yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] martonikaj:
Could probably save $10 and go with the Simple Mobile (uses T-Mo towers) plan thats UL / UL / UL (~8gb) for $60. But sometimes people like to stick with T-Mobile proper.

Either way. Honestly the $70 UL / UL / UL (5gb) plan is still a

really good deal

.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] lykos:
Yes but then you take the risk of being kicked off after using 3GBs of data.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] martonikaj:
Yeah there doesn't seem to be any solid information, but Simple seems to do a case-by-case basis throttle at different levels.

Its not looking good now either, as Straight Talk (large MVNO) bought Simple Mobile just a few days ago. They'll surely start dropping the data caps, as they currently cap pretty strictly at 2GB on ST.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] lykos:
Yeah. Straight Talk is annoying quite a few people over at Howard's. It seems they are becoming more spasmodic with their data caps. One guy got disconnected at 1.5GB and told that he could only have three YouTube videos a day, while another has hit 5GB for the past three months.

Simple seems to have mellowed out with their hard cap. A lot of people are reporting three gigabytes as the top now. They use to be as sporadic as ST.

I've been spoiled by sprint with unlimited data so I've got to go with T-Mobile's monthly 4G even if it is just edge after the 5GB cap.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] schlongs:
$30 T-Mobile activation in Houston

Hi guys, I wanted to share my experience with activating this plan. I purchased an unlocked Galaxy S2 from Amazon a couple of weeks ago. I bought a SIM activation kit from the T-Mobile website, which took about a week to arrive today. I first tried to activate over the phone (unsuccessfully) and was told 'you must activate online for the $30 plan'. I then tried to activate online and made it to the end of the process several times before getting the error "We're sorry, we're still working to process your activation'. After a couple more calls to customer service, I was told by two CSRs that you CANNOT activate the $30 plan using the T-Mobile SIM activation kit, and that only the Walmart SIM is compatible with that plan. So, I went to Walmart and bought the cheapest phone available for the Monthly4G plan (it was a Nokia 1616 for $20). Went to the parking lot, called T-Mobile and activated using the Nokia's SIM!

TL;DR.......Unsuccessfully activated Galaxy S2 using T-Mobile SIM activation kit....Bought Walmart cheap phone & SIM and activated with no problems.

Here are the results for my first three Speedtest runs (Northwest Houston)

2.7mbps

3.6mbps

3.1mbps

(average 3.1mbps)

Hope this information helps someone
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] codesplice:
Very interesting. I (and quite a few others) was able to activate this $30 plan using a T-Mobile Monthly 4G SIM Activation Kit that I ordered from T-Mobile's web site. I activated the plan online moments after receiving the gear.

At any rate, glad to hear that you got up and running.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] theking_13:
I bought a kit on Amazon and didn't have a problem.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus running AOKP+Franco on Tapatalk 2
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] schlongs:
Thank you, sir. Oh, and your guide to your setup of the T-Mobile $30 plan looks very informative, I plan to use some of those tips!
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] martonikaj:
This just isn't at all true. I personally did this less than 4 months ago, purchased the SIM activation kit straight from the T-Mobile Prepaid site. Several others have done it w/ the GNex in the previous months.

CS reps know absolutely nothing, especially when it comes to Prepaid questions. They've led me in the wrong direction so many times.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] codesplice:
Glad you found it helpful :)
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] senf:
x2. I did this, as well as my wife and mother-in-law.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] v12xke:
@schlongs (or others)

1. Did you activate IN the Nokia first using the IMEI from the Nokia and once fully activated, transfer the SIM to your GS2, -or- did you first take SIM out of the Nokia, put it in the GS2 and activate using the IMEI from the GS2 (or does it even make a difference.) I'm about to go this (walmart phone) route because the free TMobile SIM in my drawer does not have an activation code and I don't want to wait for the Amazon SIM and roll the dice on that one. If I understand correctly, I don't need the walmart phone at all, just the SIM activation kit inside. I would like to do this online 100%...

2. I've read I also have to buy a prepaid card for $30 to get the ball rolling and insert the PIN/Serial number to charge the phone before I can do anything. I would really like to just set up an auto deduct from my credit card online. Is the prepaid card really necessary upon activation online? Or can I just get to another screen to pay by credit card. Thanks in advance for your response.

v12

New Google Play GNex
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] codesplice:
Since I didn't play with activating another phone and then moving the SIM to my GNex, I can't speak with much authority on your first question... though I would think that as long as the SIM that comes with the cheap phone has an activation card with it you can just pop that into the phone you'll actually be using and go from there. You can activate it 100% online - in fact, that's the only "official" way to get the $30 plan (since it's a Walmart / T-Mobile.com exclusive).

