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[Q] Switching from Sprint to AT&T Tab...

Ok so I've had the Sprint Tab for about a month now (tested it out on the 30 day trial run) and just called Sprint up yesterday to return it. I originally purchased the Tab to replace my Evo meaning I wanted to use the device as my primary mobile device. I did the VOIP tweak and was running it fine, only problem was the poor quality of the calls and not being able to successfully use a bluetooth headset.
In the end, I determined that the Sprint Tab wasn't for me so I recently just purchased the AT&T tab so I could use true voice capabilities instead of VOIP and be able to use a bluetooth headset. Only problem is I'm not fan of AT&T plans- they seem so $$$. I'm still on contract with Sprint but plan to downgrade to their most basic $29.99 plan. With that in mind, if I'm going to get an AT&T voice/data sim, I need it to be not so expensive. Unfortunately, it looks like I would have to pay $39 for voice, $25 for data and $10 for texts so altogether, roughly $75 am I correct? (not to mention the activation fee).
Is there a least expensive option? Would I be able to use a T-mobile sim (their plans seem cheaper) in the AT&T tab and not run into the modem switcher issue or any other problem when flashing the Euro firmware?

There should be a minium data plan for $14.99. I got one for my niece using iPhone. Everything else sounds correct.
If you're happy with Sprint, don't switch. AT&T could have its own issue as well (where I'm at I have to use microcell but if I drive across the street, I'm screwed). Pretty pathetic but I have the old AT&T plan with unlimited data plan so I'm trying to hold on to it. I could change my mind some day I guess.

Well I'm not completely leaving Sprint as I'm still on contract- just downgrading. The Sprint tab was great but I really wanted an all-in-one device and the fact that every person I called complained about the poor call quality using VOIP is a deal breaker so using the AT&T tab is something I'm going to have to do.
I just want to be able to have a cheaper month-to-month option since I still have to pay for a Sprint voice plan I won't be using....

The only way to lower the cost is an addition to a family plan. The go phone data is too expensive.

Why att? Do you have att? Does att let you use voice calling and 3g? If so thats cool.
I got a tmobile tab and I use simple mobile (unlimited talk text and web) which uses t mobile towers. Most of the time in my area its connected with the H icon.
I dont know about att tablets but t mobile can only do 3g data only or 2g and calling. There is a script available that swaps modems for you though.

Lower plan price by dropping texting package in favor of Google Voice?

I currently have Sprint Everything Data which is now $80/mo with the $10 premium data fee. AT&T's plans are priced as $40 for voice with 450 minutes w/rollover, $20 for unlimited texting, and $25 for 2 GB data. If you got JUST the voice and data, that would be $65/mo saving $15/mo over Sprint, and if you port your number to Google Voice first, you can text from that for free and everyone will see the same number you've always used. Other than losing MMS, are there any downsides to this? Is Google Voice reliable enough to trust all your calls and texts to? Considering the very solid speeds on AT&T's 3G and HSPA+ network vs. Sprint's 3G and sparse WiMAX this sounds tempting.

yes, and a lot of people do it. in fact, you can even drop a lot of your minutes and make all your calls through google voice, as long as you have data. it'll even prompt you when you install it if you want to use google voice for all calls, never, on demand, ect. set to all and you'll never touch your carrier minutes.
also, my finger slipped when hitting quick reply, so i thanked your post accidentally. enjoy it

Yep. I do this with Verizon on my thunderbolt. You can just tell people to send the mms to your email. Also I believe you can add your Google voice number to you top 10 or whatever that is called to avoid getting charged when using the callback feature. I added the number to the family plan so the family doesn't complain about using minute to call me.
You can use the app called Groove IP to call directly from your Google voice account or use I voip provider like sipgate to reroute your calls and save some coin. Ibidem sipgate because incoming calls are free (which means using the callback feature with sipgate doesn't use you prepaid minutes) and I have had a solid experience so far with them. Lifehacker has a couple great articles with tips and tricks.

