FFPguy

Hey,

I tried searching the forum and I saw a suggestion for using an unlocked iPhone in the US with a data plan (on T-Mobile). It was posted up in July last year and said that changing the APN to hiptop.t-mobile.com would let me use the Sidekick Prepaid plan for unlimited data in the US. It worked for me last summer but when I went back to the US last Christmas it stopped working.

Does anyone know if this still works? If not, is there another way for me to get voice+data with a pre-paid US SIM card? I already have a T-Mobile number from last summer/christmas and it would be great if I could keep that number.

Thanks in advance, FlyerTalk!

LV702

It's 3:30 am where am I, so I can't offer much help.. That being said I vaguely remember seeing something on the t-mobile forums.

Hope that can help. If I have time later I'll try some more digging.

ScottC

Quite a lot of other threads on this topic. I suggest following this one:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...t=prepaid+data

SuperSnoop

Short answer: No.

T-Mobile disabled the data usage on iPhones using the sidekick plan last August.

garyschmitt

I'm looking into the same thing. This is what I've found so far:

AT&T has DataConnect for Tablets (250MB) for $15. It's a lousy price by international standards, but seems to be a very good for the US. My question is why is this "for Tablets"? Do they have any way of enforcing that? I would like to put that chip in a smartphone, and avoid their $50+ smartphone data plans.

net10 (strangely) charges 1 minute of talk time for each minute of data (ref). Obviously that's a lousy price if you just check your email, but seems like a great price if you're streaming a lot of data continuously over the whole minute. That's probably an atypical use on a smartphone, but if that works for you, net10 sims can be obtained apart from the phone (or so I hear).

Straight Talk is a Tracfone/net10 service that gives unlimited data for one month for $45. Also lousy by international standards, but I think that's the cheapest per unit of prepaid data that I've recently seen in the US. I heard tracfone sims exist, so perhaps this can work with one of those.

The wiki for prepaid data plans Internationally shows even worse U.S. prices, so indeed it's still not a good time to need prepaid data in the U.S.

nmenaker

Some people have had luck with a gophone SIM from AT&T, working on an iphone. One has to enable it on another device though first, you can buy a cheap gophone at AT&T, have the monthly no limit data enabled and then pop it into an iphone.

garyschmitt

AT&T sims can be activated on the web. So last time I was in the US, AT&T gave me a few sealed sims at no cost. I expect to be able to activate one of them on the web and topup online, and then put it in my unlocked phone. I want something that works as soon as I land.

Will that work?

GUWonder

It's easier than that.
T-mobile allows for it under pay by the day plans. No sidestep/sidekick plan required. It has issues if you are roaming in places, but otherwise works.

LIH Prem

t-mo now has $30/$50/$70 per month no-contract plans.

http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/monthly-4g-plans

I think you can buy the $30 plan on walmart.com, but it's currently down. It says new activations only for that plan.

I wonder if I can convert from payG to the $30 monthly plan? Seems like a bargain.

-David

garyschmitt

The full price list is on the wiki, which includes daily rates as well. But once you actually try to purchase at t-mobile.com, the price jumps to $45, and the volume allowance drops. They have to charge you for that "free sim chip" somehow. Then a couple shopping steps later t-mobile adds a "one-time activation fee" of $35, bringing the starting price up to $80 for 200MB.

Kinda like buying airfare.. price goes up with each step of the checkout process

When walmart.com is back online we can see whether the deal is entirely bogus. Although I suspect walmart.com wouldn't ship internationally anyway. I just checked t-mobile.com, and they are incapable of international shipping.

LIH Prem

The $30 plan is unlimited text and "web". (first 5GB at 4G speeds.) with 100 minutes of voice. That's what made it intriguing to me. I never use 100 mins of voice in a month and you can bet I will be texting more that calling if I had this plan.

Next time I go to Walmart I will check it out there, but I'm thinking the way to go might be to buy the $10 phone and set it up as a new activation, if they don't want to let me convert, though I haven't even called to ask about converting yet. There's some text on the site about what happens if you convert and then convert back to payG (the per minute price reverts back to 15 cents or lower if you had a lower price before you upconverted.)

Definitely plenty of unanswered questions at this point.

Somebody on FT will eventually try it and let us know. Maybe me

-David