There are rumors that T-Mobile and Target are partnering to offer a pre-paid plan through Target stores. $50/mo for unlimited talk/text and 1GB of LTE data.

http://www.tmonews.com/2013/10/new-l...repaid-tie-up/

Has anyone used a pre paid plan with a Iphone 5S? I was thinking about getting a Airvoice sim, and cutting it down to a nano size and using it for family visiting from abroad. Thinking about Brightspot as well. Thoughts?

Good luck to Target shareholders on corporate efforts to launch their own branded prepaid plan over T-Mo's HSPA+/4G network, launched officailly earlier this month known as "Brightspot"

The lowest plan is $35/mo with unlimited calling & text, data is added on extra - great for those who talk & do SMS, not for broadband access. In big cities like NY, T-Mo's network around our house is actually faster than VZW/big red's 4G LTE. Using Brightspot will cost as much as T-Mo's regular Un-carrier plan with bring you own device plan, differences are subtle & in the fine prints. Walmart's Straight Talk plan is cheaper, perhaps - difference is $5 a month or so.

AT&T's prepaid, Gophone with its 4G LTE network is supposed to be better & preferred, and cost a bit more @ $60/mo. - month to month also, no contract & no credit check.

Most of the prepaid plan, if not all, does not roam outside of the US, not even in Mexico or Canada (my old Gophone/AT&T prepaid does, however until I dropped it 2 years ago) - thus, all calls going to the phone #'s with prepaid will go to voicemail & not forwarded as roaming call, and, you can't call from the Caribbeans (except in places like St. Thomas, USVI) using these plans.

I've been on VZW's CDMA network for the longest time (17 years continuously) but now that 2 of the lines are going to be off contract in less than a month, I've been re-thinking about options & might just bail out & port the numbers over to GSM carrier, still debating AT&T vs. T-Mo, postpaid vs. prepaid. Our last 2 Android upgrades costs were minimal but now that Big Red will not waive upgrade/activation fees & continue to shrink the subsidies for their better devices on both the Android & iOS platforms, thinking seriously about the ease & popularity of GSM sim cards to almost all of the places we travel to & visit - it's going to save us $$$ especially when I have full access to Fios networks at the offices and at home.

Anyone using AirVoice ?

how is the speed compared to regular AT+T service , is it full speed or ????

how do they calculate data ?

anything else to look at ?

AT+Ts signal is good around here and AirVoice $10 plan would work for me :)

Used the T-Mobile $30 mo plan includes unlimited data* text and 100 mins. It only runs 2G. Need to find something with faster 3g or possibly a cheap 4G option in the USA for a visiting relative. iPhone 4s.

Re:T-mobile $30 plan
 

Wrong. If there is 3G or LTE available, the $30 pre-pay plan will use it. I'm on it many times a day with no problems. Of course your phone must be able to and set to use 3G or LTE, and your battery use will go up considerably on LTE. I normally have mine set to 3G and only if I need a large (> 50MB) download or upload will I switch it to LTE. Oh, and I "think" that Iphones are precluded from LTE, but that 3G should work- not sure since I use a Nesus 5 on android.

Called T M, they said it would only allow 2g on this phone. The phone is a unlocked UK iPhone 4s. I looked at my local coverage on TM, shows 3g, but I'm getting .10mbps. Very slow. Thinking of PTel now, they are TM as well, but I think they allow the faster speeds? Same phone, so hope that the frequency works on 3 or 4g.

The $30 TMobile plan does allow 3g and LTE if the phone is compatible (FYI Ptel is 3g only, no LTE). The issue is that your phone doesn't support the 3g bands for TMobile in most areas (1700/2100). You can get 3g in TMobile areas that have been refarmed to 1900 but those are limited. You should look into one of the AT&T MVNOs. Straight talk, AIO, H2O, net10 are examples.

Thanks for the suggestions. I will look at one of ATTs MVNO's!

Would I be better off using a nexus 4 (1700/2100) than a nexus 5 (2100) for t mobile in the US then, or would i not notice much difference?

The Nexus 4 will support TMobile 3g but has no LTE (officially anyway). The Nexus 5 has 2 variants for North America and "rest of the world." They both support TMobile 3g bands equally, but only the NA version has the correct LTE bands for TMobile - so if you have a European N5 you'll only get 3g.

TL;DR: it shouldn't be any different because you will only have 3g either way

UK people can now pick up a Three PAYG SIM at home, and use the allowance in the USA. So for £15, you get unlimited data when roaming in the US for a month. A bargain especially if you are already on Three. :D

Link

Very interesting - many thanks for posting!

You're welcome. Edited slightly to add it's £15 for a month if on PAYG

I can't find the $30 T-Mobile plan any more. Is it dead?

Any good alternatives for data and a bit of SMS?