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Comment by freehunter | Hacker News Reader

I would be willing to pay for this service here in the US for a reasonable price. There are plenty of things I would love a low-end data plan for, but can't justify the cost of $45/mo for prepaid data at 1.5GB/mo like Net10 offers. Think of electronics projects that could benefit from an anywhere, always on connection even if it's super slow. But is that project worth $45/mo, and is it worth it if you run out of data before the end of the month?

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They have an unlimited plan for $30 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6148698

Had. [EDIT: Er, Have. With apologies, see below discussion.]

I'm paying $25/mo for a limited no-contract BYOB plan. They're still taking my money for it, but I'm a little scared, since I can no longer find it on the site.

Over the last six months, I've seen T-Mobile BYOD plans at $15, 25, 30, 35, 45, and up. Now, you can't get any plan from T-Mobile under $50 per month, and that "cheap" plan comes with less high speed data than they've typically offered for less.

They're killing the value of the plans while rebranding throttling as "unlimited" so it sounds like a perk. "Yeah, use all of our awful throttled data you like. Be our guest!"

Someone should put the old plans, like the one you link to, side by side with the new ones. I don't think so many people would still think this is a win for consumers or competition.

* I've found 1.5 GB is more than enough for email, Wikipedia, and the rare voice call - if I'm settled in somewhere to watch Netflix, I always seem to have wifi.

The still have that plan - http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans it's just a bit hidden.

Wow, but that is some very stealthy work.

T-Mobile isn't exactly going out of its way to let people know this exists. It's not featured in the way you do for a plan you envision as the future cornerstone of the business.

Well, to be fair, it's officially a walmart plan - http://see.walmart.com/t-mobile/

I have this plan. Had to call customer service to get them to honor it. Bit of a hassle, but they did it. It's not available in their regular plan settings; clearly they'd rather people buy the more expensive plan with unlimited minutes instead. I won't be particularly surprised if they discontinue it at some point soon. For the time being, the plan meets my needs quite well though.

$30/mo for 5GB 4G (then I assume 2G after) is quite a deal! If the minutes were higher, I'd use this as my primary provider. As a data-only plan though, that's not too bad!

Yes. It is quite a deal. I pay .10 per minute after the small allocation is used up, but I've only use all 100 minutes twice in the last year I've had this plan.

If I were less lazy and needed more minutes, I'd setup grooveip (or something similar) with my google voice account.

I use my phone quite a bit due to having a widely dispersed family and an upcoming wedding. I also occasionally use my phone for work, but do not get reimbursed for the cost. You have this plan? Do they do the "nights and weekends free" thing? Do they charge for "in network" calls?

I'm actually seriously thinking about switching, as my Net10 experience is sub-par compared to an actual carrier, and $30/mo is better than $45/mo no matter how you split it. 100 minutes is just too low for me, though. I love my Windows Phone, but that means no Google Voice or realistic VOIP offering.

I've had this plan for a bit over a year. No nights and weekends free. I don't even think there is free in network calling, but I'm not sure.

It's really not a good plan if you use a lot of minutes, but for people like me, it's great.

Donating to GVGW ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6524728 ) to use the GSM codec combined with csipsimple ( http://code.google.com/p/csipsimple/ ) has actually been surprisingly usable over HSPA+.

First link wrong? Seems like a useful service.

https://simonics.com/gvgw/

That's the one! I don't know how I missed that...

3G after

Not 3G, EDGE.

You're right, it's not 3G:

    Me:  On a plan that says "First N GB at 4G speeds", what
         speed do I get after I hit the cap?

    Rep: Once the allotted high-speed data has been used
         speeds will be throttled down to our 2G speeds.
         This would be comparable to about twice the speed
         of dial-up which translates to about 100 kbps.

Thanks for the correction!

I just called in to activate this plan (I'm already on a prepaid TMO plan). I couldn't get it on the phone, but the CSR told me that I could order the activation kit from walmart.com, call in, and activate it using the code from the kit. The code can be applied to either a new line or an existing line. The kit sells for ~$30 but includes $30 of service.

Here's the kit: http://www.walmart.com/ip/T-Mobile-SIM-Kit/24099996

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