
19-05-2008, 00:46
Nobody seems to have mentioned the Tmobile alternative: FlexPay. Of course Tmobile only has EDGE working in most areas, but the Flexpay method is a reasonable alternative to prepaid.
Basically FlexPay is an intermediate payment arrangement between prepaid and postpaid (with contract). Flexpay allows you to choose normal postpaid plans, but without a contract (and of course no subsidized phone purchase either).
Here's what I did: went to a Tmobile store and signed up for the most basic voice plan $30/mo for 300AT PLUS unlimited Tzones data for $6/mo. With taxes, it comes out to be about $40/mo. They normally want to tack on an extra $5/mo BUT if you give them a credit card number, this charge is waive. There is no activation fee and they give you a new SIM with a new number.
So that's $40. No contract. I paid them for ONE month of VOICE+DATA (unlimited). I never paid them again. BTW the data STILL works. I never canceled the account either.
So one $40 payment and I got 300AT minutes for one month and unlimited Tmobile data for the past 8 months.
Now the $6 Tzone data is a little squirrelly -- it is proxied web + email and no other ports. If you need full data, it is $20 instead of $6 (so the total would be about $57 instead of $40). But if all you need is web+email, then the $6 Tzones is fine (and there *is* a way to get stuff like Slingbox by playing with ports).
Anyways, it is a pretty cheap way to get unlimited data on Tmobile for a few months. (And if you feel bad about the arrangement, you can always pay Tmobile $40/mo, which still isn't too bad for unlimited data without a contract).
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