an email saying that you could make impossible to have slamming, except of course they took about 7 paragraphs to say that. They said it could be disabled on the website, so off I went. I couldn't figure it out since there was absolutely no setting with text remotely similar to their email. Their rep couldn't find it either and had me call back again during business hours where another person first picked 2 other settings that couldn't possibly be it, before finally settling on "Block Content Downloads" as being the setting which doesn't match up its description.

TLDR: I would be pleased to encounter the same competence you did, and would be far more pleased if things worked so I never had to call in the first place. Whenever people talk about how good someone's support is, they never seem to express the negative that they had to call in the first place.

To piggy-back off this: My family left T-Mobile because we didn't get reception in the 1st floor of our house. The last monthly bill was for 8 days of service out of 31, so it should have been prorated, but wasn't - they charged us for the whole month, despite automatically detecting the date we ended service. The rep said that this was just how their "system" handled mid-month terminations.

My point is not that T-Mobile sucks, but that all cell providers will provide delightful fair service to many, and cheat and piss off some. Take it with a grain of salt when someone says that one company is "scum."

Same here, I canceled my plan mid-month and T-Mobile sent me a bill for the whole month. However, I gave them a call and they simply took the entire month off, I didn't even have to pay for the days of the month I used. I called them again a month later to make sure I don't have any outstanding balance, and my account was all paid off.

Yeah, I switched to AT&T from T-Mobile and T-Mobile charged me for the whole upcoming month even though I made sure to switch over on the last day of my billing cycle. It was cheaper for me to just pay it then fight it...

T-Mobile is my favorite cellular provider in the US by far and I used them for years before starting work (company pays for phone and Verizon has the best network).

They made having a smartphone affordable and made it easy to upgrade by reselling your unlocked phone online (recouping most of the unsubsidized cost).

Second all of that. Also their data plans are nice, if you exceed it (which I do sometimes via tethering, which also just works with T-Mobile), you're not cut off just rate-limited, and to a rate that's still fine for browsing websites, just not for watching Youtube.

At this point it isn't even about the data anymore, it's the simple fact that they're "choosing a plan" for me, without any input from me. Absolutely baffling.

I'll check out those options. Thanks.

If you're out of contract, why can't you just ditch them for another carrier? (or at least threaten to - it may make them more amenable to your very reasonable requests)

> If you've got a GSM phone with the right radio bands, I suggest taking a look at the $30 plans here: http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/monthly-4g-plans

Keep in mind the top $30 plan (unlimited data) requires you to activate a new phone that you have to buy from Walmart.

I've got that plan on my Nexus 4, bought from the Google Play store. It's not Walmart exclusive, it's only available at Walmart or T-Mobile's website.

Yes, however you can order the (micro, if applicable) SIM activation kit online for $0.99 and free shipping. If you can't wait then your only option is picking up a SIM card kit from a T-Mobile store for $20.

T-Mobile stores no longer sell SIM card kits; you must buy them online.

You can also regularly get a T-Mobile prepaid phone of some variant for $20 at Walgreens, which comes with the "Activation Kit" (SIM card and secret number) as well as a terrible GSM-only phone you can throw away.

They do sell SIM cards, I was at a T-Mobile store yesterday. I don't understand the rationale for selling SIM cards in-store at 20 times the cost of buying online.

If you are charming like me you can get a SIM card at a T-Mobile store for free (did so last week in SF). Everything is negotiable.

I picked up a SIM card for my new Nexus 4 in-store a couple of weeks ago. Just walked in, told them what I needed, was promptly given a card for $0.

This is not true at all. I am on the $30 plan on a Galaxy Nexus purchased through the play store. You can order your sim card for the plan from T-Mobile now as well as Walmart.

It does not require a phone from WalMart. I ordered a new SIM card from t-mobile.com and activated it with the $30 plan. However, you cannot get it in T-Mobile stores.

I tried to do the same, but I can't activate the plan because my sim card is not activated. If I go into a store, they can't activate the Walmart Plan. How did you do it?

"I can't activate the plan because my sim card is not activated"

When you order the sim from T-mobile directly, you can activate it. You can purchase it online from them for 99 cents.

They let me activate it in the store. Just ask politely and they'll do it.

Not accurate, actually, though I understand your confusion. I ordered a SIM from them a few weeks ago (on the website) and then activated my phone with one of those plans. No Walmart.

Went to T-Mobile store friday, they sold me a microsim for my nexus 4 and told me to go to the walmart down the street to activate the $30 plan. I tried calling customer support but they also told me to go to walmart to get the plan.

