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The Mobile Gadgeteer

Matthew Miller & Joel Evans

T-Mobile to offer new Prepaid monthly plans and hourly Web access option May 16th

By | April 29, 2010, 7:21pm PDT

Summary: T-Mobile will start offering prepaid plans with unlimited talk and text, and even hourly web access. I think I’ll be adding a T-Mobile phone to my utility belt starting May 16th.

I just received word of some new prepaid plans coming to T-Mobile on May 16th. The plans include:

  • Unlimited Talk + Text for $50 per month
  • Unlimited Text and $0.10/minute calling for $15 per month
  • Hour Pass: $0.99 per hourly session for Web access for prepaid customers

While the prepaid plans sound attractive, the Hour Pass marks the first time that prepaid customers will have the ability to access the web. That’s pretty cool!

I have to wonder if T-Mobile is planning on offering these plans since AT&T is going to be offering prepaid with the iPad that starts shipping tomorrow?

My guess is that there’s going to be a pretty nice shakeup in the United States in the coming months with regards to prepaid and post paid plans. On the data front we have the launch of Sprint’s HTC EVO, which will be the first 4G phone. Then we also have unlimited bandwidth consumption on Sprint’s 4G network with the Overdrive. Of course, T-Mobile already got into the game a bit with their announcement earlier this week of throttled bandwidth.

In the end all of these changes are good for us consumers, so I welcome each and every one of them–so far.

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Topics

With more than a decade of mobile, Internet and wireless experience, Joel specializes in taking existing brands and technologies into the mobile and wireless space.

Disclosure

Joel Evans

Joel is a serial entrepreneur with his most recent business, CronkSoftware (cronksoftware.com), focusing on consulting and building games and applications for mobile devices. Joel has consulted for Microsoft’s Windows Mobile division and advises other companies on how to incorporate mobile into their existing brands and products. Joel purchases many of his devices and others are sent for review on a 30-day loaner basis and then returned to the supplier. If any devices are provided as “keeper” Joel will clearly disclose this in his reviews.

Biography

Joel Evans

With more than a decade of mobile, Internet and wireless experience, Joel specializes in taking existing brands, technologies and services into the mobile and wireless space. Joel is currently serving as the Managing Director of Cronk Software, Inc., a company he founded to offer full-service, end-to-end mobile strategy, design and development services.

Joel is the former founder and "Chief Geek" of Geek.com, a website praised by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and others as one of world's best sources of information for technology professionals and enthusiasts.

Joel also serves as a technology expert for a number of well-known publications and regularly advises corporations, analysts, journalists and bloggers on what the future of technology will bring. He brings decades of relationships with leading game publishers, online communities and publishers, along with both hardware and software product management and delivery expertise. Joel can be found online as "JoelGeek" and you can follow him on Twitter @JoelGeek.

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Depends on what you mean by Tracfone Web.
pfyearwood 1st May 2010
I have a Tracfone Web enabled Samsung model that does do the web but only what Tracfone lets you. It offers access to Fox News but when you try to use it you get "403-Forbidden". When I try to access my ISP, it also comes back "403-Forbidden". You only get what Tracfone wants you to get.

I came to this phone from an ATT web enabled phone. It had no restrictions that I found. It was also a prepaid. I switched for two reasons.

1) Tracfone has a better prepay plan. You pay for 90 days and if you have to add more time/money, the next 90 days are added to the end of that 90 days. ATT will roll over money but not time. the 90 days starts when you add the prepaid amount. I once had my wife's Tracfone extended like that for six months. Can't do that with ATT.

2) The second reason I switched was to get a slider style phone. I wore out my first ATT phone and went to a flip phone. But, the ATT prepaid system had me return to Tracfone.

I do not like that my model phone is restricted on what it can access on the mobile web. On the other hand, I do like that this model has free double minutes for life. When I pay online I get 120 minutes for the price of 60, and can buy another 30 minutes for an extra $5 when gives me another 30 minutes for a total of 180 minutes to use in 90 days. I love the minutes and days in service rollovers but I don't like being restricted on what I can do on the web. Maybe other models don't have these limitations.

Paul
An 85% happy Tracfone user.
0 Votes
+ -
tmob rep violation
alreiatuazon 30th Apr 2010
It's quite intriguing to see the image on your
article. If you have noticed, that's an internal
page, meaning to say, somebody inside t-mob, this
can be a rep, who has access on that site has put
his/her job on the line by 1)capturing
confidential information 2) sharing it to you
without permission. If rules has not changed since
I left the company, that's a terminable offense.
0 Votes
+ -
Will Police Kick in Joel's Door?
hawks5999 30th Apr 2010
At least this isn't Apple where such a leak might
lead to police busting down Joel's door.
0 Votes
+ -
Yes, or...
TweakATweezer 30th Apr 2010
"somebody inside t-mob, this can be a rep, who has
access on that site has put his/her job on the
line"

Or, 74% of 13-year-old crackers could get to the
same page, yes?

www.Tweak-A-Tweezer.com
Tracfone is also doing prepaid Web now. Their straighttalk.com site offers unlimited everything for $45 per month.
0 Votes
+ -
I have a Tracfone Web enabled Samsung model that does do the web but only what Tracfone lets you. It offers access to Fox News but when you try to use it you get "403-Forbidden". When I try to access my ISP, it also comes back "403-Forbidden". You only get what Tracfone wants you to get.

I came to this phone from an ATT web enabled phone. It had no restrictions that I found. It was also a prepaid. I switched for two reasons.

1) Tracfone has a better prepay plan. You pay for 90 days and if you have to add more time/money, the next 90 days are added to the end of that 90 days. ATT will roll over money but not time. the 90 days starts when you add the prepaid amount. I once had my wife's Tracfone extended like that for six months. Can't do that with ATT.

2) The second reason I switched was to get a slider style phone. I wore out my first ATT phone and went to a flip phone. But, the ATT prepaid system had me return to Tracfone.

I do not like that my model phone is restricted on what it can access on the mobile web. On the other hand, I do like that this model has free double minutes for life. When I pay online I get 120 minutes for the price of 60, and can buy another 30 minutes for an extra $5 when gives me another 30 minutes for a total of 180 minutes to use in 90 days. I love the minutes and days in service rollovers but I don't like being restricted on what I can do on the web. Maybe other models don't have these limitations.

Paul
An 85% happy Tracfone user.

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