• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

T-Mobile Prepaid and Nexus 5...

rickyx32

rickyx32

Well-Known Member
Okay, I'm currently with Virgin Mobile and have a Galaxy S3 with the 35$ plan. I really feel motivated to make a switch and buy a Nexus 5, but I'm having trouble finding a comparable prepaid plan. The only thing I found near my current monthly price range is the T-Mobile 30$ prepaid plan with "100 minutes of talk time| Unlimited text | First 5 GB at up to 4G speeds." This sounds great to me, but I'm not entirely sure what I have to do. It says "This plan is only available for devices purchased from Wal-Mart or devices activated on T-Mobile.com," Does that mean that I would just have to buy a Nexus 5 from Google Play, buy a sim kit from Amazon, and then "activate" the phone through the T-Mobile website to gain access the the 30$ prepaid plan?
 
Yea im looking at the Tmo $30 plan as well as the straight talk unlimited talk/web/txt (2.5g LTE data) for $42 a mo if you sign up for the auto pay. the main reason im looking into straight talk is because you can get an AT&T sim and they have significantly better coverage in my area.
 
Quick question:

First time on T-mobile with my Nexus 4 and I just ordered the Nexus 5. What do I have to do to get service from my current phone? Just swap SIM card? Do I need to call T-mobile for anything?

Many thanks in advance!
 
I just switched from Virgin Mobile to T-Mobile's $30 plan, so here's a tip. If you're porting your phone number from Virgin Mobile, be sure to call them first to get your account number. The whole process got held up when I tried to switch because I incorrectly assumed that since Virgin Mobile had never told me what my account number was, that it would be my phone number. Wrong. I think they just assume if they make it difficult for people to find out their account number, they won't bother switching to another service.
 
govegan said:
I just switched from Virgin Mobile to T-Mobile's $30 plan, so here's a tip. If you're porting your phone number from Virgin Mobile, be sure to call them first to get your account number. The whole process got held up when I tried to switch because I incorrectly assumed that since Virgin Mobile had never told me what my account number was, that it would be my phone number. Wrong. I think they just assume if they make it difficult for people to find out their account number, they won't bother switching to another service.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I never would have known. You'd never find the number on their site as they want you to talk to their retention department first. Just be firm and polite that's what you want to do and they didn't give me any hassle.
 
govegan said:
I just switched from Virgin Mobile to T-Mobile's $30 plan, so here's a tip. If you're porting your phone number from Virgin Mobile, be sure to call them first to get your account number. The whole process got held up when I tried to switch because I incorrectly assumed that since Virgin Mobile had never told me what my account number was, that it would be my phone number. Wrong. I think they just assume if they make it difficult for people to find out their account number, they won't bother switching to another service.
Click to expand...
Straightalk uses the last 15 digits of your SIM card for your account number. Gave it to Tmo before switching and Straightalk still gave them grief about letting go. Had to tell them my phones IMEI number for it to happen
 
tobwco said:
Straightalk uses the last 15 digits of your SIM card for your account number. Gave it to Tmo before switching and Straightalk still gave them grief about letting go. Had to tell them my phones IMEI number for it to happen
Click to expand...

Oh great. I'm about to make the ST -> Tmo jump myself. Hope it isn't too much of a headache. I really need to keep my number.
 
don't want to derail this thread but would rather not make a new one, this month i am testing the AT&T, and next month plan on testing that T-Mobile plan to compare services, and i know i will have to port the number over.

do you need to port the number each time you switch? or just the initial time you activate the SIM card, and then after that its a matter of swapping the SIM and putting money on it.
 
I'm pretty certain once you port your number from AT&T to TMo it will be deactivated and removed from AT&T's system, so that old AT&T sim card will be useless. I believe you would need to port it back to AT&T again if you decided you wanted to use them (and I'm totally unsure if you could use the old sim card or not for that).

I am planning on doing the same thing, but I was going to do it slightly differently to avoid porting multiple times. I am currently using StraightTalk with an AT&T sim. I am going to activate a TMo sim card and NOT port my number over. I am going to then set my ST number to forward everything to the new TMo number while I'm testing out TMo so I don't miss any calls (not sure if SMS will forward, but I don't get many texts at all).

That being said, I haven't checked to see if I can actually do the forwarding yet, but I did set my ST number up to forward unanswered and busy calls to my Google Voice number and that is working fine. If I decide to go with TMo I will go ahead and port my number to them and make it permanent. If I don't like them I will just shut off the forwarding and stick with ST.