For the second question... I know that the activation kit from T-Mobile includes a couple of minutes of usage preloaded. At any rate, when you activate the SIM online you will choose which plan you want to use - at which point you can just pay for it with your credit card. You can also set up an automatic payment to top up your account on a specified date each month. It's not quite like the automatic payment that you may be used to with a postpaid plan though. Any payments you make to your prepaid account will go into a sort of escrow; when your billing cycle resets each month, funds will be automatically drawn out of that escrow and put onto your prepaid service.

Make sense, or did I just confuse us all again?
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] schlongs:
1. I activated the Galaxy S2 over the phone, and I asked the CSR specifically if I had to use the Walmart phone for activation, and he said no, you can use your own GSM phone

2. After activating, I was unable to connect to data until I called back to add $26.xx to my account

The reason I was trying to activate over the phone was to try to port my number over at the same time. If I had to do it again, I would try to talk to the CSRs as little a possible
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] v12xke:
Thanks for the prompt replies. Very helpful.

For anyone else going this route, I purchased the $20 walmart phone and a $30 refill card. I took only the activation card and SIM out of the box. Put the new SIM in the GNex and started the phone. Went online via PC to T-Mobile and under Plan/Activate (link below), I activated the phone using the activation code, the SIM Serial, and the IMEI of my new GNex. On the next step I used the refill card to charge. Charging the phone right away is key, because data will not work until the first $30 is added. Never talked to CS. Didn't want to buy the phone, but it was the fastest sure fire-way for me to get a valid activation code.

http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/ActivateCodes.aspx
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] pinoyplaya4life:
What happens if you return the phone without the SIM card with it? o.O

I think they'll probably deactivate your service.

But I did this exact same thing... I ordered the SIM from t-mobile.com and heard a lot of people having issues activating their card with the Walmart plan, so I just went to Walmart and bought the cheapest ($20) prepaid phone I could get and went on without a hitch. Though, that $20 could have been used for my next month of service :(

Ill try returning it back when my new SIM arrives and just call them and say that I lost my SIM or something (the one I got from the old phone) and then activate the one I ordered from t-mobile.com and transfer all the stuff over (minutes/data/plan)
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] martonikaj:
Well you can do it online. Just go to the prepaid activation page.

You have to fill the account one of many ways before you can actually use the service. Its

Pre

paid. You have to pay first before use. You can activate without paying, but it won't work yet until you fill it.

You can fill with a credit card, checking account, refill card from T-Mo, or refill card from any other retailer. I personally use CallingMart (link in my sig) to buy them at a discount and it works great.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] KW1:
My experience: I bought a Sim Activation Kit from T-Mobile.com which, like others on here, had a wrong activation code. After a few painful hours being bounced around by the idiots on T-Mobile's phone system I ended up talking with a rep that stated that it would only work on a Wal-Mart phone since it was a Wal-Mart promotion. They were able to identify that my Galaxy Nexus was not a Wal-Mart phone due to the IEMI number. I tried to argue with her but it didn't fly. I later tried getting bumped up to a supervisor but I got disconnected. At this point I was pretty fed up.

The solution (which I got from here and other forums):

* Skip T-Mobile.com completely. Spend $20 on a Nokia 1616 at Walmart. The box doesn't mention the $30 5G plan, but that doesn't matter, it will work. You only need the phone for the sim card and this phone's IEMI number.

* I went ahead and put the sim in the Nokia, then went to the t-mobile activation site. Fill out the info and it should work. You'll also be prompted at the end to add minutes - I used a $30 pre-paid card but there was an option to use a debt/credit card instead.

* Take out the sim out of the Nokia and put it in your desired phone. You should be good. You no longer need the Nokia.

* Now you'll probably want to sign up for a My Tmobile account so that you can set up "auto fill" to automatically charge your card monthly just like a normal plan.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] SlimeYKW:
Only problem is even with Google voice it uses your minutes. Have to use a voip app like groove IP or talkatone to get free minutes. Other than that, it's the best plan out. I love it.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] martonikaj:
I'd recommend looking into using GMail + Google Talk to make free GV voice calls with your PC. Sounds like in the places where you're currently using your phone on WiFi + Talkatone you also have our PC available. I'd try that.

