yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] hbkmog:
I can't seem to be able to get data today. Looked up online and it shows my data is 3gb and the meter is all red. I thought the plan is for 5gb 4g speed data? Did I get throttled or disconnected?

Also I added balance to my account but can't find a way to pay it? The monthly amount will be deducted from my account automatically?
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] Tubes6al4v:
Have you been tethering? Or otherwise using the network in a way that could be construed as abuse?
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] milan03:
My peak HSPA+ speeds:

My peak LTE speeds:
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] Dark lord me:
Ok I have to say this .... HOLY CRAP that is some pretty impressive HSPA+ AND LTE. Wonder if AT&T will have similar HSPA/LTE speeds
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] juancferrer:
Anyone getting the tethering hotshot upsell page when trying to "request desktop site" on the ics browser??

I've had the $30 plan for a little over a month, but just yesterday it stared sending me to the upsell page when requesting the desktop version of a website. It was working fine previously. It's basically a useless feature now. WTF!
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] catpunt:
i just discovered u can renew your plan early by calling customer service. i accidentally used up my 5gb streaming an hd rental from the android market, and just used up my 100 minutes. so i paid another 30 bucks and basically get a new month starting now. it also adjusts your monthly payment date to the current day of the month. kind of a neat option in case you use up all your data
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] martonikaj:
T-Mobile simply checks the UAstring for a desktop browser in order to "tell" if people are tethering on their network. They simply assume that you'll never have a UAstring of "desktop" unless you're on a computer you're tethering to. Its a crazy assumption, obviously, as you can easily use desktop UAstring on the phone.

I had this happen to me once after I went over 5gb in a month. Several hours on the phone explaining that I'm simply using browsers like Dolphin and Firefox that let you request desktop versions, not any level of CS knew what I was talking about. They said they had never seen the splash page or URL before (seemed like they were being honest with me). A couple weeks later it just went away and never got it again, even with lots of tethering (2-3 times/week minimum).

I've 100% proven they're filtering by UAstring by simply using a UAstring switcher as a Firefox add-on on my laptop, and letting it block me on "desktop" and not blocking me when I spoof a mobile Safari browser. Kinda lame, but I'm not sure what you can do. You can take a shot and call CS but when I did, it got me nowhere (even though there's surely a way that they can un-flag my account, as it stopped happening a couple weeks later).

There are also several other threads on this, so you can research those as well.

How much data have you used this month?
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] jonathan3579:
So the plan cuts off if you use all of your data? When I login to the myaccount app from my GS2 it says 0% used no matter how much data I have used. I haven't gone over 3gb yet though. The only thing I dislike is they cut your service like at 12am the day it's due. LOL. They got me good.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] martonikaj:
Theres no data cutoff. Once you get to 5gb you get throttled, not stopped.

Guess I'll ask a few questions while I'm at it (I'm looking to move to this plan): when you go over 100 minutes, do you start getting charged $0.10/min onto the account? Or do you have to buy a package of minutes (are those even available?)?

Also, how is billing handled? Can you log into a my-tmobile page just like a postpaid account and check usage/pay? How do you renew? Online?

Want to go to this but I fear change :(

TIA.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] jonathan3579:
I asked only because it has been difficult to get a legitimate reading for my data usage. I used the APN trick and the myaccount app stopped counting my data and set itself to 0% no matter how much I use.

I will be more than happy to answer your questions: For my particular case, I started the plan and T-Mobile credited my account like $3.39. I went over my 100 minutes the first month and it deducted directly from that $3.39 so I'm down to like $3.09 or something. (This was before I started using GrooveIP though.) I believe the only thing you'd do is buy a prepaid card to load up again on your minutes. I guess I can't fully answer that as I haven't depleted what T-Mobile gave me but I can tell you that it doesn't deduct from what you owe on your monthly.

As far as billing is concerned... You can and do have access to the myaccount online. You can automatically refill from there or you can buy a $30 refill from a T-Mobile store, Wal-Mart, etc... I will attach a screen shot to help you better understand how the site looks. :)
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] martonikaj:
That's interesting. I find the MyAccount app has trouble loading a lot (currently on my G2 w/ ICS). I guess you'll be able to check online + data usage app inside ICS.