mtmerrick said:
yes, and a lot of people do it. in fact, you can even drop a lot of your minutes and make all your calls through google voice, as long as you have data. it'll even prompt you when you install it if you want to use google voice for all calls, never, on demand, ect. set to all and you'll never touch your carrier minutes.
also, my finger slipped when hitting quick reply, so i thanked your post accidentally. enjoy it
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Unfortunately that isn't true. Google Voice gives you the option of handling all calls, but that just means outgoing calls will appear to others as coming from your GV number - it still uses your carrier minutes to actually call GV first. SMS, however, really is free and just goes over the data network.
runhopskipjump said:
Yep. I do this with Verizon on my thunderbolt. You can just tell people to send the mms to your email. Also I believe you can add your Google voice number to you top 10 or whatever that is called to avoid getting charged when using the callback feature. I added the number to the family plan so the family doesn't complain about using minute to call me.
You can use the app called Groove IP to call directly from your Google voice account or use I voip provider like sipgate to reroute your calls and save some coin. Ibidem sipgate because incoming calls are free (which means using the callback feature with sipgate doesn't use you prepaid minutes) and I have had a solid experience so far with them. Lifehacker has a couple great articles with tips and tricks.
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Thanks, so how reliable has GV been for handling your texts? It it just as fast (as in, time from send to receive) as regular SMS over the voice network? Do texts ever not get through?
It's great to have apps like Groove IP to make free calls in case you are getting low on minutes, unfortunately it's not a replacement for having the actual $40/mo voice plan. This is because to get a phone with contract pricing you must at least get that voice plan. If you go data only, you won't have the $25 2 GB plan available to you and will have to buy a phone outright and that eliminates the monthly savings. But knowing you have Groove IP, minutes is not really a worry (especially with rollover).

Is 2gb data enough?

SamsungVibrant said:
Is 2gb data enough?
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I'd obviously prefer more but I'd probably rather have 2 GB of fast data than unlimited Sprint 3G and WiMAX that I never use. That alone wouldn't necessarily be enough to make me switch as I'm not obsessed with my data speeds, but for a lower monthly price, it's appealing.

Any additional thoughts on if this would work well? My plan is to port my number to Google Voice so I can text through it for free from the same number I've always used. Then sign up for AT&T and get a new number and forward GV calls to that. Then just get voice + data and have a $65/mo bill.

One more question about this. For those that use GV for calls, how is the latency? I tried doing a call with it with my current GV number and I felt there was noticeably more latency than a standard cell to cell call. That could be a deal breaker.

Seriously I think you can save money with Sprint if you use one of their many discounts. If you work for a company, or belong to some organization or even credit union, you can get anywhere from a 5-25% discount.
Also, the Sprint data speeds have been getting faster with the Sprint Vision initiative. In my area, they have improved data speeds on 3G, where I once got 500Kbps, I now get over 2Mbps. On 4G WiMAX, I get around 8Mbps.
Last month I used close to 4GB of data, mostly streaming Play Music and YouTube. Carriers are sneakily finding ways for you to use more data just so you can pay more when you go over your cap, such as HD streaming and removing SD cards so you have to stream data from the cloud, except for Sprint since data is unlimited. Seriously is 2GB a lot? That's easily 1 HD movie streamed to your phone.
I have both an Epic 4G on Sprint and an International Galaxy Note on Straight Talk (AT&T MVNO with Phony Unlimited Data) and I still use my Sprint phone more when it comes to streaming content when not on WIFI for the fact that Sprint is truly unlimited.

adelmundo said:
Seriously I think you can save money with Sprint if you use one of their many discounts. If you work for a company, or belong to some organization or even credit union, you can get anywhere from a 5-25% discount.
Also, the Sprint data speeds have been getting faster with the Sprint Vision initiative. In my area, they have improved data speeds on 3G, where I once got 500Kbps, I now get over 2Mbps. On 4G WiMAX, I get around 8Mbps.
Last month I used close to 4GB of data, mostly streaming Play Music and YouTube. Carriers are sneakily finding ways for you to use more data just so you can pay more when you go over your cap, such as HD streaming and removing SD cards so you have to stream data from the cloud, except for Sprint since data is unlimited. Seriously is 2GB a lot? That's easily 1 HD movie streamed to your phone.
I have both an Epic 4G on Sprint and an International Galaxy Note on Straight Talk (AT&T MVNO with Phony Unlimited Data) and I still use my Sprint phone more when it comes to streaming content when not on WIFI for the fact that Sprint is truly unlimited.
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Thanks, yes I actually have a Sprint discount right now, but I can get one on other carriers as well. That's nice that you are able to get such great speeds on Sprint's 3G. Unfortunately in my area, 200-500 Kbps is typical. Sometimes it's bad enough that I simply can't use my phone to look something up because the page, or Maps results, just never finishes loading. I am in a current WiMAX area so I'm sure LTE will be here eventually, but if it doesn't come until mid to late 2013 I'm not sure I want to wait. But I am still considering it. An LTE rollout roadmap would definitely help.