I get to walmart and they tell me I have to buy one of their shitty phones to activate the plan. I call customer support again and asked if I could return the sim I bought at the store, and they said "it depends on the store."

Lied to and pissed off customer here. Just ordered a sim online and we'll see how that goes. I'm going to try to get a refund for this card anyway.

The 99cent sim on their site works fine.

As much as I'm happy with my T-Mobile experience I'm not sure I'd call them nice. According to Consumer Reports Verizon is the clear leader in customer service overall, with T-Mobile and AT&T not that different for most people.

What separates T-Mobile is that they're much less evil. Things like making pre-paid cards easy, giving you a discount if you're not on a plan, not going to bat in Congress for SOPA etc. They may be stupid or unfeeling sometimes, but they never seem to be actively opposed to one's freedom like the other big carriers are.

Telcos like AT&T are scum and they have a thousand shady ways to get money out of customers. But I don't think this is one of them.

There is no way to use a smartphone without using data. Smartphone OSs use data in the background for so many things, for even voicemail. So, in this case, I think they are justified in adding a data plan. It is near impossible to use iOS or android without data, even when using them without any apps.

>> There is no way to use a smartphone without using data?

Er, turn off mobile data and rely on wi-fi. Calls and texts still work and your phone will behave as if you are roaming abroad (i.e if you crack and turn on mobile data, prepare to open your wallet).

Before you get a chance to go to settings app and turn off mobile data, the OS probably already made 10 data requests to check 20 settings. It is data call. Whether the telco should count that as data and charge for it is a different question.

So.. change the setting before you put the sim in?

And if they don't have data in the plan the carrier by default just doesn't forward the packets

That must be possible I guess

The first thing I did with my galaxy nexus was turn off mobile data, and I haven't turned it back on since. It's not that hard.

Ah, but why do that when you can just charge usurious rates for those who don't have the "benefit" of a data plan?

AT&T (and most of the wireless industry) are merely toll-gate operators - they are very good at making sure you pay for any usage - even the usage you didn't want to make (ie, receiving an MMS on your non-data flip phone that you didn't intend - sorry, that's $2).

So? It's not necessary. It's not like your phone wont work without service.

Reading that i think that the worst offender is the iphone that keeps phoning home. Not that at&t is not wrong as well. just that the iphone manges to screw the user even more.

if apple hadn't bent over so badly to allow telcos to screw the customers with the whole tethering fiasco (which is still going on. unbelievable. all you sheeple giving out free money) they wouldn't even know you had a special needs phone.

Well, the phone does not phone home per se but AT&T analyses the IMEI number. In Sweden if you try to use data without a balance it simply does not work. What AT&T is doing is simply wrong, throwing services down OPs throat.

If you turn off data on the iPhone it does no phoning home.

If it did phone home when data is turned off explicitly then I'd have been completely and utterly screwed by AT&T for the month I spent in Europe.

right... doesn't that void the purpose of having a smart phone to begin with?

what if i need to use data and plan to control how much i use? As i did on all my travels for the first day or two until i could secure a local SIM card.

If you turn off the data your phone is as good as a dumb phone it can not use data at all unless you are on a wifi network.

> it can not use data at all unless you are on a wifi network.

Which is >95% of the time for me, and many people.

If you turn the data off on say, an iPhone, it's as good as say, an iPod touch with calling capabilities, which is really all a lot of people want.

I would love a phone that only made cell calls and texts and used wifi for everything else. I suspect most people would too.

AT&T are scum and this sort of stuff is standard practice with them.

"Them" is almost all wireless companies, what Verizon does, AT&T follows soon and vice-versa so consumers cannot penalize them. Startup costs are in the tens of billions and you have to fight incumbents so they essentially have a monopoly (or duopoly, or...)

AT&T is a company providing a service for a price. They are not scum.

I've used AT&T for many years. I'm not always delighted with every policy - the now changed policy of refusing to unlock out of contract iPhones was a particular bone. However I have almost always been satisfied with the service and have had no problem contacting them to correct billing issues.

Why people feel entitled to services at the price they choose is beyond me. Telecom is a competitive market. Just because someone somewhere can get cheaper service doesn't mean you deserve the same.

In the last 15 years we've gone from Dewey decimal to better than Hitchhiker's Guide. Stop your bitching and appreciate what you have. Your ungratefulness is likely to bring a well deserved meteor strike leaving you with fewer telecom options.

