Prepaid service and data

With T-Mobile To Go prepaid, you will be limited to their very limited selection of T-Zones. WAP browsing will not work with them, unless you sign up for one of their Month-to-Month "FlexPay" plans.

The best GSM data that I have found so far is AT&T's Pick Your Plan (PYP) prepaid service. You can sign up for a voice plan, and add Unlimited Data for $19.99. I'm not sure if you have the option to have data only, if that is all you will be needing. AT&T just started selling "Smart Phones" on their PYP prepaid service as well.

Here are a few links for you to check out, to help with your search:

1) Get Started - Wireless from AT&T, formerly Cingular

2) Unsupported Browser

3) Answers

Hope this helps, and welcome to WA Monkeybrain.

 

yea its no contract and you can cancel whenever and they will credit you any amount that you didnt use when you use the Pick Your Plan. its actually a very good deal, and in GA (which is where i live also) ATT coverage is pretty good, definetly a large part better than T-Mobiles so you should be happy.

Good Luck!

 

Eric, wouldn't this fall under tethering and not regular data access from the phone itself?

Thanks

 

Yes, with prepaid service, you can leave at any time without the worry of an ETF.

 

Yes, technically it is considered teathering, but depending on the phone used they may not be able to detect it. I know they locked down teathering on standard handsets, but on PDA phones its harder to detect. Of course, they will want to put a PDA on a more expensive data plan. The trick is to just activate a regular handset, like a V3, an dthen move the SIM to the PDA. I know I've been teathering with my Tilt on a $19.99 data plan with no problems.

-Jay

 

Jay, because AT&T is now selling smartphones on their prepaid service, I don't think customers would have to use a sim in a regular phone first anymore.

 

I am saying that because you will not get the $19.99 data on a PDA.

-Jay

 

Are you referring to postpaid customers? I added the $19.99 unlimited data plan on to my $29.99 PYP prepaid right after I bought the Tilt, after I was sure that AT&T would allow me to use a PDA on prepay.

 

Do they know you are using a Tilt on &19.99 prepay data?

-Jay

 

Yes they did know.... Jay, I don't know if you saw my update in this thread (post #20) http://forums.wirelessadvisor.com/a...ar-wireless/65144-palm-treo-750-on-t-pyp.html, but AT&T now sells smart phones for their Pick Your Plan prepaid service. And the they also have 4 data plans that are available with this service, with the unlimited $19.99 plan being one of them.

 

That is correct. below you wil see the rates info on Pick your plan, however, I also heard that some people have been getting by with unlimited on a PDA but that depends on how one sets the media net access (I will leave that info to be filled by Charlyee and Jay):
All of the info below is based on picking the refurbed Treo 750

Data Features
Feature Monthly Price
Pay Per Use Rate of $.01/kb $0.00
MediaNet 1MB for GoPhone Pick Your Plan
You get 1MB of data usage for just $4.99 a month. Each additional kb is $0.01. With MediaNet, you can browse the mobile web, check your email, get sports scores, movie times, weather and news right on your mobile phone. Plus you can access the latest ringtones, games, graphics, and AT&T Mobile Music.
$4.99

MediaNet 5MB for GoPhone Pick Your Plan
You get 5MB of data usage for just $9.99 a month. Each additional kb is $0.01. With MediaNet, you can browse the mobile web, check your email, get sports scores, movie times, weather and news right on your mobile phone. Plus you can access the latest ringtones, games, graphics, and AT&T Mobile Music.
$9.99

MediaNet 10MB for GoPhone Pick Your Plan
You get 10MB of data usage for just $14.99 a month. Each additional kb is $0.01. With MediaNet, you can browse the mobile web, check your email, get sports scores, movie times, weather and news right on your mobile phone. Plus you can access the latest ringtones, games, graphics, and AT&T Mobile Music.
$14.99

MediaNet Unlimited for GoPhone Pick Your Plan
You get unlimited data usage for just $19.99 a month. With MediaNet, you can browse the mobile web, check your email, get sports scores, movie times, weather and news right on your mobile phone. Plus you can access the latest ringtones, games, graphics, and AT&T Mobile Music.
$19.99

Messaging Features
Feature Monthly Price
Pay Per Use Rate of $0.15 per message sent/received $0.00
Messaging Starter for GoPhone® Pick Your Plan - 200
Save on text, instant and picture messaging. When you can't talk, exchanging text messages is a quick and simple way to communicate. Just type your message with your wireless device keypad and send. Enjoy instant messaging with the most popular IM communities, and instantly share photos and videos-complete with a personalized voice or text message-with picture messaging. If you use more, after 200 messages you'll be charged $0.15 per text or instant message sent/received, or $.25 per picture message sent or received.
$4.99