The best discount with Sprint is to use the info on the following page
http://mcguireslaw.com/2008/07/16/psst-have-you-heard-about-everything-plus/

I enjoy Sprint as well. When I get my own account I will get a 20% discount because I work for Best Buy. XD Though Sprint is not truly unlimted. If you stream over 35GB of data a month for 3 months straight, you will get your account terminated.

2gb its not enough its need more than 2gb

mxmarcus said:
The best discount with Sprint is to use the info on the following page
http://mcguireslaw.com/2008/07/16/psst-have-you-heard-about-everything-plus/
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you rock for this. adding this to my sig, it almost compensates for sprints s*itty 3g by me.

Using Tmobile 30$ plan, should I use sipdroid or skype?

Hello, I'm using the Tmobile 30$ 4Gmonthly plan and I was wondering what I should use to save minutes. What is the difference between Skype(3$ monthly plan) and Sipdroid+pbxes(6$ monthly plan)+GoogleVoice?
Mainly I mean is pbxes+sipdroid better quality or something should I just go with the cheaper Skype plan?

Disastorm said:
Hello, I'm using the Tmobile 30$ 4Gmonthly plan and I was wondering what I should use to save minutes. What is the difference between Skype(3$ monthly plan) and Sipdroid+pbxes(6$ monthly plan)+GoogleVoice?
Mainly I mean is pbxes+sipdroid better quality or something should I just go with the cheaper Skype plan?
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Why pay for PBXes? The free plan offers 2,000 minutes a month and you can use all codecs except G.722 which is wideband and won't work well over 3G. For example, you can use speex, which works well over mobile data connections.

Or just buy the Groove IP app and use Google Voice without monthly fees.

I just started up on the same set up, and after testing the waters with a few different methods I just settled on Groove.

Another vote for groveIP though you have to have a pretty strong 3g/4g signal to use it (might be hard with T-mobile network). So i switched to a plan with more minutes and used grooveIP at home over wifi to make sure I didn't go over minutes.

[Q] Which MNVO to use?

So I'm currently on the T-Mobile $30 plan, which is great, but I'm left wanting for more minutes. So I use nearly all my data allowance each month, so being on a plan that doesn't have unlimited data with caps lower than 5 GB isn't acceptable. I'd also like to keep my H+ speeds. My budget is $45. My knee-jerk reaction is to go with GoSmart, since they meet all the criteria, and they aren't a subsidiary of tracfone. I'm a tad worried at their definition of High Speed Web, which is 3G. I know that H+ is technically 3g, but many companies have taken to calling it 4g.
My 2nd choice would be to go with Net10 or Straighttalk, but I've heard that data caps are unpredictable, and I'd rather not have to deal with that.
I'm not sure what else is out there...I'd like to go with AT&T due to their superior coverage, but I can accept that they may not have plans that appeal to me.

Sounds like you're out of luck. You can't get much out of prepaid services. Only T-mobile's $70 unlimited prepaid plan offers all you can eat minutes, text and data. But that's way out of your budget.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

Use voip for the extra minutes. In you price range you won't be able to find what you are looking for. For what it's worth, net10 is a subsidiary of tracfone and their service reflects that, they sucked big time for me.

I don't think Straight Talk or Net10 throttle as much if you have their T-Mobile SIM. It's AT&T that's screwing over the MVNO's, not the MVNO itself. In fact, I think on Net10's Terms Of Service it even states that if you have an AT&T SIM you'll be capped at 1.5GB of data and it doesn't apply if you have the "pink" net10 T-Mobile SIM.

Not first hand experience but it seems to be the gist from everything I've read... StraightTalk on TMO is a lot more relaxed than on ATT.
GoSmart's data will be slower than you're looking for. If you read closely you'll find the "3G" speedcap (can't remember off the top of my head but there is one. 3mbps?).
Do consider VoIP. If you're looking for something straight forward that works pretty well, download the Vonage app. Since an app update recently, you're now able to dial from the native dialer and choose Vonage (or set it to always). Works over wifi and cell data. If you're fine making your longer phone calls outbound calls, you'll do alright.

