Calling all T-Mobile US subscribers
I’m looking at Switching from Cingular Blue (the old AT&T side) since customer service has become pretty hostile for those that won’t pay to convert over to Cingular Orange. Since Cingular is burning their bridge with me pretty fast, that really only leaves T-mobile for GSM service in my area. For any of you on T-Mobile in the US (especially those in the Silicon Valley area), can you answer a question or two for me?
What do you think of “T-MobileWeb?” Is it really $6/month for unlimited data? That seems remarkably lower than the competition. How has the throughput been?
How has the whole T-Mobile experience been for you? good customer service? good overall coverage? good roaming partners?
EDIT:
Thanks for the comments! I had remembered their being some funkiness with Flash Lite and T-mobile. Alessandro filled me in:
Ciao Justin,
the $4.99/mo is just WAP browsing, if you develope Flash Lite app that access the internet they will block you. You need the $19.99 unlimited internet access. Also this plan is both for EDGE/GPRS depending on which phone do you have.
Alessandro
Conclusion: At $20/month for the data service that I would need, and another charge for the SMS/MMS my total would be about the same. My co-workers that have used T-Mobile warn me that coverage on Yahoo!’s campus is also less than optimal. So, it looks like I am going to just have to suck it up, pay my $20 and convert from Cingular Blue to Cingular Orange. 
At least I don’t have a locked phone any more. 
Digg this!
November 28th, 2005 at 7:29 pm
I recently switched from cingularblue to t-mobile. My wife used t-mobile for some time now and got me to hop. I have a crack-berry, a $20 a month unlimited data plan. I know nothing of $6 a month plan. Coverage seems fine here in Atlanta. I can hook the phone to my laptop for web access, but its comparable to dial up. gd luck
November 28th, 2005 at 7:45 pm
I pay about $4.99/mo for access to the Web. The throughput has been remarkably good. Especially when downloading / testing swf apps. It seems that WAP pages take longer to display but I think it has more to do with the browser than the connection.
And, more importantly, it is unlimited. This is cool because you can use the phone as a bluetooth modem.
I can’t evaluate their customer service because we haven’t had a problem for the past 8 months. We did elect to buy the phone and service on the T-mobile site because the staff at the local stores were not really knowledgeable.
The phone arrived by FedEx. I just had to follow short instructions and was ready to go.
I traveled between TX and MI and had no connection problems.
November 29th, 2005 at 5:38 am
Ciao Justin,
the $4.99/mo is just WAP browsing, if you develope Flash Lite app that access the internet they will block you. You need the $19.99 unlimited internet access. Also this plan is both for EDGE/GPRS depending on which phone do you have.
Alessandro
December 16th, 2005 at 12:59 pm
I was wasting money on the $20/month plan. I was told by T-mobile that I needed the full data plan to access the internet outside of their branded wap site. That was false.
As of 6 months ago, I use the $4.99/month service (known in the US as “T-Zones”) to do a great deal more then WAP. I have my phone’s email client (NOT the web browser) set up to access my 3 IMAP mail accounts. I have an RSS news-reader installed to retrieve all the latest blogs. I’ve used another app installed for instant messaging across several IM services.
I currently use a Panasonic X700 Symbian phone with a bunch of 3rd party apps. This phone is NOT approved by T-Mobile, but all this internet stuff worked just as well on the T-Mobile approved Nokia 3650 I was recently using.
When I switched from the $20 plan to the $5 (T-Zones) plan, and found I could do the SAME stuff… I was pretty pissed I had been wasting $15 bucks each month for well over a year. But at least I’m saving that money now.
Your milage may vary.
January 13th, 2006 at 7:53 am
Just an update on the plans and to comment on Taz’s post. If you ever have the 19.99 plan all the ports are open. It seems that when you downgrade to the 5.99 plan they don’t close the ports. What I did was have them enable full internet (19.99) for a couple days and then call them back and ask them to downgrade it to the 5.99 plan. I have no problem with any flash app or s60 app accessing the internet.
Just thought I would pass this along.
January 22nd, 2006 at 1:25 pm
I have had T Mobile as my cell provider since 2001. In 2002, I upgraded from a plan with just my wife and I having phones to a 5 person family plan. When they upgraded my plan they mistakenly charged me $200 of termination fees on my individual plans even though I stayed with them and have been ever since. My bill is current, including last month’s charges of $157. T Mobile turned these charges over to 2 collection agencies without ever sending me a bill. I have not been able to get them to correct this problem and have protested the charges.
