Pre-purchase questions about t-mo prepaid per day

[MeatCatalog]

Hello howard forums! I recently got a termination letter from sprint (11 year customer) due to excessive roaming so i'm looking to move to a carrier that has coverage at my new job. A coworker has t-mo so I got to exploring. It appears that the best deal for me would be the t-mo prepaid per day. I don't see anything like it by any other carrier, national or local, big or small. I called t-mo to ask some question but they seemed to want me to get off the phone as soon as possible so I thought I'd ask here.

1. Is there a wiki somewhere that has a big list of possibly all the answers to my questions (that follow) for t-mo prepaid per day? I googled but found nothing.
2. Firstly, how is prepaid done? I set up an account and fill it with money, I presume?
3. How is the per day usage started? I imagine when I answer a call coming into the number or place a call? Something of that nature? What about data usage? Is the number "off" until I select it to be "on" or anything like that? Meaning calls go directly to voicemail until I turn it on?
4. If I received an important call and chose to answer it, how does t-mo bill for that? Essentially what i'm asking is if they charge me $1, $2, or $3 automatically? Is this an auto switch or something I may select inside my account?

Thanks in advance guys. Great forum here. Long time reader, first time poster!

[adam1991]

If you can get Verizon where you are, and if you're looking for CHEAP voice service, PagePlus is your best bet for prepaid. Four cents/minute, no daily charge crapola. Use it and pay, or don't use it and don't pay.

Fill an account, use it, when it's gone it's gone. Just keep filling it to keep it active.

ALL prepaid requires that you keep filling it at some interval to keep the account active--always research that. For example, PagePlus is 50 cents/month to keep it alive, plus a requirement that you replenish the account at some level--ten bucks, even--every 120 days.

PagePlus has other plans as well, all prepaid, all with varying levels and pricing for talk, text, and data. They even have some plans that include unlimited talk and/or text--again, all prepaid.

[IsLand_BoY]

- Yes. It is prepaid. You would need to add money first, then pick a PBTD (pay by the day) plan.

- Straight off of T-Mo's website: When do I incur charges with a Pay By The Day plan?

A: Plan charges are applied to your account only on the days that you use your service. All services expire at 11:59pm. (local time) Days that your service is not in use, your account will not be charged.

That means that yes, anytime you make/receive a call or text or use data, it will trigger the daily charge. You can turn data off on the phone if you have a smartphone. You can leave the phone on and let it roll into voicemail whenever you don't want to answer so you don't get charged.

- There is no "auto switch"; you would select one of the three available plans, and T-Mo will charge you when your usage triggers the daily fee. You can switch between the plans if you'd like if you anticipate needing web for one week but not the next. T-Mo is not going to automatically switch you between the plans to save you money

Lastly, welcome to HoFo! Another perk of T-Mo is their WiFi calling feature. Great if you have WiFi at home/work but poor coverage, since you can do voice/text/data over WiFi instead.. assuming your phone is equipped to do so of course.

[MeatCatalog]

- Yes. It is prepaid. You would need to add money first, then pick a PBTD (pay by the day) plan.

- Straight off of T-Mo's website: When do I incur charges with a Pay By The Day plan?

A: Plan charges are applied to your account only on the days that you use your service. All services expire at 11:59pm. (local time) Days that your service is not in use, your account will not be charged.

That means that yes, anytime you make/receive a call or text or use data, it will trigger the daily charge. You can turn data off on the phone if you have a smartphone. You can leave the phone on and let it roll into voicemail whenever you don't want to answer so you don't get charged.

- There is no "auto switch"; you would select one of the three available plans, and T-Mo will charge you when your usage triggers the daily fee. You can switch between the plans if you'd like if you anticipate needing web for one week but not the next. T-Mo is not going to automatically switch you between the plans to save you money

Lastly, welcome to HoFo! Another perk of T-Mo is their WiFi calling feature. Great if you have WiFi at home/work but poor coverage, since you can do voice/text/data over WiFi instead.. assuming your phone is equipped to do so of course.

Thanks a million for these answers!

A few follow ups:

1. So with the pre-paid per day I'd select the $3,$2,$1 plan on my account online. But so long as my phone is on the phone still rings and data can be shut off/on. I wonder, can texting be shut off without full blown airplane mode? I would imagine if someone sends me a text that would trigger the $3,$2,$1 fee?

2. It was my understanding that t-mo wifi calling is NOT available to t-mo pre-paid customers for free. That is, it deducts minutes or in this case would trigger the $3,$2,$1 daily fee. Is that correct?

Just as a follow up as to why I am so interested in this plan - 95% of the places i'm in have wifi. I have a VoIP solution at home and can use grooveIP on my cell so long as i'm in wifi. The per day solution would only be in "emergencies" or days when i'll definitely not be in wifi coverage for extended periods. Oh and yes, i'll be using an android smart phone. Likely the galaxy note or maybe SIII.

[cmstlist]

If you have a phone would would normally try and access data if available, then unless you shut it off on the side of the phone, you'll instantly trigger the daily charge just by turning the phone on.

[Chop-Chop]

3. How is the per day usage started? I imagine when I answer a call coming into the number or place a call? Something of that nature? What about data usage? Is the number "off" until I select it to be "on" or anything like that? Meaning calls go directly to voicemail until I turn it on?

