iPhone 5 & T-Mobile's $30 Plan

heyload2

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This plan is 100 minutes period. It doesn't matter what number you call or receive from, it counts as a minute. Not really a big deal as my son almost never talks on his phone. From looking at his usage, he uses about 7-10 minutes a month, 2000-3000 texts a month and about 2gb of data a month. This plan should work out well.

My saving $17 a month is just part of the equation and not the main thrust of my desire to switch to this plan. The whole concept here is to spin him off to his own plan that he can assume the responsibility for. He will be starting college this summer and have to live on an allowance. This will be one of the monthly expenses that he will have to plan for covering within that allowance. I know, first world problems. It's tough being him, getting a free ride from my dad for college with an allowance to boot!

Androidluvr2, thanks for doing all of that research! I really appreciate it. I'm sure it was a lot of work. I decided to take the plunge with T-Mobile. Walmart and T-Mobile both wanted $10 for the sim activation kit. It turns out that you can buy a T-mobile sim pre-cut to nano size off of Amazon. The seller had quite a few good comments from people using them in iPhone 5's successfully. This alleviates my need to get the cutter and do it myself and possibly botch the whole thing.
 

bobbob1016

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I got this plan with my 4S. It took a little effort, as the person at Walmart said I had to call TMo, and TMo had to bump me between departments. However, they were able to do it, and I am getting 3G (in greater Fort Lauderdale on their 1900mhz network). Now 4G after the carrier update.
 

vilmatic

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I got this plan with my 4S. It took a little effort, as the person at Walmart said I had to call TMo, and TMo had to bump me between departments. However, they were able to do it, and I am getting 3G (in greater Fort Lauderdale on their 1900mhz network). Now 4G after the carrier update.

Great! I'm in Miami so I'd probably get similar coverage. However, 100 minutes just isn't enough. I was hoping it was 100 for landline and the rest unlimited somewhat.
 

androidluvr2

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My saving $17 a month is just part of the equation and not the main thrust of my desire to switch to this plan. The whole concept here is to spin him off to his own plan that he can assume the responsibility for. He will be starting college this summer and have to live on an allowance. This will be one of the monthly expenses that he will have to plan for covering within that allowance. I know, first world problems. It's tough being him, getting a free ride from my dad for college with an allowance to boot!
I respect what you are doing by trying to get him to begin the process of assuming responsibility for himself.

My attitude is, I will get you through college but then you are on your own and you better realize how lucky you are that your parents can get you through college. Lots of kids aren't so lucky.
 

mab4285

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This plan is 100 minutes period. It doesn't matter what number you call or receive from, it counts as a minute. Not really a big deal as my son almost never talks on his phone. From looking at his usage, he uses about 7-10 minutes a month, 2000-3000 texts a month and about 2gb of data a month. This plan should work out well.

My saving $17 a month is just part of the equation and not the main thrust of my desire to switch to this plan. The whole concept here is to spin him off to his own plan that he can assume the responsibility for. He will be starting college this summer and have to live on an allowance. This will be one of the monthly expenses that he will have to plan for covering within that allowance. I know, first world problems. It's tough being him, getting a free ride from my dad for college with an allowance to boot!

Androidluvr2, thanks for doing all of that research! I really appreciate it. I'm sure it was a lot of work. I decided to take the plunge with T-Mobile. Walmart and T-Mobile both wanted $10 for the sim activation kit. It turns out that you can buy a T-mobile sim pre-cut to nano size off of Amazon. The seller had quite a few good comments from people using them in iPhone 5's successfully. This alleviates my need to get the cutter and do it myself and possibly botch the whole thing.

