According to the T-Mo News website (that often breaks stories leaked
to them anonymously by T-Mo employees) T-Mo USA is restructuring
their phone data plans again.
All data plans will include unlimited data, but data speeds will be
throttled to "2G speed" after you use up your high-speed allotment.
200MB for $10, 2GB for $20, 5GB for $30, 10GB for $60.
Not too shabby. $5 less for the two tiers that match AT&Ts, and
overages are throttled rather than charged extra. If speed isn't a
concern, unlimited data is $10. Maybe I won't be needing that
grandfathered plan of mine after all. Since these plans are
smartphone compatible, they should even survive the AT&T buyout.
On 5/16/2011 9:02 PM, Todd Allcock wrote:
> According to the T-Mo News website (that often breaks stories leaked to
> them anonymously by T-Mo employees) T-Mo USA is restructuring their
> phone data plans again.
> All data plans will include unlimited data, but data speeds will be
> throttled to "2G speed" after you use up your high-speed allotment.
>
> 200MB for $10, 2GB for $20, 5GB for $30, 10GB for $60.
>
> Not too shabby. $5 less for the two tiers that match AT&Ts, and overages
> are throttled rather than charged extra. If speed isn't a concern,
> unlimited data is $10. Maybe I won't be needing that grandfathered plan
> of mine after all. Since these plans are smartphone compatible, they
> should even survive the AT&T buyout.
If they allow those plans to be grandfathered in after the buyout (if
the buyout happens) then it's a really good deal as long as they allow
full access to the AT&T 3G and LTE networks.
Don't you think that AT&T will get around this by limiting the T-Mobile
grandfathered plans to 3G only?
In article <4dd1f4c2$0$67543$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>, SMS says...
> If they allow those plans to be grandfathered in after the buyout (if
> the buyout happens) then it's a really good deal as long as they allow
> full access to the AT&T 3G and LTE networks.
Yeah? LTE won't do a damned thing for me and my HSPA+ T-Mobile
smartphone. Unless I'm missing something.
Of course, T-Mo's 3G coverage is spotty here in the mostly-rural Victor
Valley, and if the merger means I'll have access to AT&T 3G, that's a
good thing.
The good thing about the changes is, essentially, $30 for 5GB of full-
speed data is exactly the same price I'm paying now for 5GB of full-
speed data, and if I end up using a ton of data, I can upgrade to 10GB.
"SMS" <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in message
news:4dd1f4c2$0$67543$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net...
> On 5/16/2011 9:02 PM, Todd Allcock wrote:
>> According to the T-Mo News website (that often breaks stories leaked to
>> them anonymously by T-Mo employees) T-Mo USA is restructuring their
>> phone data plans again.
>> All data plans will include unlimited data, but data speeds will be
>> throttled to "2G speed" after you use up your high-speed allotment.
>>
>> 200MB for $10, 2GB for $20, 5GB for $30, 10GB for $60.
>>
>> Not too shabby. $5 less for the two tiers that match AT&Ts, and overages
>> are throttled rather than charged extra. If speed isn't a concern,
>> unlimited data is $10. Maybe I won't be needing that grandfathered plan
>> of mine after all. Since these plans are smartphone compatible, they
>> should even survive the AT&T buyout.
>
> If they allow those plans to be grandfathered in after the buyout (if the
> buyout happens) then it's a really good deal as long as they allow full
> access to the AT&T 3G and LTE networks.
>
> Don't you think that AT&T will get around this by limiting the T-Mobile
> grandfathered plans to 3G only?
Most likely. AT&T has already waffled, saying they'll let T-Mo customers
keep their existing plans even after the contracts expire and if they
upgrade to "comparable" equipment. Of course AT&T will be the ones defining
"comparable." Presumably LTE will not be comparable to anything T-Mo offers
up until they disappear. [Though I suppose one could try to argue that if
they have a "4G" (HSPA) T-Mo phone, an AT&T "4G" (LTE) phone is "comparable"
since they're both "4G."]
