at&t Prepaid - Pick Your Plan?

[sesro1978]

Hi-

I'm trying to figure out at&t's Pick Your Plan wireless service. I see that the advertisement on the at&t wireless website says for $39.99/month I get 300 minutes - is this at the rate of 13.3 cents/minute? Or is this just 300 minutes after which I need to purchase more minutes for the month?

Please help me to understand this service a bit better.

Thanks,
S

[Quint101]

The $0.133 is the rate for voice only. If you use data or messaging without a pack, you will be charged the applicable rates for those and the charges will come out of out the $40 bucket. The usage will reduce the minutes available,

[TnA2xXtReM]

Originally Posted by sesro1978

Hi-

I'm trying to figure out at&t's Pick Your Plan wireless service. I see that the advertisement on the at&t wireless website says for $39.99/month I get 300 minutes - is this at the rate of 13.3 cents/minute? Or is this just 300 minutes after which I need to purchase more minutes for the month?

Please help me to understand this service a bit better.

Thanks,
S

If they making you pay $40 a month for 300 minutes that doesn't add up, I think that is a ripoff. Last time I check, doesn't AT&T postpaid plan for the $40 a month rate has 550 minutes or so? Or, you can at the other alternatives out there. If you find with T-Mobile (heard some things about them...) they do have a prepaid plan that seems like a very great deal. A $100 card will give you 1,000 minutes ($0.10 a minutes) and account last for 1 year. Add any amount prepaid card after that, you get another 1 year expiration from the date of fill. However, to have the $0.10 a moinute rate, you must add a $50 or $100 card.

[hme83]

Originally Posted by TnA2xXtReM

If they making you pay $40 a month for 300 minutes that doesn't add up, I think that is a ripoff. Last time I check, doesn't AT&T postpaid plan for the $40 a month rate has 550 minutes or so? Or, you can at the other alternatives out there. If you find with T-Mobile (heard some things about them...) they do have a prepaid plan that seems like a very great deal. A $100 card will give you 1,000 minutes ($0.10 a minutes) and account last for 1 year. Add any amount prepaid card after that, you get another 1 year expiration from the date of fill. However, to have the $0.10 a moinute rate, you must add a $50 or $100 card.

It's 450 minutes for $39.99 on a post paid plan with at&t. Post paid service is definitely a better value for someone who uses their phone for voice calls frequently, and if you provide your own equipment you can get "no contract" post paid service. A deposit may still be required, however.

[TnA2xXtReM]

Originally Posted by hme83

It's 450 minutes for $39.99 on a post paid plan with at&t. Post paid service is definitely a better value for someone who uses their phone for voice calls frequently, and if you provide your own equipment you can get "no contract" post paid service. A deposit may still be required, however.

Yeah, but I use Sprint Sero as my main postpaid provider and they exceeds my needs and wants for a wireless company. I kind of getting too much for the price I paid in a way, but that is another story. About "if you provide your own equipment you can get "no contract" post paid service", that is really neat as for I never heard anyone mentioned that before. But not getting a subsidized phone just ruin the whole fun of a postpaid contract, right?

Anyway, if going prepaid, I would put TMobile prepaid at the top along with Tracfone if one uses their cell phone moderately or have tight budget. What I like about Tmobile more then Tracfone is:

1) use prepaid on any unlocked phones (currently on my iPhone 3G)
2) flat $0.10 a minute for adding either $50 or $100 card (after inserting $100 into the account to obtain "gold status")
3) 1 year expiration from the date you added any amount card to your account, including the $10 card (assuming you have gold status)

What I dislike about Tmobile is that I tend to get 1-3 bars when inside my home, sometime zero bar. However, when I go to place other than my home, I get 5 bars, sometime 4 bars. So in a way, TMobile dislike where I live so that can be a factor. Tracfone, on the other hand, are boring as for you have to buy their branded phone which are no fun at all, but I think Tracfone piggyback on all or most major wireless provider, making their reception very stable. Also about tracfone, I found that their cards seem to be a little bit more expensive than TMobile.

[hme83]

Originally Posted by TnA2xXtReM

Yeah, but I use Sprint Sero as my main postpaid provider and they exceeds my needs and wants for a wireless company. I kind of getting too much for the price I paid in a way, but that is another story. About "if you provide your own equipment you can get "no contract" post paid service", that is really neat as for I never heard anyone mentioned that before. But not getting a subsidized phone just ruin the whole fun of a postpaid contract, right?

