Sick of my data "cap"

[Dice144]

Sick of my ATT 2 gig data "cap". I know its not truly capped but I refuse to pay $10 more for another 1gig if I go over. I honestly was not getting close until I discovered the music quality of Google Music streaming radio stations vs pandora. It is much clearer.

I am finally seriously thinking of selling off my ATT Samsung Note 2 (very solid phone) and getting a t mobile branded phone.

Currently pay $65 a month for my ATT plan. Thinking of the walmart $30 plan and using voip when calling or just getting the Straighttalk $45 plan.

 

[pcsavvy]

Be careful of those pre-paid plans, it may say unlimited data but if you read the fine print it usually states if you go over 2.5 Gigs of data, you will be throttled. So if you can live with being throttled to 2G speed or slower, it's your choice.
This is where Wi-Fi can come in handy so you don't use your data limit so quickly.

 

[gorcorps]

You get throttled on prepaid plans, so that's not a great idea. Also straight talk has no lte, which may be part of your good quality streaming.

 

[lightningbaron]

AT&T has the devices, but those grandfathered on "unlimited", still have a cap. I got a text from AT&T about exceeding 3GB in a month. Started to switch to WiFi to reduce my data usage. Debating whether to upgrade later this year. I do my upgrades online because stores will screw you over.

 

[MrK6]

AT&T has the devices, but those grandfathered on "unlimited", still have a cap. I got a text from AT&T about exceeding 3GB in a month. Started to switch to WiFi to reduce my data usage. Debating whether to upgrade later this year. I do my upgrades online because stores will screw you over.

All of this. I actually switched to Verizon once I found "unlimited" wasn't so, as that was the only thing that was keeping me on AT&T's crap service.

I always use Wifi when I need to do big transfers and sparingly use data for email/quick checks on the net. If streaming high quality music is important for you, decide how much it's worth or try to find some Wifi access. It seems at this point most carriers are similar in the charge for data services.

 

[Chocu1a]

T-mobile has true unlimited, as well as Sprint.

 

[zerogear]

AT&T has the devices, but those grandfathered on "unlimited", still have a cap. I got a text from AT&T about exceeding 3GB in a month. Started to switch to WiFi to reduce my data usage. Debating whether to upgrade later this year. I do my upgrades online because stores will screw you over.

If you are on an LTE unlimited plan, they start throttling at 5GB --- the 3G unlimited plan throttles around 3gb. But there definitely isn't a hard cap.

T-mobile has true unlimited, as well as Sprint.

Sprint is just horrible.

 

[Joe1986]

1.) The WalMart plan for $30 is 5GB, 100 voice minutes, unlimited texts, no roaming, if you don't travel much, and have good TMobile coverage where you'll be using it, you're golden.

2.) You may be able to unlock your Note 2 and use it on TMobile. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7gMO_kRxyM

 

[s44]

I am finally seriously thinking of selling off my ATT Samsung Note 2 (very solid phone) and getting a t mobile branded phone.

It handles all the T-Mo bands just fine.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

I have found that WiFi is so pervasive that I only use about 200mb a month.

 

[Dice144]

At work I would rather not use their wifi as we have to sign in with our network password.

Work for an ISP company and prefer when slacking at work to have the streaming going off the companys radar!

 

[Dice144]

1.) The WalMart plan for $30 is 5GB, 100 voice minutes, unlimited texts, no roaming, if you don't travel much, and have good TMobile coverage where you'll be using it, you're golden.

2.) You may be able to unlock your Note 2 and use it on TMobile. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7gMO_kRxyM

Thank You! Might just keep my Note 2 and try the unlock!

 

[Deeko]

I'm on the 5GB plan with tethering. I'm happy with it.

 

[sze5003]

I'm lucky I'm grandfathered in to Verizon's unlimited data. I pay 83 a month for 450 min, unlimited text and data. I spent $350 on a droid DNA and I'm enjoying using it. My sister was on my plan but she wanted a data phone. No way was I going to loose my unlimited data.

Metro pcs has good coverage in my area and where she lives with my mom so I put her on that. See if their coverage is around you.

I won't go to metro because I deal with a lot of rooted phones and this way I can sell and buy the phone I want and continue with Verizon. My fellow android devs all have Verizon phones so metro phone choices suck unless you just want the s3 or s4.

 

[Dice144]

Honestly $83 a month is to much for a cell phone. I can afford it np but paying my $65 a month drives me insane.