I was in a similar place. I just got my Nexus 4 and am testing out the TMo 30 plan. A good alternative is Solavei. If I remember correctly, they are $45 a month. You get unlimited call/text/data. 4G data is capped at 4GB - best I've found from an MVNO that offers decent minutes. I also read they allow TMo LTE. Again, not first hand experience. Just what I found while digging. If I find VOIP imperfect (which it was on the 35 Virgin plan before), I'll probably switch to Solavei.
Bonus: Taxes are NOT included. A lot of users reported approx $50 bills total.
Bonus 2: GoSmart does not offer H+. This has been reported by several users. Kept me away from their plan.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

ziddey said:
Not first hand experience but it seems to be the gist from everything I've read... StraightTalk on TMO is a lot more relaxed than on ATT.
GoSmart's data will be slower than you're looking for. If you read closely you'll find the "3G" speedcap (can't remember off the top of my head but there is one. 3mbps?).
Do consider VoIP. If you're looking for something straight forward that works pretty well, download the Vonage app. Since an app update recently, you're now able to dial from the native dialer and choose Vonage (or set it to always). Works over wifi and cell data. If you're fine making your longer phone calls outbound calls, you'll do alright.
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I have tried that, but I had a lot of people complain about an echo. Is that fixed?

sailerboy said:
I have tried that, but I had a lot of people complain about an echo. Is that fixed?
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With Vonage? Others always complain about echo when I use sipdroid/pbxes/gv, but over Vonage, everyone stops the conversation at some point to say that I sound way better than I usually do.

ziddey said:
With Vonage? Others always complain about echo when I use sipdroid/pbxes/gv, but over Vonage, everyone stops the conversation at some point to say that I sound way better than I usually do.
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I'm quite pleased with Spare Phone vs Groove IP.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

swagstr said:
I was in a similar place. I just got my Nexus 4 and am testing out the TMo 30 plan. A good alternative is Solavei. If I remember correctly, they are $45 a month. You get unlimited call/text/data. 4G data is capped at 4GB - best I've found from an MVNO that offers decent minutes. I also read they allow TMo LTE. Again, not first hand experience. Just what I found while digging. If I find VOIP imperfect (which it was on the 35 Virgin plan before), I'll probably switch to Solavei.
Bonus: Taxes are NOT included. A lot of users reported approx $50 bills total.
Bonus 2: GoSmart does not offer H+. This has been reported by several users. Kept me away from their plan.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
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Yeah, I think Solavei would be his only choice. I have Simple Mobile now, but they screwed me on the data. They throttled me a little after I passed the 2 gig mark, so I wouldn't recommend them. I'm tired of dealing with these MNVOs and all their bull, so I'm switching to the $70 unlimited plan from T-Mobile.

Save $20 when you sign up for Republic Wireless (CHEAP PLANS!)

Republic Wireless is a game-changer for the mobile industry - they offer a unique hybrid WiFi / Cell system.
When you are on WiFi, your calls, sms, and data go out over WiFi. When you are away from WiFi, they use the Sprint Cell network for calls, sms & data.
One of the most unique features is seamless WiFi to Cell handoff! Imagine you are at home, talking to a friend through WiFi. You need to leave, so you start walking towards your car. As soon as you approach the end of WiFi range, your call is automatically handed over to Cell with no interruptions.
Another great benefit is that Republic Wireless is the ONLY MVNO that I know of that offers ROAMING!!!
If there is no Sprint service available, your phone will roam to Verizion, or any other network that Sprint has a roaming agreement with. This doesn't cost you a dime.
The plans are VERY attractive:
$5 - Unlimited everything on WiFi ONLY
$10 - Unlimited everything on WiFi, unlimited Talk/Text on Cell (NO cell data) [includes free roaming]
$25 - Unlimited everything on WiFi AND Cell, with 3G data [includes free roaming]
$40 - Unlimited everything on WiFi AND Cell, with 4G LTE data! [includes free roaming]
(There IS a 5 gigabyte soft-cap, after which you will be throttled. This cap ONLY applies to cell data, as WiFi [of course] is truly unlimited)
You can also change plans up to twice a month from the handset itself! No calling or going online to do it. So if you are planing to travel somewhere and will need data, just switch up from the $10 plan as you see fit. Change from any plan to any other plan twice per month!
They have some pretty attractive phone offerings as well. You can get the Moto X (my phone - supports 4G LTE), or the Moto G (doesn't support 4G LTE).
To save $20 off your service, sign up using the link in my signature, or CLICK HERE. To save the $20, you must order direct from Republic Wireless. MotoMaker orders do not qualify for this promotion.
If you have questions, post them here and I will try to answer.
Happy saving!!!
Keep in mind that this service is best if you have good Sprint coverage in your area. In my area, Sprint coverage is excellent, so RW works great for me. If in doubt, check coverage first. As a rule of thumb, if you have used (or currently use) Sprint, you can expect the coverage, and data speeds to be identical. You do NOT get throttled unless you exceed the 5 gigabyte soft-cap.