> Why people feel entitled to services at the price they choose is beyond me. Telecom is a competitive market.

Because it isn't a competitive market. Wireless telecoms have been granted licenses to spectrum by the FCC so they can run their businesses. There's a limited amount of spectrum and it's hard for new companies to get any of it. The wireless telecoms industry is anything but competitive.

There are at least 3 major nationwide providers competing against each other on service and price. There are also many secondary local providers and providers renting networks from the national providers.

How is that not competitive?

You can't take a unlocked GSM phone onto Verizon or Sprint. You can't take a Verizon phone onto Sprint. You can't take a Sprint phone onto Verizon.

The only carrier you can choose with GSM is T-Mobile. But wait, they use the 1900MHz 3G band, so if you've got a phone that doesn't use that band, you're stuck with EDGE data.

LTE won't change this, they've chosen different bands.

You can however sell your phone and buy one for a different network. iPhones in particularly have a very high resale value, and regardless the phone you bought maintains its market value and is resalable.

Telecom networks are extremely expensive to build. Having more than a few on the same technology would be wasteful, and consumers benefit from a diversity of technologies in the long run in addition to some level of network compatibility.

But seriously, don't like your network? Sell your phone on eBay and buy a different one that works on a different network. How hard is that?

"Competitive" is not binary. Yes, 4 networks is better than 1, but it's not like you have 30 choices.

Even with MVNOs, there aren't many real options. If Verizon were GSM it'd be a lot better, but as of now you are really locked in.

Your phone is freely salable. You are not locked in.

Its not competitive when everyone is locked in 2 year contacts. Want a true competitive market, get rid of contacts and force people to buy their phones.

There are thousands of people each day signing up for NEW 2 year contracts. The telcos compete for those new and renewing customers.

>Why people feel entitled to services at the price they choose is beyond me

Did you read the article? ATT detected he had a smartphone and upgraded his plan to include data, forcibly. That's like GM saying, oh we've detected your car comes with OnStar and are activating the OnStar plan. If you don't like it, you're more than free to sell your car.

The phones are slightly cheaper, but the point stands. Good analogy.

Except you can switch to a different provider. You are not forced to do anything. If AT&T wants to have this requirement, that's their choice, just as it's your choice to use T-Mobile, Verizon, or Sprint.

You can't switch to Verizon or Sprint with a GSM phone.

> Your ungratefulness is likely to bring a well deserved meteor strike leaving you with fewer telecom options.

I was perfectly happy with my previous contract. If I'm being "ungrateful" for the privilege of getting charged extra for a service I didn't agree to, then I guess we have different definitions of gratefulness.

You keep saying your got "a service <you> didn't agree to", but, of course, you did agree to it. You didn't understand what you were agreeing to, but you accepted all of AT&T terms and conditions as you signed up for their service. And this is hardly news, as AT&T forced data plans on smart phones on Sept 6, 2009.

http://gizmodo.com/5342749/att-forcing-data-plans-with-all-s...

They have a humorous justification: to keep their customers from having massive data bills by accident. Yeah, right...

The key to having a WiFi only smartphone on AT&T is stealth. You must keep a dumb phone around to switch to as necessary, and then you can sneak a smartphone on the network that has never been seen by AT&T as a smartphone. For example, you might buy a T-Mobile (only) unlocked smartphone and then put your AT&T SIM card into it. Be sure to disable all the data network interfaces first thing, as they may give you away. You can buy a dumb phone to AT&T to verify for $15 on sales from GoPhone, or any number of other prepaid phones.

I would be interested to know if now, ab initio, AT&T is able to detect that a specific IMEI number is a smartphone. I think the worldwide range of IMEI numbers is too vast for that to work, and thank goodness T-Mobile didn't merge with AT&T.

You have a choice. Switch to T-Mobile.

Regardless, calling AT&T scum is out of line. You are not mandated to purchase their services.

I never called them scum. Not my words.

"Why people feel entitled to services at the price they choose is beyond me."

Sometimes, it's crazy, but people expect real competition versus oligopolists that mostly collude between themselves and show zero concern for regulatory action.

I pay about $14 a month for 800 talk minutes and 300mb data. There is real competition in a few countries, we should expect that in the free market USA.

Totally agreed. Deregulation and competition are pretty at odds.

> the now changed policy of refusing to unlock out of contract iPhones was a particular bone

> Telecom is a competitive market.

Can you appreciate the dissonance between these two statements?

That AT&T changed their policy due to competitive pressures? Not very dissonant.

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