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T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2020 1:17 pm
by dawnish
I'm having some trouble figuring out which plan will work best on T-Mobile's network. I've heard postpaid is better than prepaid. I currently have the Magenta plan on a SIM card in a WG3526 with Sierra MC7455 modem and it's been working well for the past week. Is this a post-paid plan? Is there a better plan? Is anyone else using this plan and gone over the 50GB/month?
T-Mobile is the best option for us right now as the closest tower is 6-7 miles away and the terrain is very hilly/tree-covered.
Re: T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2020 7:29 pm
by gscheb
Sounds like post pay to me. Yes use way more than that.
Re: T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2020 7:35 pm
by gscheb
gscheb wrote: Fri Oct 02, 2020 7:29 pm
Sounds like post pay to me. Yes use way more than that.
Screenshot_20201002-203425.png
Re: T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2020 5:58 am
by shwaba
@gscheb
What plan/addons do you use through Tmo?
Re: T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2020 12:11 pm
by dawnish
gscheb wrote: Fri Oct 02, 2020 7:29 pm
Sounds like post pay to me. Yes use way more than that.
amazing. thank you! do you ever experience throttling or deprioritization?
Re: T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2020 1:16 pm
by gscheb
dawnish wrote: Sat Oct 03, 2020 12:11 pm
amazing. thank you! do you ever experience throttling or deprioritization?
Yes it slows down at speeds up at times. But never to the point where you can't use it. Low be around 35 down and high be about 85 down. Also keep in mind this on one band 2 with 15 MHz. No carrier aggregation.
But my tower has been updated so it is faster.
Parents on older T-Mobile tower with CA Band 2 &12 total of 15 MHz. There is speed is consistently around 35 down.
Re: T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2020 3:41 pm
by LteHaks9
gscheb wrote: Fri Oct 02, 2020 7:35 pm
Screenshot_20201002-203425.png
If you don't mind me asking, what's your hardware setup?
Re: T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2020 3:49 pm
by gscheb
LteHaks9 wrote: Thu Oct 08, 2020 3:41 pm
If you don't mind me asking, what's your hardware setup?
Well set up three of these T-Mobile setups
Mine and for others.
1. is Parabolic antenna, WG3526, EP06
2. is Parabolic antenna, WE826, EP06
3. is log periodic antenna (plastic wedges people call yagi on here), WE826, MC7455
All three of these have the WiFi Disabled have another normal house router plugged into the LAN port.
Re: T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2020 9:27 pm
by Dbfit89
Is the magenta plan $70/mo?
Re: T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2020 9:33 pm
by tetranz
I have Magenta in a Pepwave which contains a MC7455. It's working very well where I am temporarily in Houston but I haven't even got to 50 GB yet.
Re: T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2020 12:22 pm
by Ozarks
gscheb wrote: Thu Oct 08, 2020 3:49 pm
Well set up three of these T-Mobile setups
Mine and for others...
Would the WE826 Unlocked 4G LTE GSM modem work with the $70 T-mo Magenta plan?
Would I first need to activate the plan in a phone and then move the SIM to the WE826?
What settings would I need to change in the WE826?
Any help is much appreciated!
Re: T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2020 10:01 pm
by gscheb
Ozarks wrote: Mon Nov 02, 2020 12:22 pm
Would the WE826 Unlocked 4G LTE GSM modem work with the $70 T-mo Magenta plan?
Would I first need to activate the plan in a phone and then move the SIM to the WE826?
What settings would I need to change in the WE826?
Any help is much appreciated!
Yes it should work. If you call them on the phone and say you have a phone you are going to borrow and not sure what it is. They will send you pre activated sim. Done this several times.
https://wirelessjoint.com/viewtopic.php?f=32 ... =140#p7409
Re: T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2020 6:10 am
by Ozarks
Thank you. I am very grateful for your help.
Re: T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2020 12:39 pm
by crazysteve
gscheb wrote: Fri Oct 02, 2020 7:29 pm
Sounds like post pay to me. Yes use way more than that.
I have a post pay line with international I'm not using but I'm considering. I'm also thinking of getting a prepaid $50 Tmo plan instead as I fear getting my grandfathered plan shut down.
Why is postpaid considered "better"?
Re: T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2020 12:59 pm
by Ozarks
Postpaid customers are worth more to cell companies because they usually pay more per month for service and there is much less churn for postpaid accounts, vs prepaid. Their data speeds also are not de-prioritized.
Re: T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2021 3:09 pm
by LoveMeSomeCALTE
gscheb wrote: Sat Oct 03, 2020 1:16 pm
Yes it slows down at speeds up at times. But never to the point where you can't use it. Low be around 35 down and high be about 85 down. Also keep in mind this on one band 2 with 15 MHz. No carrier aggregation.
But my tower has been updated so it is faster.
Parents on older T-Mobile tower with CA Band 2 &12 total of 15 MHz. There is speed is consistently around 35 down.
That's fantastic. What plan is this?
