Current N900 Data Plans in the U.S.
 

Howdy Y'all,

Before you all have my head for bringing up a commonly discussed topic, let me foreword this post by saying that I have been reading many (if not all) of the threads on maemo.org, howardforums, and various other forums regarding data plans for the N900.

However, I am left with a few questions because it seems that T-mobile did a major overhaul of their plan offerings about two weeks before I actually purchased my N900 and I wanted to make sure I had the current information regarding mobile web on the N900 before buying any services.

Now, that said, I bought my N900 a couple weeks back. I've been dinking around with it on WiFi at home and I love it. However, I need to activate it on a U.S. carrier's network so I can get better internet access while away from home, as well as text messaging and some number of voice minutes. I have been looking at T-mobile primarily because I hate AT&T and SimpleMobile apparently hits you with a phantom data cap on their "unlimited data" offerings. If anyone knows of any different U.S. GSM providers, please feel free to speak up. Otherwise, I'm on to the meat of this post:

According to HowardForums, T-mobile should offer an unlimited data for phones plan for $9.99 per month. However, this was apparently deprecated earlier this November. According to this thread, you could get this data plan activated with T-mobile by purchasing some other form of a data plan, and then talking to the Customer Loyalty Department at T-mobile. Both of these posts, however, were made prior to the plan changes by T-mobile. So I wanted to clarify, can U.S. users still get unlimited data for ~$10 / month with T-mobile as of November 2010? Furthermore, I've heard mention that a similar plan by T-mobile existed that could give unlimited text + unlimited data for ~$20 per month. Does this option still exist?

If these options exist, what sort of plan should be purchased up front (from Radioshack, or wherever) in order to have the line switched over to the cheap data plan by the CLD at T-mobile? Can the switch be made from one of the even more plus plans, or should some random prepaid plan be purchased first instead?

Does this data plan stack with pay-as-you go minutes, or some other voice additive plan? In other words, would I be stuck paying $0.10 per minute for voice with one of these plans, or could I top-up with something like the $30 for 160 minutes offering by T-mobile?

If these plans are deprecated, or simply unavailable to new customers, are there other offerings by any company that give the ability to use excessive Data and Text capabilities while purchasing voice minutes on the go?

I thoroughly love my N900 and can't wait to start utilizing it as my primary phone (I am eagerly awaiting the day I get to tell Verizon to piss off). However, I need a bit more current data on how to work out a slick deal using an unlocked phone in the U.S. I want to support T-mobile because they seem like the only company that plays nice with unlocked and open phones (a philosophy that I support thoroughly). However, if they no longer offer competitive plans for open and unlocked phones, I will be thoroughly disappointed.

Sorry for the length, and if this needs to be merged into another thread somewhere else, that's fine. I just wanted to get a thread started regarding U.S. data plans for the N900 as of November 2010.

Thanks in Advance Guys,
Brady

Re: Current N900 Data Plans in the U.S.
 

CLD is only useful and will you be transferred to them if you have been a customer for full 22 months otherwise NO. So being a new customer you wont get that privilege. Yes there is a 10 plan which they have got away with since everybody started to use it on phones like n900 where it was made for dumb phones. All together they do not offer any similar low cost unlimited plan to new customers.

I cannot think of any USA carrier that will give you unlimited text and web while you pay as you go on the voice minutes, there used to be sidekick plan where you would pay 25 (used to be 20) and get unlimited text and web, you might want to look into it since they do not carry any of the sidekick brands any-more.
One another thing that Tmobile lets you do is, transfer of ownership which no other carrier anywhere lets you do, what this basically is that if someone is on the contract for more than 12 months and wants someone they know to take over his/her contract while also getting him/her out of contract early with out any penalty. You can look around on your circle and see if someone is going to switch to another carrier from Tmobile and you can take over their grandfathered plan, but keep in mind that the person going to switch from Tmobile and willing to transfer the contract to you cannot port the number to the carrier they are going to switch too. Also you will be using the same number they had, do not worry after 5-11 days of you having that number on your name you can call and pay 15 bucks and get your number changed to a new one.

Re: Current N900 Data Plans in the U.S.
 

You could use the $40 T-Mo data-only plan and then use Googele Voice for free texting.

Re: Current N900 Data Plans in the U.S.
 

I have been using an unlocked E71 on AT&T since I purchased it at a Best Buy on Nov 2008. I have the 450 minute plan for $39.95 with the $29.99 smartphone unlimited (all data) add-on. They do not offer this anymore. I originally selected it after I purchased the HTC Star Tek (Cingular 3125) Windows smartphone through AT&T back in 2005.

I finally broke down and purchased an N900 the last day of August 2010 . I have wanted it since I learned about it in 2009 and had been following and reading this site frequently. What kept me from purchasing it was the fact that the N900 would only use the 2.5 G frequency band on AT&T. My E71 uses both 3 G and 3.5 G all the time and is suprisingly fast.

I decided to try Simple Mobile (uses T-Mobile) unlimited and so far the N900 has been fast on 3G when out and about. At home, I usually use my High Speed Internet via my WiFi.

So I continue to use my E71 on AT&T and my N900 is currently on the $60.00 Simple Mobile plan for almost three weeks now. I have not yet reached there phantom data cap. The battery on the N900 would probably die out if you used data excessively unless you plan to always be tethered to a wall socket, such as when using the N900 as a laptop replacement.

All in all, I like both of my phones and plans so far (for my needs). So it depends on your ultimate satisfaction and concessions. I do not believe that there is a freely available $20.00 unlimited data offering anymore, from what I have read, most carriers are trying to split up there data offerings using different pricing levels for more revenue.

Good Luck ! Sorry for the long post.

Re: Current N900 Data Plans in the U.S.
 

Is that how people typically do the text over the web thing? I've heard of it before but I haven't played with my Google voice account enough to figure everything out. Basically I just tell Google to forward all my texts to e-mail and then I can respond for free via Google voice? Will it forward MMS too?

I don't mean to threadjack myself, but I've always been a bit curious on this subject...paying extra for texting seems lame with internet access available...

Re: Current N900 Data Plans in the U.S.
 

I don't know all the latest on the plans but T-Mobile does seem to be phasing out the Even More Plus plans (the contract free plans where you bring in your own phone). They aren't available online any more apparently, but some sources say they are still available in-store or over the phone. What many have done to get the $10 data is go to a store with a dumbphone with some basic data capability (e.g. Motorola L7 or something like that), say you want a SIM for your own phone and sign up with Even More Plus which has a $10 dumbphone data plan option. Then when you get home just pop the SIM in your N900 and you're good to go. A ~$50 total bill (w/o texting) is a really good deal for the features of the N900.

Re: Current N900 Data Plans in the U.S.
 

Search for the "Does the N900 work well on T-Mobile Pay as you go" thread. The info at the start of the thread is out of date, so browse the last couple of pages. I believe that there are a couple members who have gotten data working well (using proxy) for minimal cost. At any rate, it is fairly cheap to test it out and see if it suits your needs.

Re: Current N900 Data Plans in the U.S.
 

WEB DAY PASS - $1.49 FOR 24 HOURS OF DATA

I use a Gold T-Mobile Prepaid Card. Minutes are extended 1 year with each refill.
Thus I can keep my phone active for an additional year for only $10 if I still have unused minutes.

Today I discovered and used the new $1.49 Web Day Pass

Speeds varied from 500k to 2500k down and 500k to 1500k up in various parts of Los Angeles county

Worked Well

Re: Current N900 Data Plans in the U.S.
 

See also http://wiki.maemo.org/Data_plans#United_States (and feel free to update any out of date information or add missing plans).