My cousin rode out his old grandfathered AT&TWS GSM Charter plan ($99
Unlimited voice) post Cingular/AT&T merger for a number of years until it
outlived its usefulness (eventually Verizon and AT&T offered $99 unlimited.)
I suspect that AT&T will leave the T-Mo customers alone for a few years
hoping new products and services will make the customer base willingly
switch to current plans (then they'll force the remaining hold-outs off when
the numbers get low enough to risk losing them, a la the old AT&T/Cingular
TDMA holdouts.)
On an unrelated note, I'd better watch my usage. I switched to a 3G T-Mo
phone (HTC HD2) running dual-boot WinMo 6.5 and Android 2.3 about a month
ago, and last month's data jumped from my usual 400-500MB to 1.8GB! That
included streaming one movie on 3G (Orson Wells' "The Third Man" on YouTube
Movies) which alone consumed 540MB!
I don't know how you keep your Droid under 100MB/month. Android seems to
suck data constantly whether the phone seems to be doing anything or not!
"Steve Sobol" <sjsobol@JustThe.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.283b9e42c1919bb5989741@news.justthe.net.. .
> In article <4dd1f4c2$0$67543$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>, SMS says...
>
>
>> If they allow those plans to be grandfathered in after the buyout (if
>> the buyout happens) then it's a really good deal as long as they allow
>> full access to the AT&T 3G and LTE networks.
>
> Yeah? LTE won't do a damned thing for me and my HSPA+ T-Mobile
> smartphone. Unless I'm missing something.
The problem would be in the future, when AT&T only sells LTE equipment, then
they can claim "these phones require 'special' rate plans not compatible
with your grandfathered T-Mo plan..."
AT&T has already admitted they'll be converting the 1700MHz T-Mo spectrum to
LTE at some point, so T-Mo 3G phones will eventually lose 3G capability
(since very few include 850/1900 UMTS/HSPA used by AT&T.) This means you'll
have to upgrade equipment, which is when AT&T can play the shell game
that'll trick T-Mo customers out of their plans. (See Cingular/AT&T,
Verizon/Alltel, et al!)
> Of course, T-Mo's 3G coverage is spotty here in the mostly-rural Victor
> Valley, and if the merger means I'll have access to AT&T 3G, that's a
> good thing.
Does your handset support 850 or 1900 3G? (I'm sure it's quad-band GSM, but
most T-Mo 3G handsets only support 1700 for T-Mo USA and 2100 for T-Mo
Europe, allowing them to sell the same handsets on both sides of "the
pond.")
> The good thing about the changes is, essentially, $30 for 5GB of full-
> speed data is exactly the same price I'm paying now for 5GB of full-
> speed data, and if I end up using a ton of data, I can upgrade to 10GB.
I'm a cheapskate. I suspect I'll eventually dial into the $10/200MB plan if
T-Mo tries to bump me off my GF'd $6 T-Zones data. I use quite a bit more
than 200MB, but I'm speed insensitive- most of my usage is email and
WAP/mobile web browsing, and until recently, I never used a T-Mo
3G-compatible phone, preferring unlocked handsets not sold by T-Mo. For me,
the single biggest advantage of 3G has been the ability to talk and and use
data at the same time. (Not that I use them simutaneously intentionally,
but in the past I've had a fair number of calls go directly to voice mail
when my 2G phones were busy fetching email or using navigation apps.)
> I don't know how you keep your Droid under 100MB/month. Android seems to
> suck data constantly whether the phone seems to be doing anything or not!
I only turn on mobile data when I need to use mobile data so there is no
"data leak." 11 days into my current month I have used 0.98MB of data. I
may switch to the pay as you go plan next month. Even at $1.20/MB it
would be cheaper.
I use a lot of data on the phone but it's nearly all Wi-Fi data. What
I've found, not only in Silicon Valley, but most places I go, is that
there is free or included Wi-Fi available. I don't hesitate to use 3G
data when it's all there is, but I don't have the desire or the time to
be watching movies or playing games on the phone.