Messaging Standard for GoPhone® Pick Your Plan - 1000
Save on text, instant and picture messaging. When you can't talk, exchanging text messages is a quick and simple way to communicate. Just type your message with your wireless device keypad and send. Enjoy instant messaging with the most popular IM communities, and instantly share photos and videos-complete with a personalized voice or text message-with picture messaging. If you use more, after 1,000 messages you'll be charged $0.15 per text or instant message sent/received, or $.25 per picture message sent or received.
$9.99

Messaging Unlimited for GoPhone® Pick Your Plan - Unlimited
Save on text, instant and picture messaging. When you can't talk, exchanging text messages is a quick and simple way to communicate. Just type your message with your wireless device keypad and send. Enjoy instant messaging with the most popular IM communities, and instantly share photos and videos-complete with a personalized voice or text message-with picture messaging. Best of all you¿ll have no worries about exceeding your included messages with the Unlimited package.
$19.99

 

my major dissapointment with Go Phones is the lack of a customer service quiet honestly. with a regular plan you get treated alot better ive heard...

 

I would like to also add. One needs to always pay attention to their online account and watch for anything that might pop up showing a pay per use table. I know some AT&T reps who said that AT&T is working on pluging the back door access for teathering and because of that I am saying keep an eye so one does not all the sudden get a huge bill.

 

I see a potential problem. Does At&t even have 3G there? Will it be quick enough for Skype?

 

Okay never mind, just checked. It is there.

 

ya by this years end the 3G footprint should be nice and large.

 

You know I just checked the map again for my area...they have areas marked as 3g that are not 3g....weird. Am I not doing something right? Data then darkest blue?

EDIT: i think att is counting the improved edge as 3g....that's shady oh well. Should be enough for skype still....

 

hard to believe they would say an area that was 3G that wasnt. Otherwise why not just say everything is 3G?

what you have to do is just look up an area, then click the 3G check box. you dont have to choose data first, that may blanket show were you can GPRS

 

Okay, then Brunswick, GA doesn't have 3G.

I clicked on data at the top of the coverage viewer and that thing is way off.

 

I just wanted to add here that one is not only limited to AT&T's media net content, while using a PDA device, with the unlimited data plan. When I had the Tilt on PYP's $19.99 unlim. data, I was able to go to any site using the Internet Explorer browser. There wasn't any settings that I needed to change first, in order to do this, it just worked for me out of the box.

 

Eric, Going by my own personal experience with AT&T's prepaid service, I have found just the opposite to be true. Every time I called in, I never had to wait more than 2 minutes, unless the call was made at peak times during the day or evening...And I was never made to feel like I was any less of a customer just because I wasn't on a contract with them.....Prepaid customer service IMHO, really isn't any different than the postpaid customer service. You get good reps. and bad ones. If a customer gets one whom they feel really doesn't want to be bothered, than I would recommend that they call back and speak to a different rep......:twocents:

 

Thanks hf1khal, I didn't change anything in the MediaNet access on my Treo. I do know that everytime I have called with a data issue/question, the first thing they verify is that I am on the PDA Unlimited Plan.

I have an older plan where I have PDA Unlimited +m2m Messaging Unlimited + 1500 other messaging for $44.95. Since that is only a difference of $5/month from the PYP charges I am not going to worry about it or I would have a heart to heart with my friend at the at&t store about how unfair it is that I have to be on the PDA Unlimited plan.

 

depends on the phone. and even then hard to say...

we are trying our best to answer your question but what your trying to do is techincally not allowed on any prepaid.

what we are telling you though is that there is a possibility depending on the phone you use that you may/maynot be able to tether on a medianet plan...either way you are technically not allowed and if they decide to bill you accordlingly, im sure that they can.

does that help?

 

Monkeybrain, Just wanted to throw "another wrench in the works" :

The $19.99 for Unlimited MediaNet is only on the Pick Your Plan , if you look under the "Service Tag" all the options mentioned are there.

On the Pay As You Go Plan, you will notice the "service tag" is missing. It is my understanding that on PAYG, you pay data charges by the usage.

what I am trying to say is be careful, with "prepay" plan you choose.

As for tethering, I think I read somewhere that you can only do this with a SmartPhone and yes technically tethering with a computer and unlimited data usage from a phone are two different things. I don't see a "tethering plan" offered in the Pre Pay Plans.

Hope I haven't confused you further.

PS: As an answer to your question, yes you can access any website that you normally can.

 

Charlyee, There are two Media Net packages on AT&T's "Pay As You Go" service that I don't see listed on the website, but are still available.

1 MB = $4.99

5 MB = $9.99

I don't recommend either one of these two, for anyone that plans on using a smartphone with PAYG service, due to the amount of data that can accumulate very quickly. The PYP $19.99 unlimited data package seems like a better deal to me.

 

I don't think anyone on this board has specifically used a N95 for tethering on at&t, but according to what Jay posted earlier you can do it with a Smartphone.

Thanks Ellen, I wonder why they don't show up on Treo 750 PAYG.