Hm, so I guess what I'm wondering is if I can put some money on there as a "slush fund" as I generally expect to go over 100 minutes. I'm currently on a 500 minute plan, and regularly keep it under 500 total (even including nights/weekend minutes). That plan is $70 after taxes. So on this $30 plan, even expecting to blow over 100 minutes, I'd have $40 of minutes (assuming $0.10/min, 400 minutes) to play with and still keep at or under my current $70 plan. But the months where I use less, I save.

So could I load up the account with extra "just in case" money? Or would I just be auto-charged the next refill the amount of the next month ($30) + what I went over on my last month??

Good to know. Doing some research I see you can just set up auto-refill to just charge your check card every month (as the other posted noted, they don't mind cutting you off at 12am the day your bill is up). But I guess I'm just wondering on the overages.

Also, hows GrooveIP working? I'd pretty much use my 100 minutes for random calls here and there. I'm never making long calls when I'm out of the house, so I'd only be using GV and GrooveIP for my calls at home, on WiFi. Do you have experience with quality on WiFi? I have found a crazy variation of success and hate stories on GrooveIP. If it works, I'm pretty much ready to pull the trigger on this plan.

(Also quickly, I'm not willing to port my number to GV, as I still need MMS. I don't mind handing out 2 different numbers, as I snagged a GV # that is the same 7-digit as my regular number, with a different area code. Woot!)

TIA again. You're helping a ton.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] jonathan3579:
I know for a fact that you can add money on there. From what I have learned, there's the designated refill cards for each Monthly4G plan and also top off cards which would pretty much cover your extra usage. For me, it is more beneficial that it applies to minutes than deducting from the payment itself. They have a $70 plan with unlimited everything. I was considering a bump up for a little bit but I finally got everyone to understand that they need to text me or call my Google Voice number. The beauty of you switching would be "rollover minutes" in essence.

You can setup automatic payment with them to deduct or you can go the slower way and they text you about 3-4 days before the next due date. I learned the hard way that they pull the plug around 12-12:30am, lol.

GrooveIP has worked surprisingly well for me. It isn't perfect but the tradeoff to save money and minutes is worth it by far. On occasion I get some echo (mostly on 3G/4G) but since you will be on WiFi then you will be absolutely golden. It intercepts your calls automatically so no need to fiddle with it again once it is all setup. Putting it shortly, lol, it works and I am only spending $33 a month. If you have any more questions I will be more than happy to help.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] martonikaj:
Interesting. So if you don't use your 100 minutes, they pile up when you refill? So if you had 20min left over at the end of Jan, your Feb statement after the refill card would be 120min available?

Think I might give T-Mo CS a call this weekend to clarify how the billing works. Based on your responses it seems like it does what I'm expecting. Just looking for 1 recurring payment to pull $30+tax for the refill every month, and then also charge me every month the amount I go over with extra minutes, and have both charges be separate.

Good to hear a positive testimonial. Is there a way to setup GrooveIP to only work over WiFi? Essentially if someone calls my GV number and I'm not on WiFi, it goes right to GV voicemail, but if I'm on WiFi, it rings? I guess this would be a nice feature, but not the most intuitive from a caller perspective... I just don't want to deal with poor 3G/4G signal effing up my calls (thinking if I get a missed call from GV, I just call back with my T-Mo number).

Guess I just need to test GrooveIP over 3G/4G and see if this would be a problem, then go from there. If the call quality is usually good, I think I can survive.

I think I remember reading earlier in the thread, but this plan has no call forwarding at all, correct? So you can't use a GV voicemail box with the T-Mo number, which is essentially just call forwarding right? Or can you set it up by calling T-Mo and disabling the T-Mo provisioned voicemail, meaning the only option would be to go directly to GV voicemail (no forwarding required)?