While I've always had issues using Talkatone/GrooVe IP consistently, I've

never had a single issue with GMail calls

. The quality/consistency is great. You can take incoming/make outgoing calls perfectly with the dialer pop-up in GMail. If you use Chrome, the Chat for Google extension just got updated to handle incoming/outgoing GV calls beautifully as well. Highly recommend. It's the only way I'm able to keep under 100 minutes a month, and it is completely seamless to myself and the people I talk to.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] urinsane:
I lost my phone a couple weeks back and had to buy a burner while I waited for my replacement GNex. I actually bought the best Android phone they had, to give it a chance. (It was the Samsung Exhibit 4g 2, and it was certainly a step down)

I took it back yesterday, minus the sim card and activation kit, and was able to return it. The lady did question the missing sim card at first, but I said I left it at home, and after consulting her supervisor, they did let me return it. I wasn't thinking clearly at first, as I could have told them I had to use the sim card as a replacement and that I certainly would not return it as my service was currently active on that sim.

In any case, your mileage may vary, but as with anything else at WalMart I'm sure if you escalate it to a supervisor you will be able to return it within the 14 day return window and have your receipt. I'm not recommending everyone do this as they do have to send the phones back in, but the current situation with not even being able to buy an activation kit is ridiculous. They are losing potential customers over a silly $2 sim card, plain and simple.

HEY T-MOBILE! If you are reading this, here's an idea: I'm sure you are making tens of cents of profit on those $20 burner phones, but I think selling activation kits at WalMart that are bundled with a $30, $50, etc refill card (you could call it, I dunno, a "Starter Kit") would provide a large potential customer base a much easier method of switching over to your service.

Pretty revolutionary, I know. Unless you don't want more customers, which I cannot rule out after hearing about people's problems ordering an activation kit from T-mobile.com.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] noneone:
I too am confused why they don't offer an activation sim at walmart. As I've mentioned, the DO offer an activation sim at BestBuy. My GUESS then is that WALMART doesn't want to offer just a sim, probably because walmart thinks not offering sims will help them sell phones? /shrug

I'm not really sure what is up with this whole marketing thing. Having been to walmart a few times, I SEE signs that say this $30 month deal is only available at walmart or tmobile.com .. BUT ...

Has ANYONE actually found any way that walmart actually sells this plan?

pause for dramatic effect ....

I mean really, the $30 a month plan we've been talking about for 43 pages now .... actually can't be purchased at any walmart store, just walmart.com or t-mobile.com.

You can't sign up for this $30 plan at a t-mobile store ... and, near as I can tell, you can't sign up for this plan at a walmart store .. just online.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] Hawkee:
This plan is the reason I've been spending the past couple weeks searching for a new phone in order to jump ship from Verizon. I just want to verify the process here with you folks to be sure its viable.

I'm buying the HTC Sensation via Craigslist and will go to T-Mobile.com to buy the sim card and activation kit for $1.99.

Once that arrives I simply need to go to T-mobile.com to activate in conjunction with this plan.

Currently my primary number is with Verizon and I have a separate Google Voice number that I use mainly for texting from my laptop. I'm considering porting my primary number to Google Voice, thus clobbering my current GV number. That way I don't need to share two numbers with everybody. GV will cancel my account with Verizon and I'm home-free saving a substantial sum of money every month.

Is there any reason I should port my primary number to this $30 plan? I can just use Google's call forwarding to receive and place calls. Nobody needs to know the new number.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] martonikaj:
Well... its marketed as an "online only" and "new activations only" plan, so it kinda makes sense that they wouldn't sell it in store if that's what they're going for. Maybe they're not ready for it to be mainstream?

I agree that it's stupid, but they will absolutely sell you an activation kit online that will show up at your door a week later, and you can activate and load it online just fine. Sure some people are having problems getting them online, but I think those are the exceptions, not the rule.

---------- Post added at 01:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:08 AM ----------

Nope, you gotta buy it online. Don't deal with going to a T-Mobile store, as they'll either not have them / not sell them / not be aware of the plan. Buy the activation kit online.

yes, activate online.

There's no reason to port your VZW number to T-Mobile over Google Voice other than not having MMS support with Google Voice. If you don't care about MMS, then you should port it to Google Voice.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] noneone:
Can't get the activation sim at a t-mobile store, last time I checked. CAN order it online, very cheap, OR, if you want it NOW, you can (A) buy an activation sim at best buy (more expensive) or (B) buy a cheap tmo phone for $20 and use the sim card that comes with.

As the other poster mentioned, MMS. Google voice doesn't MMS (pictures) just SMS (txt). If you send an MMS, it will come from the tmo phone number. IMO, that is a nice feature of this plan, unlimited messaging.

ALSO NOTE, if you port your verizon number to google, you don't NEED to "thus clobbering my current GV number. " for $20 from google, you can keep you current / old google number active, just in case friends and family have that old number, they can keep using it. Having that old google number could also be useful, for example, if you want to sell stuff on craigslist and don't want to give out your normal number on line, etc..
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] Hawkee:
My mistake, I meant I will purchase the activation kit online. It's much cheaper anyway. Good point about MMS support. Somebody told me they sent a picture to my GV account and I was wondering why it didn't come. I wonder when they will support this.