Anyway, if going prepaid, I would put TMobile prepaid at the top along with Tracfone if one uses their cell phone moderately or have tight budget. What I like about Tmobile more then Tracfone is:

1) use prepaid on any unlocked phones (currently on my iPhone 3G)
2) flat $0.10 a minute for adding either $50 or $100 card (after inserting $100 into the account to obtain "gold status")
3) 1 year expiration from the date you added any amount card to your account, including the $10 card (assuming you have gold status)

What I dislike about Tmobile is that I tend to get 1-3 bars when inside my home, sometime zero bar. However, when I go to place other than my home, I get 5 bars, sometime 4 bars. So in a way, TMobile dislike where I live so that can be a factor. Tracfone, on the other hand, are boring as for you have to buy their branded phone which are no fun at all, but I think Tracfone piggyback on all or most major wireless provider, making their reception very stable. Also about tracfone, I found that their cards seem to be a little bit more expensive than TMobile.

I guess it's a matter of perspective. If you are willing to take a contract - then yes, I can't imagine not wanting to accept the subsidized phone in return for your obligation. But I'd much prefer no long term service obligation and a phone that hasn't been crippled by the carrier's firmware, one that I don't have to argue over who needs to provide the warranty service, etc.

T-Mobile's prepaid arrangement is a better deal than at&t's if they provide the coverage that you need - where I am once you get a few miles off the major interstates the call quality is seriously erroded with T-Mobile's service (even on post paid).

Also I don't know how T-Mobile's feature package availability compares to at&t's - if you use prepaid service for messaging and/or data, at&t's "Pay As You Go" service is a pretty good deal. The feature package prices are fairly comparable to that of the postpaid plans, plus you get "rollover" of unused feature package balances if you renew the feature package before it expires. The only real drawback is the reduced coverage of the prepaid service (compared with postpaid plans) since at&t now seems to have eliminated the balance notifications for $0.00 transactions on PayGo service. Also if you need massive amounts of data, the data plans are limited to 100 MB for only non-smartphone/PDA's on at&t's prepaid service. (However, as far as I know an unlimited data plan is still available for the original 2G iPhones on PYP service.)

TracFone seems to work well for the people I know who use it. They even had a deal going for awhile - don't know if it still is - where for the life of your phone you get additional free minutes equivalent to your purchased minutes on any refills. The thing I don't care for about TracFone is that you have to buy a new package in order to change phones.

[Charlyee]

Originally Posted by hme83

I guess it's a matter of perspective. If you are willing to take a contract - then yes, I can't imagine not wanting to accept the subsidized phone in return for your obligation. But I'd much prefer no long term service obligation and a phone that hasn't been crippled by the carrier's firmware, one that I don't have to argue over who needs to provide the warranty service, etc.

Absolutely agreed.

Just to add, the AT&T PYOP & PAYG plans have less coverage than their postpay due to less roaming arrangements in the prepay plans. The PYOP has more than the PAYG but still not as good as the post pay. This to me would be an additional benefit of a postpay.

[TnA2xXtReM]

Indeed, I just think that TMobile prepaid would be an excellent option to go if: 1) reception around you is good, 2) only use phone to talk, nothing else, and 3) can dish out $100 to get rolling (to get gold status). If you just your prepaid phone as your main phone and to use text, data, etc., I recommend looking at other packages. But for my build, it just perfect for me, so let me go onto a little detail about how I go about my TMobile prepaid.

I got two services and two phones. HTC Touch PRO 1 with Sprint SERO (500 minutes, unlimited text, data, etc). Apple iPhone with TMobile prepaid service ($100 initial investment for 1,000 minutes with an expiration for 1 year). I really don't use the TMobile prepaid services at all unless my Sprint phone either dies or I must use my Tmobile number to make some personal call. In a way, the TMobile service on my iPhone is just a back up phone if I need it (a fun device as well). Reception, it had not been really an issue for me though when I traveled to Chicago, Boston, New York/Jersey, DC, etc., but I can not comment on other places like the west coast and rural area. When I need to text and use data on my iPhone, I either use public wifi or my own personal wifi if there is no free public wifi. My HTC TP1 is like a wireless internet hotspot when I use WMWifiRouter. So once I get my data on the iPhone, I can text anyone through the Google Voice app.

Well, yeah, that is my current prepaid setup through TMobile. This build I created for myself is perfect for me and how I use my phones for daily usage. Of course, there are a lot of other prepaid plans out there, but one must do some research on them and what is best suitable for them. Or they can get a postpaid plan and activate their own phone in order not to get into a contractual agreement, as mentioned by hme83.

On a side note, my grandma and grandpa uses Tracfone as their main wireless device, but they rarely call anyone except family members on the cell. Some Tracfones has that 'Double your minutes for life' option that doubles the face value of every card except the 800 minutes card. So once in awhile, I add a $100 card which gives 400 face value minutes and 365 days of service. When I combine the double your minutes feature with a promo code, they gets between 1,000 minutes to 1,100 minutes and 1 year of service onto their Tracfone service. When it comes to minutes and expiration, Tracfone hands down beats TMobile prepaid. However, I just don't like the fact that Tracfone forces you into using their own device and not any other unlocked device. My grandparents have the Motorola flip phone, so they are thrilled to have that. With the younger generations, though, I don't think Tracfone is the way to go unless it is a must when getting a prepaid device.