My ideal setup is to have both a T-Mo number (legacy contacts, bad signal calls, and MMS) and a GV number (WiFi calls, GrooveIP), and have them BOTH use the GV voicemail box.

thanks again!
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] catpunt:
The minutes don't roll over. You just gotta have enough prepaid credit on your account when your billing cycle is up. No tax or fees though, it's straight up $30 off the top. No conditional call forwarding or replacing the T-Mo voicemail unfortunately. If you get your refills from callingmart.com and use coupons from fatwallet.com, you can save around 5% on refills. However there is a 3-month expiration on the refill credit I believe, so don't stock up too much

Which APN trick? Can you point us to the info?
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] jonathan3579:
Sorry about the delay. What I meant by "rollover minute" was that if you decided to go the route of adding additional funds for more minutes but hypothetically don't use up all 100 or don't use up the additional minutes (or dollars, lol) then it will rollover onto the next month. The $3.39 T-Mobile initially gave me has continued to stick around through my time on this plan. I guess it's a good rainy day fund. Be careful when calling CS as many are not knowledgeable of this plan or how to set it up correctly. I had to go to a Wal-Mart to get it done correctly as no T-Mobile store here in Houston seemed to know anything about it.

GrooveIP is pretty much setup to only work on WiFi default. You have to check 3G/4G option although I'd not really recommend it. Also, thinking more about it this morning I think I figured out the echo was most likely due to my best friend putting me on speakerphone when we talk. As far as Google Voice voicemail, this one is a little more tricky. Right now, there's no way to get both to use it. I have read the disabling your T-Mo voicemail trick but I was not willing to do it, lol, so I cannot comment much on it. What I do now is call my T-Mo voicemail from Google Voice (from my pc) and save those minutes. The beautiful thing about GrooveIP is that you can even set a different ringtone so you can pick out the minutes vs no minutes being used. I will continue trying to look into the voicemail situation a little more today for you though as I'd prefer to have Google Voice as my only mailbox as well. :)

Gotcha covered here!!! You must type it exactly as I write it.

Go to Settings<Mobile Networks<Access Point Names

Next make a new APN.

Name: T-Mobile US

APN: internet2.voicestream.com

Leave everything else blank. Change to this APN right before you use up all your data and enjoy not being throttled. ;) *This works for most people. It works for me so hopefully you can enjoy the same.*
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] martonikaj:
Oh okay, I understand. I see that you can add on pre-determined refill cards in $10, $30, $50, and $100 increments (and also a place to refill via checking account, no card). Do you happen to know what rate the minutes are charged at? I'm assuming $0.10/min? Guess I'll find out when I call in.

Okay. I plan to call into regular T-Mo support as I'm going to see if I can put my current account on hold (told you can freeze your acct for $10/month) and xfer to this new one (if it doesn't work out I'll go back, and they don't offer my current EM+ plan anymore).

The voicemail isn't a huge deal, especially as I transfer more and more towards using just my GV number for calls, and my other T-Mo number for texts (and MMS!). I rarely get voicemails, but I do like to see on my computer that I have a missed call via voice.google.com. Like I said though, not a huge deal.

I guess separate ringtones for my GV number and T-Mo number does solve the problem for me. I'll just know that if I start getting a GrooveIP call and I'm on EDGE to not even bother answering, and just call back from T-Mo. That pretty much solves it. Gonna try GrooveIP myself this weekend to test.

Let me know if you find anything more about it, and I'll be buying GrooveIP to try on my current setup and if its acceptable I'll call T-Mo to finalize my answers and if it works out move to the plan.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] catpunt:
Thanks, do you put anything in the MMSC field? And when you switch to this APN does your data counter on t-mobile.com stop increasing, or does it keep increasing but you don't get throttled when you reach 5GB?
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] jonathan3579:
Before addressing more posts, I want you to see what happens in my particular case when you do the APN trick before the throttle point on my GS2. I started this month with the APN active and this is the reasult. I also will include screen shot while on this phone to show how it should look. Before i forget... After choosing the APN do not forget to reboot. It will reset your connection. Enjoy!
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] jonathan3579:
You're right on the money with the price per minutes and refill choices.

