Are you using a T-Mobile SIM card? If not, the phone is SIM-locked, and you'll have to ask T-Mobile for the unlock code, assuming you've had the phone long enough. (It used to be 2 years, I think it's 4 months now.)
If you mean that your SIM card won't let you data, that's because you're not paying for a data plan, and that's what you'll have to do. There's no difference in the card, they just mark the account for that card as yes data or no data.