---------- Post added at 06:29 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:49 AM ----------

Wow, that's great. I figured they wouldn't let me keep it. I actually use that number quite a bit for craigslist.

---------- Post added at 07:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:29 AM ----------

While I don't use MMS too often I'm considering porting my old Verizon number to T-Mobile after initiating this plan. Maybe I'll keep it there for a few months until Google Voice covers more carriers with MMS.

What would the process be to port my existing number over to this plan? Then later if I wanted to port it to GV, what would that process be? Is this too cumbersome an endeavor?
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] martonikaj:
People have been wondering for a couple years now...

It's all on the GV porting FAQ page. You pay $20 to port your VZW number, and you keep both your "old" and "new" GV # for 90 days. After those 90 days, you lose your old GV # unless you pay another $20 to keep it, and have both numbers still active.

I'm afraid it may be a bit longer than a few months. I wouldn't hold my breath for MMS support anytime soon if I had to be honest.

When you activate, you tell them whether you'd like a new number or to port an existing number, and at that point you'll be able to activate and port at the same time.

For me, I was able to activate the plan with a new number then have it replaced by a ported number. I was coming from T-Mobile postpaid though which probably helped.

Same as if you were to port to GV from VZW now. You just go to the Google Voice page and setup to have your number ported. It'll be nonfunctional for a couple days, but after that it'll be fully functioning.

But honestly, if you plan on porting to GV any time soon you might as well just do it all at once so you don't have to keep bumping your number around and deal with the crap when you take your # away from T-Mobile but keep using their service. The sooner you do it the better off you'll be, IMO. I'd port from VZW to GV and just get a randomly assigned T-Mobile prepaid number.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] adellefrank:
How to get Google Voicemail on StraightTalk (with T-Mobile SIM card)

I think I found the answer to this at: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1639804#post27208502

Angrymanhand's solution can also work to get Google Voice (GV) voicemail from Straight Talk if you are using their T-Mobile SIM card. For example, using the lovely cyanogenmod7 on my rooted old Motorola MB200, here are the steps I took:

I did not call customer service to get them to turn off my Straight Talk/ T-Mobile voicemail, since I don't think I'll need to.

In your cell phone (not GV)'s contacts list or address book, add a new contact with your Straight Talk/T-mobile mobile number (NOT your GV number).

While adding this new contact, select the Option to send your incoming calls for this contact straight to voicemail.

Call Settings > Voicemail Settings > Write down this number, and then change it to your new GV number.

I also UNchecked the LED voicemail notification box (so I won't even KNOW if my phone tries to tell me about Straight Talk/ T-Mobile voicemails).
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] schlongs:
I've got a question about refilling the account balance each month. I applied a $30 refill card last week, so I had a prepaid balance of $40 as of yesterday, and a recharge date of today (6/14/12). So, I was expecting the $30 to be deducted from my account today. Instead, my phone data and cell service were cut off. After dealing with customer service for about 30 minutes, my service was reactivated. Question is: how do you refill each month using the refill cards? Do you have to apply the refill card, and then call them to deduct the $30? Doesn't seem right.

Thanks
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] OmgitzFire:
I'm currently on this plan using my exhibit II , so from my understanding , I can just buy a samsung galaxy s2 or a galaxy nexus and simply insert my sim card into it and I'll continue having this same plan right ?
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] martonikaj:
Yes. This is the whole idea of GSM and SIM cards. The plan is attached to your SIM not your phone.

---------- Post added at 06:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:23 PM ----------

Their system probably didn't reflect the $30 add-on quick enough before it tried to deduct it.

You really have to add money to the account more than 1 day early (they recommend 3 days). Add money to the account a week or two early. You can even load $90 on there and not worry about it for 3 months at a time.

When you add a refill card, you are just adding $$ to the account. You don't have to add the refill the day of the charge. Any money you add just sits there and waits to be deducted (active for

90 days

), the exact same if you added money to the account via debit card. There is absolutely no penalty at all to adding money early.

I added $60 via CallingMart T-Mobile refill card 2 months ago, and it just auto-withdraws and lowers your balance 2 months in a row. No issues at all.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] darkfire2024:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but unless you have the t-mobile branded galaxy s2, you'll only get EDGE because the international unlocked s2 is does not support t-mobile's 3g/hspa+ frequencies.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] OmgitzFire:
I too have heard this and Im pretty sure you are correct .. if someone else can confirm this , that would be nice