Trying To Go Free, Need Help with Google Voice, tmobile, iPhone setup

[GWestphal]

I can't afford the $80 a month to keep my att service on my iPhone 3GS. I'm trying to figure out a way to keep most of functionality for free or reduced service area. Wondering if anyone here has done the same thing or can explain how it will all work. I am under wifi for most of the time except when I'm out on the town or driving.

Things I need:

Phone service - I'm thinking tmobile prepaid, $100 for a 1000 minutes which should last me since I only use <100 min/month. Texts count as one minute I think. This would be for when I'm away from wifi. I thinking of porting my number to google voice and get text and voice via that because I think that lets me take calls over wifi which would cover 75% of the time.

Maps - I need this desperately and I need an offline solution. Doesn't google maps 5 do offline caching and routing on android? That coming to iphone?


I'm not entirely sure how this would all integrate, so if you know how it would work I'd love a better explanation.

 

[alent1234]

virgin mobile + android phone for $150 + $50 or so a month for unlimited text/data and 1500 minutes. cheaper plans available

 

[GWestphal]

I'd like to continue using my iphone 3gs if possible and I'm trying to get away from a monthly plan or is that a no contract plan?

 

[gorcorps]

Don't plan on getting a decent google maps update on the iphone. They've (understandably) left Apple alone for a long time.

 

[manly]

I can't afford the $80 a month to keep my att service on my iPhone 3GS. I'm trying to figure out a way to keep most of functionality for free or reduced service area. Wondering if anyone here has done the same thing or can explain how it will all work. I am under wifi for most of the time except when I'm out on the town or driving.

Things I need:

Phone service - I'm thinking tmobile prepaid, $100 for a 1000 minutes which should last me since I only use <100 min/month. Texts count as one minute I think. This would be for when I'm away from wifi. I thinking of porting my number to google voice and get text and voice via that because I think that lets me take calls over wifi which would cover 75% of the time.

Maps - I need this desperately and I need an offline solution. Doesn't google maps 5 do offline caching and routing on android? That coming to iphone?


I'm not entirely sure how this would all integrate, so if you know how it would work I'd love a better explanation.

My calling needs are admittedly modest so I switched to GoPhone, AT&T's prepaid service. Previously, they had a corporate policy of not signing up iPhone on prepaid but you don't have to show them your phone. The easiest way is to bring your bill to an AT&T store and they'll change the account type to GoPhone. You keep the number and they can't botch porting (I've seen references before of how some reps do botch a port). They throw in the SIM card and you can start with just a $25 airtime purchase (I refill on CallingMart for slightly less). You don't need to unlock your phone if that's an issue.

When I "downgraded" last fall, I looked into T-Mobile prepaid but as you said, you have to fork over $100 to get their lowest per minute rate. Since that time, GoPhone went from a hefty 25c/min rate to a "simple" 10c/min rate which works great for low-volume talkers.

GoPhone Prepaid Plans

Admittedly GoPhone's mobile data is a bit pricey but they have different tiers available. Officially they previously didn't "support" iPhones or Blackberry on prepaid, but they didn't do any active blocking either. Recently I noticed their plans now differentiate between normal and "smartphone". From what I see, the prices are essentially the same either way and iPhone is still not explicitly mentioned.

I don't recall hearing much about Google Maps in iOS 5 from the keynote earlier, but I don't expect it to reach feature parity with Android.

 

[S Freud]

I remember reading an article about a guy who uses his iPod touch as his work phone with services like Google voice and others. I'll see if I can find the article.

EDIT: Here's the article. http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/mobile/01/20/ipod.phone/index.html?hpt=C1

With some Google searching you can find a lot of forums and tutorials exploring the same thing.

Hope this helps.