You can indeed freeze for $10/mo however i do not remember how long you can freeze it.

Yeah, i use my google voice for phone calls and voicemails but use my original number for mms, texts, etc... Ironically it works pretty seamlessly once other people get used to it. Lol. I am now out so my reply couldn't be as thorough as I would have liked but I will be back to report more in a few hours.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] jonathan3579:
Nope. Here's a screenshot to help in addition to the others. :) My data counter stops. Some people report theirs continue to climb but mine stops entirely. Lol.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] martonikaj:
And you don't notice and adverse effects after changing APN? Speeds are the same?

Sent from my ICS T-Mobile G2
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] jonathan3579:
Lol, no none whatsoever. Screenshots i took right now!!!
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] martonikaj:
Wow great speeds. Thanks again for your help.

Sent from my ICS-powered T-Mobile G2
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] catpunt:
darn i tried the apn trick you suggested, but my account on my.t-mobile.com is still counting my data usage. oh well, thanks for the suggestion
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] jonathan3579:
Just because it counts does not mean you did it wrong or that it won't work. :) Many people just blaze beyond the point without throttling and many other people (like me) have it stop altogether. You will not know if it worked until you hit your data cap but i highly recommend using the normal apn until you get closer to the cap. I was just playing around with it this month because i rarely hit the cap anyway.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] jonathan3579:
The app would not let me add this in to my previous post but here is a perfect example!

Wow. Just noticed it compressed the pic pretty bad but hopefully you can make out the point. Lol. If not, it says 15.22gb/10gb.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] catpunt:
thanks for the suggestion, i'll try it. just curious, what is the benefit of using epc until you nearly reach your cap before switching to the voicestream one?
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] jonathan3579:
Lol. My friend is a manager at T-Mobile so i just follow her directions. She has been pretty good with helping me out in these "grey" areas. I always wondered it myself but it might actually not make any difference. I can't say for sure though. Sorry.

I can tell you that i have been using and following those directions since the G2x came out though so it is pretty solid.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] dbdynsty25:
Just another T-Mobile $30 plan success story.

I had initially purchased the Verizon LTE version of the Nexus and while perfectly happy with it, I just realized that I was getting destroyed in terms of my monthly costs. I mean, I literally use 60-90 min. per month of voice and that's it...the rest is all data. So there is no way I should be paying 70+ for service w/ Verizon. I started digging into T-Mobiles $30 plan.

I bought a cheapo phone at Walmart along with the 30 dollar monthly card and went ahead and activated w/ a new number. I then tested T-Mobile side by side with my Verizon GN for about a week to make sure everywhere I went, I had coverage. Success.

So I returned my Verizon GN during the holiday extended return policy (reactivated my Droid 2 on my Verizon number) and then called up T-Mobile Prepaid support and had my number ported over to T-Mobile. A good 36 hour of carrying two phones later, the process was complete and I was done.

One big caveat to why I switched...4G LTE isn't available in my area of Los Angeles (basically between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara) and who knows when it would be. 3G coverage is outstanding, but very slow...so switching to T-Mobile and HSPA+ has consistently been outperforming 3G on Verizon. Definite plus.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] martonikaj:
Gonna try setting up GrooveIP today. $4.99 is worth it to try out. I'm waiting for the white GNex so I've got a couple weeks to plan this out :p
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] jonathan3579:
Awesome. Hopefully you will have the same results. :) Let us know what you think on it.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] gimiento:
Groove IP is awesome on wifi, good to great on 3/4G and terrible on edge. It's been a godsend though when travelling abroad or in my office where I get terrible reception.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] martonikaj:
I've also seen it for free/reduced on Amazon several times. At the moment its $4.99 on both and I've heard that the Market version updates much faster than the Amazon version so its all good. Worth $4.99 if it saves me $30+ a month on my bill lol. He can charge a lot more for this thing...