June 3rd, 2006 at 2:21 am
Hi,
Question.
Does the Razor phone have flash lite enabled on it? I am getting one next week, and I am excited to see how flash looks on mobile phones. I will have T-Moblie on it, and hopefully if the phone does not come with it, I could install it.
Thanks,
Johnny
July 1st, 2006 at 8:18 am
I’m a subscriber with T-Mobile with 3 lines. Until last month I was paying $129.99 for 300 minutes and $7.99 for the extra line(3 +1). When I received my bill I found that that my plan was changed to $139.99 and an additional $7.99 for one of the line. When i contacted t-mobile they said these phone line were always charged $7.99 (which is not true) and also the additional charge of $10 on my 3000 minutes. They can change the amount on your bills because people like me do not keep copies of the previous bills and we have nothing to prove. I’m sorry but t-mobile will lose 3 phone by end November ‘06. I’m very disappointed with t-mobile. Not a trustworthy company.
July 6th, 2006 at 2:06 am
cool site
July 8th, 2006 at 6:27 pm
Be Very careful.
T-Mobile is great at hooking you in, once they have you - they will do what ever it takes to keep you and NOT in the good way.
If you make a change, they want to renew the contract.
If you just need a phone replacement, they want a new contract and charge more for the phone than they would a new (the hook) customer.
They don’t seem to understand that theirs a lot of other companies willing to give you free phones and other services, so why would you extend your contract and pay a higher price for the same service and phone.
Service has not gotten any better, in fact it’s gotten worse.
Billing is one thing you do have to keep an eye on, they do correct the problem but it takes time.
Be very very careful when talking to them over the phone, you could be extending your contract and not even know it and they have stated they do not need to prove it until they have to go to court.
You would think they would want to make their customers happy to keep them.
P.S. Don’t throw your old phones away; you may be force to reuse them until your contract is over.
Two plans and 6 cell phones, they don’t care.
July 21st, 2006 at 1:30 pm
These problems seem to be pretty systemic. In the mobile phone service provider industry there are many disatified customers, of all the companies. As long as people keep paying the bills they will keep sending them. Try switching to prepaid service or better yet stop using cell phones for anything but emergency 911 calls (free and does not require any plan monthly or otherwise). Sure mobile phones are convenient but how much are you willing to give up for convience. When will there be a high speed / boradband internet connection in every home? or was that just an empty election promise. I’m very impressed that skype is offering free calling to us and canada until the end of 2006, and hope they keep it up, and an incomming number is low cost. If you are or have an elderly person in your home there may be a discount from the local phone company for basic service.
September 20th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
T-Mobile was a nightmare for me that lasted over three years. I had such a bad experience with them that I ported out my three numbers as soon as that became available. For the next three years about ever 3-4 months they would try to assign my number to another new customer in their system and I would start getting calls to my number for that person. Every time this happened I was assured they would fix it and it wouldn’t happen again. It was only finally resolved when I had enough and I complained to the FCC and they lit a fire under some executive to make it happen. I horrible company in my opinion.
November 13th, 2006 at 9:08 am
I currently use a Panasonic X700 Symbian phone with a bunch of 3rd party apps. This phone is NOT approved by T-Mobile, but all this internet stuff worked just as well on the T-Mobile approved Nokia 3650 I was recently using.
this is my choise too!
December 12th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Darn it. tmobile is charging me 29 for unlimited but after reading this I am getting ripped off. I think these people expect a certain percentage not to look at their bill…I am calling them
Jon
January 8th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
It surprises me when people speak of using WAP. Why not download Opera (www.opera.com) instead? Extremely tiny (120-something Kb) browser that lets you view any website.
Highly recommended - and free!
November 30th, 2007 at 2:30 am
Cell Phones Tracer
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting
December 27th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Well I’ve been with tmobile for 3 years I have no problem but with the insurance thing with asurion. I think that’s a ripp of. I had a problem with my razr and in order for me to receive it I had to pay 120 dollars to the dhl guy like a cod payment. Now that’s sucks dosnt insurance cover all kinds of damages to the phone. Since then I upgraded to the sidekick 3 and later the sidekick lx amazing phones I love the sidekick
January 15th, 2008 at 3:54 am
wow, i love T-Mobile US! much better then in Germany or UK! cous in Germany and UK is that very expensive and we pay fot traffic, there is not unlimited internet access