I don't us "push" e-mail. I have my gmail account set up in a way that
makes pull e-mail work just fine for the times I need to check it on the
phone.
At 17 May 2011 07:16:54 -0700 SMS wrote:
> On 5/16/2011 10:08 PM, Todd Allcock wrote:
>
> > I don't know how you keep your Droid under 100MB/month. Android
> > seems to> > suck data constantly whether the phone seems to be doing
> > anything or not!
>
> I only turn on mobile data when I need to use mobile data so there is
> no "data leak." 11 days into my current month I have used 0.98MB of data.
> I may switch to the pay as you go plan next month. Even at $1.20/MB it
> would be cheaper.
I tried that on my prepaid T-Mo Comet, and the phone runs really
sluggishly unless it has a WiFi connection. I assume it's trying to
fetch data and failing, but between the lack of time to investigate and
me being an Android newb, I haven't figured it out yet.
> I use a lot of data on the phone but it's nearly all Wi-Fi data. What
> I've found, not only in Silicon Valley, but most places I go, is that
> there is free or included Wi-Fi available. I don't hesitate to use 3G
> data when it's all there is, but I don't have the desire or the time to
> be watching movies or playing games on the phone.
I'm guessing a lot of it is the widgets like Facebook, news, weather,
etc. When I get a chance I'll try stripping the phone to bare essentials.
> I don't us "push" e-mail. I have my gmail account set up in a way that
> makes pull e-mail work just fine for the times I need to check it on
> the phone.
Understood. I'm running the same push email accounts on WinMo and Android,
but Android just seems to use a lot more data "doing nothing*" than WinMo
ever did. I'm beginning to understand why T-Mo specifically blocks
Android from dumbphone data plans!
(*I realize it isn't "doing nothing"- I mean data use without direct user
interaction.)
On 5/17/2011 8:24 AM, me@privacy.net wrote:
> Todd Allcock<elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote:
>
>> All data plans will include unlimited data, but data speeds will be
>> throttled to "2G speed" after you use up your high-speed allotment.
>
> That is what Virgin Mobile is doing too I think
Yes, Virgin now caps the speed after 5GB of data. Of course, based on
reports of Virgin's uncapped data speeds, to cap the speed even more may
bring you down to that of a 300 baud acoustically coupled modem. Also,
the coverage on Virgin, for both voice and data, is limited to only the
Sprint native network--no roaming, not even at extra cost, not even just
for voice. Let's just say that Verizon and AT&T users are not beating a
path to Virgin's door for $25/month unlimited data.
What has been elusive is low-priced, high GB data on the Verizon or AT&T
network. If the acquisition of T-Mobile by AT&T goes through, there may
be a back door to this, at least temporarily. Realistically speaking, if
the merger goes through then Sprint is likely to go out of business, and
there will be a duopoly that will see no need to compete on price.
Straight Talk offers unlimited everything on AT&T but they offer no real
smart phones with their service so this limits the data usage by
default. Some people are putting the SIM card from the Straight Talk
phone into iPhones and Android phones, but they aren't supposed to be
doing this. There are reports on Howard Forums that accounts that use
excessive data are being flagged, and the users warned to stop using so
much data or risk account cancellation. StraightTalk seems to be walking
a fine line here, they could probably find a way to detect that the
handset being used is not one of their own and cancel the account, but
as long as the data usage is not excessive they probably don't want to
lose the revenue.
At 17 May 2011 10:24:33 -0500 me@privacy.net wrote:
> Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote:
>
> >All data plans will include unlimited data, but data speeds will be
> >throttled to "2G speed" after you use up your high-speed allotment.
>
> That is what Virgin Mobile is doing too I think
>
> But what exactly is 2G speed? How fast?
If my grandfathered plan has a cap, I've never hit it, AFAIK. According
to some folks at HowardForums.com, however, T-Mo knocks you down to 70-80k.
That's roughly what I've always got on T-Mo EDGE (although EDGE is
supposedly capable of more, I've always got between 70-90k in the "real
world.")