So I've set things up and made several calls. Incoming calls work just fine. Outgoing works also. Party on the other side said I sounded crystal clear (both WiFi and HSPA+), but my audio from them seemed quite low quality either way. Messing with the settings it seemed to improve a bit but not drastically.

Any tips?

Also as an aside, I found that GrooveIP used 3.4mb of data for a 3min call on HSPA+. Should I just expect 1mb/minute usage?
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] jonathan3579:
Sounds like partial satisfaction thus far. Lol. Sometimes i get a bit of hissing or static but it comes and goes. The other end always reports clear calls so i assume it is just the nature of VoIP? Although i don't have the issue when i make calls from google voice on my pc. I, myself, am still learning the ropes for the app so we are probably in this one together. Lol.

As for the data usage, i never particularly noticed but that is probably due to me always enabling the apn setting randomly and my data doesn't climb. I am about to switch back to my Galaxy Nexus so we can kinda compare settings then. (I left it all default on this phone.)
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] martonikaj:
As long as my voice sounds perfect to them then that's what matters. I can manage with the audio quality. It didn't seem bad, it just seemed less than perfect (lol?). Didn't help that my test calls were done while my dishwasher and clothes drier were both running in my small studio apartment at the same time. I'll try another call when its quieter in here lol.

I've messed around with pretty much all of the troubleshooting and audio quality settings in the app. At this point I have nearly all the boxes checked, and it seems to have improved a bit. I'm going to make some calls to other friends on other networks also and see what they say.

Just read the FAQ on their site, and it says it uses about 0.6 megabytes up and down per minute of a call. So that falls closely with my ~1mb per minute of usage. Makes sense. I'm not worried about the data. It can use 5mb per minute if it wants if I can get good call quality.

Also, do you leave the GV notification icon in the notification area? I feel like I should leave it there for a few days and make sure it doesn't disconnect weirdly. I just find there no reason for it to be up there if it stays logged in properly. I've configured the default OS dialer to make calls so there's no need to use the user-facing GrooveIP app for me.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] catpunt:
can you post screenshots of your voicestream apn settings from your galaxy nexus that work?
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] jonathan3579:
Sure thing. Let me know if you would like anything else.

Edit: Now it wasn't until this very moment that I did notice some differences in between the two APN's so I will be doing a little experimenting right now to see what (if anything) needs to be changed. I normally didn't change it up until the end of my cycle so it might be possible to sit on using some of the default settings with the new APN and not have to change it at all. I will be conducting speed tests and MMS tests. Bear with me. :)

Second Edit: Whoa!!! Not what I was expecting at all. :eek:

Initial speed tests have the new APN pulling down faster speeds in my apartment. It's pretty much a bunker here and with the default settings I barely pulled 1mbps download. Switched APN's (and ignored the reboot because I don't care about their systems resetting, just my phone) and pulled 4.37mbps download.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] jonathan3579:
Lol, I am not sure if I am able through what I have done so far to make it any more clear than what it sits at now. Like you said, I am more than happy if the callers on the other line cannot hear what I do...even if it's only a small sound.

Yes, I leave the GV in the notification area. I like to know whether it's connected or not (aside from the different ringtones, lol) by the green or red icon. Typically I hate excessive things in the status bar but this is one thing I have learned to like having around for the time being. My experience says it will not disconnect weirdly or unexpectedly. In fact, it will function probably better (or more reliably) than the cellular radio.
[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] martonikaj:
Word. I just had a good chat with an online CS rep. He gave me all the info I needed to know. But when it came down to it he said he wouldn't be able to move my current plan to the Monthly 4G plan unless I bought an "activation kit" from Walmart. Kinda annoying, as at the beginning of the chat he indicated I'd "keep my number, phone, and SIM card." lol. Also, he indicated he can't freeze my current account...

Guess I'll be tripping it to Walmart to snag a card really quick. He said to just buy an activation kit, then call in and they'll move everything over. At that point the account will show up as "Activated but Not Paid". I can buy/refill on my account from online at that point.

Is this how you set yours up? Or did you also buy a refill card from Walmart (or whatever retailer) at the same time?