 

[Bman123]

Just use your note 2 you currently have, it will work just fine on t mobile. It is free to unlock it just need some spare time to spend doing it that's all.

 

[sze5003]

Honestly $83 a month is to much for a cell phone. I can afford it np but paying my $65 a month drives me insane.

Yeah I know what you mean. But there are no other options. Straight talk and metro are going to be 30 and 40 a month. Straight talk has crappy phones that may just bonk out after a couple of months. I use my data a lot to stream music to and from work, at work. The thing is we all want to use the newest phones like the iPhone's, HTC one, s3,s4 but everything that will be coming out is geared to be very fast and capable of high speed bandwidth, and unless you are on a major carrier you won't be able to use the phone at it's major potential.

 

[SAWYER]

you can use good phone on st

 

[Red Storm]

If you don't want a data cap go T-Mobile, though for unlimited you're looking at ~$70/month, not including monthly phone payments (if you get a new phone from them too).

 

[Insomniator]

Yeah I know what you mean. But there are no other options. Straight talk and metro are going to be 30 and 40 a month. Straight talk has crappy phones that may just bonk out after a couple of months. I use my data a lot to stream music to and from work, at work. The thing is we all want to use the newest phones like the iPhone's, HTC one, s3,s4 but everything that will be coming out is geared to be very fast and capable of high speed bandwidth, and unless you are on a major carrier you won't be able to use the phone at it's major potential.

Exactly, which is why the caps are just ridiclous. People will pay out whatever they ask though. I don't think its unreasonable to have no unlimited plans, or maybe an extremely expensive unlimited plan in order to weed out the super users taking advantage of the system.

My problem is that 2GB is hilarious. That is clearly a move to hurt the average guy and just take advantage of customers. With 2GB I guess all I can do is search google for a restaurant once in a while on 'lightning fast LTE!'

The caps should be like 5GB, 10GB and 20GB. That would allow for some actual usage of these super fast networks, but still prevent people from torrenting/netflixing/pandoraing/running a business off a hotspot using 100GB a month.

 

[AstroManLuca]

you can use good phone on st

Yeah, can't you just buy a sim card and go with that? No need to buy one of their phones.

Only thing is when I was doing research on this last year, I kept hearing about Straight Talk throttling heavy data users. Not sure if that's still an issue or not.

For maximum data, I think a grandfathered Verizon unlimited plan, Sprint, or T-Mobile are your options for TRULY unlimited data. They are all expensive, of course ($70+ per month), but if you want to use a lot of data, you have to pay for it.

T-Mobile's $30/month prepaid plan with 100 minutes and 5 GB of data is the best you can get without spending a lot of money. Technically the data is unlimited on that one as well, but you will be throttled to ~100 kbps (about twice dialup speeds) once you hit 5 GB.

 

[sze5003]

That may be a good option at t mobile but what happens if you need to use the phone at work and 100 minutes isn't enough? My guess is going over the minutes should be way cheaper than going over the data.

 

[AstroManLuca]

That may be a good option at t mobile but what happens if you need to use the phone at work and 100 minutes isn't enough? My guess is going over the minutes should be way cheaper than going over the data.

Then you either buy the $70 truly unlimited plan, or one of the cheaper unlimited talk plans with a throttle point, or you go with Platinumtel unlimited with a throttle point, or you stick with the $30 plan and pay $0.10/min if you go over. Or find an app that lets you make calls over a data connection, like Skype.

Or you get a separate non-smartphone with really cheap minutes that you use exclusively for making calls, and share numbers with Google Voice forwarding. Page Plus has 2000 minutes for $80 ($0.04/min) and works on the Verizon network. Platinumtel is $0.05/min, but they've been running a promotion for months where you can get a $40 card for $20, so it's actually sort of like paying $0.025/min, the cheapest I've seen anywhere.

There are lots of options.

 

[sze5003]

My contract with Verizon is done. Im afraid they can pull the grandfathered unlimited data away from me now. I've been thinking what I should do in case that happens. My only choice would be what you mentioned, truly unlimited with tmobile which sucks where I live and so does Sprint. Metro pcs is decent in my area but they have sucky phones too.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Personally I'd take capped data over unlimited IF it was the difference between having a signal and not having one, and if the cost was the same.

In my case, I live in the city so T-Mobile's coverage is good enough for me. And I use WiFi 99% of the time anyway.