Is there a reason you just don't keep him on the family plan and then make him pay you each month?
 

memmerp

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Actually T-Mobile doesn't have contracts anymore, so you should be able to throw down 99 bucks, get the iphone 5 and get him the 50 dollar plan for the first month only. After that, since there aren't anymore contracts, switch the plan back over to pre-paid and you can then get that data plan your talking about. T-Mobile also has another 30 dollar plan, which is 1500 minutes or messages (this means 1500 total, so 1000 minutes + 500 messages, or any combination you can come up with basically). Those 30 dollar plans aren't specific to Walmart, they're actually T-Mobile plans. T-Mobile's pre-paid website is different from their post paid site, so do a search on Google for T-Mobile pre-paid first to get the right contact number. You should be able to call them and switch over to pre-paid after that first month. Remember though, you still have to pay off the rest of the phone, but that's easy with the T-Mobile payment plan, which is zero interest and only 20 bucks a month for 24 months. At least you don't have to buy the whole phone outright and leave your pockets bleeding. T-Mobile's Iphone 5 is actually 70 bucks cheaper too over all, at about $580 vs $650 at ATT. T-Mobile gives people tons of options now, they just need to work on their network. They have some very good areas, but also some really garbage service in many others. I'm in the NW, so that's home base for them.
 

androidluvr2

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T-Mobile's Iphone 5 is actually 70 bucks cheaper too over all, at about $580 vs $650 at ATT.
That's a great idea, but it won't be unlockable until he is done paying for it and maybe the OP wants an unlocked phone for his son? I know lots of kids who study abroad, so an unlocked phone might be nice for them.
 

androidluvr2

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Is there a reason you just don't keep him on the family plan and then make him pay you each month?
Not the OP but from what he posted, he seems to want to teach his son responsibility and self-sufficiency so that he learns how to keep track of his own bills each month.
 

heyload2

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I plan to buy it unlocked from Apple. There is a good chance that he may spend a year in England for school. This will afford him the capability to just switch to a pay as you go there and then switch back when that's over.

I don't want him to have to pay me as that makes it easy to just pay whenever or miss a payment. If its his plan to manage, granted with money that I give him, he has to make sure he pays on time or his phone won't work.
 

mab4285

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If he misses a payment with you, just call your provider and have the phone suspended until he pays you. He's still learning responsibility. Just a thought to make things easier for you. I know that's what I did when I was in high school and college with my parents. And now my mom and dad are on my family plan and they pay me monthly. Granted, I'd never suspend their service, but it's just a thought.
 

Bl00dRunzC0ld

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For the OP, I've activated two different unlocked AT&T phones on this plan. Since I didn't have a tmobile imei number to use while going through the online activation, I just used the imei number they give you as an example. It's on a screenshot of a box when you go through the activation. I've also read that if you just put in all 9's as the imei it will work.
 

anon(5895641)

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So I have a tmobile IMEI laying around since I used to have a galaxy s2 & I kept the box. My iphone 5 factory unlocked came with a tmobile nano sim card which I don't currently use & that has the 19 digit code I need to activate. So all I need is an activation kit number. I went to the T-mobile Store & they said I have to deal with Walmart to get that activation kit. So where the heck can I get the activation kit?
 

natasftw

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I plan to buy it unlocked from Apple. There is a good chance that he may spend a year in England for school. This will afford him the capability to just switch to a pay as you go there and then switch back when that's over.

I don't want him to have to pay me as that makes it easy to just pay whenever or miss a payment. If its his plan to manage, granted with money that I give him, he has to make sure he pays on time or his phone won't work.

Have you looked into the LTE infrastructure in England? If you're wanting him to maintain that speed when England gets on the LTE train, you'll want to make sure the phone will also include those bands. It's my understanding the CDMA model has more connectivity with international bands. I haven't looked into it, but does Verizon have a similar pay as you go plan that'd work in place of the $30 plan that would allow you to keep him on his own plan as well as include a phone that's better suited for the trip to England? Or, is LTE not all that important and he'd be set working with 3G while overseas?
 

androidluvr2

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I haven't looked into it, but does Verizon have a similar pay as you go plan that'd work in place of the $30 plan that would allow you to keep him on his own plan as well as include a phone that's better suited for the trip to England?
These are the Verizon smartphone prepaid plans. Now do you get why he is having his son moved to T-Mobile?


$70 Smartphone
Anytime Minutes UNLIMITED
Mobile to Mobile Calling* UNLIMITED
Text Messaging UNLIMITED
Data 2GB

or $60/mo with only 500MB of data.


*(with Verizon Wireless customers)
 

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