With smartphones, it would be too tedious to be controlling all your apps that want data. Most if not all smartphones should have a "switch" you can disable all data.

[MeatCatalog]

If you can get Verizon where you are, and if you're looking for CHEAP voice service, PagePlus is your best bet for prepaid. Four cents/minute, no daily charge crapola. Use it and pay, or don't use it and don't pay.

Fill an account, use it, when it's gone it's gone. Just keep filling it to keep it active.

ALL prepaid requires that you keep filling it at some interval to keep the account active--always research that. For example, PagePlus is 50 cents/month to keep it alive, plus a requirement that you replenish the account at some level--ten bucks, even--every 120 days.

PagePlus has other plans as well, all prepaid, all with varying levels and pricing for talk, text, and data. They even have some plans that include unlimited talk and/or text--again, all prepaid.

This 4c/minute plan doesn't have any data or texting included? If so what are those rates? I looked at their website about it, seems like a good deal since they use verizon.

[Gumpphone]

Just as a follow up as to why I am so interested in this plan - 95% of the places i'm in have wifi. I have a VoIP solution at home and can use grooveIP on my cell so long as i'm in wifi. The per day solution would only be in "emergencies" or days when i'll definitely not be in wifi coverage for extended periods.

Then why PBTD? Seems Pay As You Go (PAYG) would be a better fit for the most part, and you could always switch to PBTD on days when you are away from wifi for extended periods but need data.

[MeatCatalog]

Then why PBTD? Seems Pay As You Go (PAYG) would be a better fit for the most part, and you could always switch to PBTD on days when you are away from wifi for extended periods but need data.

To be totally frank, when I made this post I didn't know that was an option. When someone in this thread said you can easily toggle in your account based on daily needs I was highly surprised. I've never used prepaid before, i've been a post-paid sprint customer for over 11 years (and overpaying for most of it). I'm quite amazed at how great pre-paid is, especially t-mobile's prepaid. The only downside is you don't get a discounted phone and you have to "top up" your plan to keep account active on a regular basis. The upside easily outweighs that however - 70% cheaper monthly plan (in my case), no contracts, extreme flexibility and the ability to choose your own phone and switch carriers on a whim if desired.

I will likely do exactly what you suggest - PAYG at 10c/min or so, then on days I need a lot of data (or data at all), switch to pay by the day. Its pretty awesome that t-mo is totally flexible like this.

[MeatCatalog]

Just wanted to say I made the switch 2.5 weeks ago and i'm very happy with T-mo. $95 at callingmart.com for 1000mins/texts for 1 year and the ability to switch to Pay by the day at any time. The only downside is that on my galaxy note I only get 2G which is EXTREMELY slow (500ms pings) but it works ok for gps, email and mobile versions of websites. Also, I think its a negative that if I switch to PBTD I can't log back in and switch back to PAYG starting at 12:00am or whatnot. Its a minor inconvenience but all in all i'm very happy with this plan. My t-mo activation card even came with $3.34 on it so pretty impressed so far. All my long phone calls are now to my VOIP phone using an obi100 and google voice. Here's hoping gvoice stays free through 2013!

[EdwardP]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.4; en-us; SCH-R720 Build/GINGERBREAD) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

- Yes. It is prepaid. You would need to add money first, then pick a PBTD (pay by the day) plan.

- Straight off of T-Mo's website: When do I incur charges with a Pay By The Day plan?

A: Plan charges are applied to your account only on the days that you use your service. All services expire at 11:59pm. (local time) Days that your service is not in use, your account will not be charged.

That means that yes, anytime you make/receive a call or text or use data, it will trigger the daily charge. You can turn data off on the phone if you have a smartphone. You can leave the phone on and let it roll into voicemail whenever you don't want to answer so you don't get charged.

- There is no "auto switch"; you would select one of the three available plans, and T-Mo will charge you when your usage triggers the daily fee. You can switch between the plans if you'd like if you anticipate needing web for one week but not the next. T-Mo is not going to automatically switch you between the plans to save you money

Lastly, welcome to HoFo! Another perk of T-Mo is their WiFi calling feature. Great if you have WiFi at home/work but poor coverage, since you can do voice/text/data over WiFi instead.. assuming your phone is equipped to do so of course.

Thanks a million for these answers!

A few follow ups:

1. So with the pre-paid per day I'd select the $3,$2,$1 plan on my account online. But so long as my phone is on the phone still rings and data can be shut off/on. I wonder, can texting be shut off without full blown airplane mode? I would imagine if someone sends me a text that would trigger the $3,$2,$1 fee?

2. It was my understanding that t-mo wifi calling is NOT available to t-mo pre-paid customers for free. That is, it deducts minutes or in this case would trigger the $3,$2,$1 daily fee. Is that correct?

Just as a follow up as to why I am so interested in this plan - 95% of the places i'm in have wifi. I have a VoIP solution at home and can use grooveIP on my cell so long as i'm in wifi. The per day solution would only be in "emergencies" or days when i'll definitely not be in wifi coverage for extended periods. Oh and yes, i'll be using an android smart phone. Likely the galaxy note or maybe SIII.

My Samsung Dart included T-Mobile's WiFi calling app and it works perfectly on the prepaid plans.

If you are on the PAYG plan, any calls made with the WiFi app will cost 10¢ per minute, per the terms of that plan.

If on any of the unlimited PBTD/PBTM plans, WiFi calls are included at no extra cost.