I always connect through an iPAD with tethering on and TMobile randomly allocate parts of the traffic to hotspot and then throttles the whole line to 512kbps once the hotspot allocation hits 20GB.
Depending on the day of the month, and the way the stars are aligned, the total data might hit 90GB by the time TMobile decides I have used 20GB hotspot, sometimes it has gone to 120GB but last month after 30GB of traffic, TMobile decided I have used 20GB hotspot.
One thing I've noticed is that there's a strong correlation between the hotspot counter and pluralsight training videos I watch. It's almost as if they are classifying my pluralsight training video traffic as hotspot usage but I have no clue what's going on.
What plan do you have?
Re: T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2021 3:24 pm
by gscheb
LoveMeSomeCALTE wrote: Wed Aug 18, 2021 3:09 pm
That's fantastic. What plan is this?
I always connect through an iPAD with tethering on and TMobile randomly allocate parts of the traffic to hotspot and then throttles the whole line to 512kbps once the hotspot allocation hits 20GB.
Depending on the day of the month, and the way the stars are aligned, the total data might hit 90GB by the time TMobile decides I have used 20GB hotspot, sometimes it has gone to 120GB but last month after 30GB of traffic, TMobile decided I have used 20GB hotspot.
One thing I've noticed is that there's a strong correlation between the hotspot counter and pluralsight training videos I watch. It's almost as if they are classifying my pluralsight training video traffic as hotspot usage but I have no clue what's going on.
What plan do you have?
Hello,
Wrote that some time ago. Was using T-Mobile cell phone sim in a router. Now have T-Mobile Home Internet.
This one of the post I wrote about it at the time below.
https://wirelessjoint.com/viewtopic.php?f=32 ... =140#p7409
You should check to see if you can get T-Mobile Home Internet. Some people say they can get it with different address then use their real address for shipping purposes and get it there and use it.
Have you ever tried to tether this Ipad plan with T-Mobile?
Can Also put a phone in into a router but it will more expensive but it works and not that bad to do. Did it for a couple of years before got T-Mobile Home Internet. Sister still using T-Mobile phone sim and going just fine with it.
Re: T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2021 4:39 pm
by LoveMeSomeCALTE
gscheb wrote: Wed Aug 18, 2021 3:24 pm
You should check to see if you can get T-Mobile Home Internet. Some people say they can get it with different address then use their real address for shipping purposes and get it there and use it.
I am sure I can get T-Mobile Home Internet. That's not the issue - I just don't want to deal with the shenanigans T-Mobile will start to pull soon with their Home Internet.
They are trying to sell these and once they hit some internal metrics where they no longer need to grow as much, they will start to boot out and remove people who don't fit the profile they want.
This is how they predictably work and I just dont want to deal with that.
gscheb wrote: Wed Aug 18, 2021 3:24 pm
Have you ever tried to tether this Ipad plan with T-Mobile?
Yes - the T-Mobile plan I wrote about above that's in my iPAD is the "T-Mobile Unlimited Plus Tablet with 20GB of 4G LTE hotspot data"
Re: T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Thu Aug 26, 2021 8:18 pm
by crazysteve
LoveMeSomeCALTE wrote: Wed Aug 18, 2021 4:39 pm
...I just don't want to deal with the shenanigans T-Mobile will start to pull soon with their Home Internet.
They are trying to sell these and once they hit some internal metrics where they no longer need to grow as much, they will start to boot out and remove people who don't fit the profile they want.
This is how they predictably work and I just dont want to deal with that
Has T-Mobile specifically done this before? I don't understand why they would roll out home internet if they intend on booting people. What profile would one need to get booted?
Re: T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Thu Aug 26, 2021 8:27 pm
by LoveMeSomeCALTE
crazysteve wrote: Thu Aug 26, 2021 8:18 pm
Has T-Mobile specifically done this before?
Absolutely.
I documented it in details about what they did to our small rural community in 2019 here.
If you can't find my post, I can search for you. let me know, but here's the gist:
Offered us free hotspots for 30 days, gave us the $50 price that beat all our local WISPs, we all switched making most of those local WISPs go out of business and then pulled the plug after just a few months.
Now they are advertising the same thing, none of us are repeating the same mistakes of 2019. The ones buying these are those who recently moved in and didn't know. We make sure they eventually know.
T-Mobile is an unethical company: they will lie through their teeth and this is not my opinion:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/202 ... ling-says/
Re: T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Thu Aug 26, 2021 8:39 pm
by LoveMeSomeCALTE
Ok here's a short writeup I could find but I had a more detailed one. It had nothing to do with usage. There were people who were 80 years old who only use a computer to update their benefits once a month who got booted:
https://wirelessjoint.com/viewtopic.php?f=32 ... 9687#p9868
Re: T-Mobile Plans: Prepaid vs. Postpaid
Posted: Thu Aug 26, 2021 9:46 pm
by crazysteve
That's sounds like a really weird thing to do. Sorry that happened.