> Of course, T-Mo's 3G coverage is spotty here in the mostly-rural Victor
> Valley, and if the merger means I'll have access to AT&T 3G, that's a
> good thing.
The whole premise of wireless data in the U.S. seems to be that if you
want unlimited (or large quantity) data on AT&T or Verizon then you will
pay a lot for it. All the low cost data options are either a) unlimited
but on a lousy network, or b) small quantity on a good network.
A grandfathered plan of 200MB 3G plus unlimited 2G for $10, plus a $40
voice, on AT&T would be awesome--on T-Mobile it's much less awesome.
As Todd pointed out, AT&T will likely allow grandfathering, but when LTE
is fully deployed and HSDPA goes away then it will end by default, just
like all the cheap TDMA plans went away. Of course given the pace of
AT&T's LTE deployment this eventuality may matter only to our children.
"SMS" <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in message
news:4dd2d1b2$0$67580$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net...
> The whole premise of wireless data in the U.S. seems to be that if you
> want unlimited (or large quantity) data on AT&T or Verizon then you will
> pay a lot for it. All the low cost data options are either a) unlimited
> but on a lousy network, or b) small quantity on a good network.
>
> A grandfathered plan of 200MB 3G plus unlimited 2G for $10, plus a $40
> voice, on AT&T would be awesome--on T-Mobile it's much less awesome.
I've run into very few areas where I couldn't use data while roaming on a
T-Mo partner- I've even used data roaming on AT&T. The exceptions were
networks that have no data capability of their own (e.g. Verizon/Alltel's
GSM network inherited from Western Wireless. The network network exists
solely to snare GSM roaming revenue and has no customers of its own.)
I have noticed I can't roam on AT&T 3G even when available, however- I alway
get pushed back to EDGE, even when using an unlocked AT&T phone.
> As Todd pointed out, AT&T will likely allow grandfathering, but when LTE
> is fully deployed and HSDPA goes away then it will end by default, just
> like all the cheap TDMA plans went away. Of course given the pace of
> AT&T's LTE deployment this eventuality may matter only to our children.
I would hope that like voice and text, data has also become a commodity by
then!
On Tue, 17 May 2011 10:24:33 -0500, me@privacy.net wrote:
> ...
>
> But what exactly is 2G speed? How fast?
Here's some data points en route to an answer.
Currently, in Watsaw, using an unlocked Sierra Wireless USBConnect dongle
originally produced for at&t, with an Orange (aka Centertel) prepaid data
SIM, I find that in 3G service (nominal 7.2 Mbps HSDPA service) I tend to
see DL speeds of 200-250 KB/s, while in non-3G service I see DLs at 20-50
KB/s. Are the latter EDGE speeds? UMTS speeds? -- dunno. But 2G? Yup! :-) .
What I do know is that it's all at least as fast as what I get at home
from my (admittedly slow) "Basic" DSL service from at&t (nominal 768 kbps).
[NB: My "bps" is short for "bits per sec.", "B/s" for "bytes per sec.".)
What is annoying is that DNS keeps going down and sometimes not coming up
again until after a disconnect/reconnect cycle on the USBConnect service.
"Todd Allcock" <elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote in message
news:iquao7$idv$1@dont-email.me...
> At 17 May 2011 10:24:33 -0500 me@privacy.net wrote:
>> Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote:
>>
>> >All data plans will include unlimited data, but data speeds will be
>> >throttled to "2G speed" after you use up your high-speed allotment.
>>
>> That is what Virgin Mobile is doing too I think
>>
>> But what exactly is 2G speed? How fast?
>
> If my grandfathered plan has a cap, I've never hit it, AFAIK. According
> to some folks at HowardForums.com, however, T-Mo knocks you down to
> 70-80k.
> That's roughly what I've always got on T-Mo EDGE (although EDGE is
> supposedly capable of more, I've always got between 70-90k in the "real
> world.")
I'd go for that because on a WM6 device I can still listen to streaming
audio at that speed and if I set the Slingplayer to a Video bitrate to 20 I
could still use that program too.
Tiered Data done right... 
Linear Mode