I was going to activate the TMo sim this weekend, so I can give you more details about how it goes after that if someone with more experience hasn't already come in and poked some holes in this plan or confirmed it will work.

~Gary
 
Gatman said:
I'm pretty certain once you port your number from AT&T to TMo it will be deactivated and removed from AT&T's system, so that old AT&T sim card will be useless. I believe you would need to port it back to AT&T again if you decided you wanted to use them (and I'm totally unsure if you could use the old sim card or not for that).

I am planning on doing the same thing, but I was going to do it slightly differently to avoid porting multiple times. I am currently using StraightTalk with an AT&T sim. I am going to activate a TMo sim card and NOT port my number over. I am going to then set my ST number to forward everything to the new TMo number while I'm testing out TMo so I don't miss any calls (not sure if SMS will forward, but I don't get many texts at all).

That being said, I haven't checked to see if I can actually do the forwarding yet, but I did set my ST number up to forward unanswered and busy calls to my Google Voice number and that is working fine. If I decide to go with TMo I will go ahead and port my number to them and make it permanent. If I don't like them I will just shut off the forwarding and stick with ST.

I was going to activate the TMo sim this weekend, so I can give you more details about how it goes after that if someone with more experience hasn't already come in and poked some holes in this plan or confirmed it will work.

~Gary
Click to expand...

well that sucks if true and I need to go to AT&T and t-mobile every time I change to port number.
 
Gatman said:
I'm pretty certain once you port your number from AT&T to TMo it will be deactivated and removed from AT&T's system, so that old AT&T sim card will be useless. I believe you would need to port it back to AT&T again if you decided you wanted to use them (and I'm totally unsure if you could use the old sim card or not for that).

I am planning on doing the same thing, but I was going to do it slightly differently to avoid porting multiple times. I am currently using StraightTalk with an AT&T sim. I am going to activate a TMo sim card and NOT port my number over. I am going to then set my ST number to forward everything to the new TMo number while I'm testing out TMo so I don't miss any calls (not sure if SMS will forward, but I don't get many texts at all).

That being said, I haven't checked to see if I can actually do the forwarding yet, but I did set my ST number up to forward unanswered and busy calls to my Google Voice number and that is working fine. If I decide to go with TMo I will go ahead and port my number to them and make it permanent. If I don't like them I will just shut off the forwarding and stick with ST.

I was going to activate the TMo sim this weekend, so I can give you more details about how it goes after that if someone with more experience hasn't already come in and poked some holes in this plan or confirmed it will work.

~Gary
Click to expand...

So you're going to be paying for two services at once just so you don't have to port your number? That sounds like more of a hassle to me.
 
Lona808 said:
So you're going to be paying for two services at once just so you don't have to port your number? That sounds like more of a hassle to me.
Click to expand...

For one month only. If T Mo's coverage is good I will port my number to them and stop using ST. If not, I will stay with ST. $45 for ST plus $30 for TMo is $75 for one month. That's still less than what I paid for one month at Verizon.
 
Gatman said:
For one month only. If T Mo's coverage is good I will port my number to them and stop using ST. If not, I will stay with ST. $45 for ST plus $30 for TMo is $75 for one month. That's still less than what I paid for one month at Verizon.
Click to expand...

True. Those god damn contracts will kill ya.
 
Lona808 said:
True. Those god damn contracts will kill ya.
Click to expand...

Ain't that the truth. Two lines on Verizon with unlimited data was 170.19 was traded for 2 30 dollar plans that costs 64.80 after sales tax. That would be 105.39 saved each month. :thumbup:
 
Nice. I've never been in a contract and never will. Been paying for prepaid for 5 years and have owned 4 powerful smartphones. Never getting tied down to a company. As a matter of fact, my bill keeps getting cheaper and cheaper. Started at $65, went to $50, now $45 and next month I'll be joining T-Mobile for their $30 plan.

In the long run contracts cost more than just buying the phone outright and getting a prepaid SIM. And you don't miss out in anything with prepaid. People just need to learn to pay for things upfront because it pays off later~
 
I just switched from VM to the $30 T-Mobile pre-paid plan. I got my phone from Google Play and went to Walmart and bought the Sim Starter Kit. It comes with a micro sim card and the $30 plan. Went to T-Mobile's site (in the instructions) to activate it. Had the same problem mentioned about having to call VM to get my account number. I had assumed it was my phone number. NOT! It totally messed up the activation. Had to go back and forth with VM and TM support. You can guess how much fun that was. If I had started out with the correct account number I think everything would have gone smoothly though. Now I'm loving my N5 on a $30 plan. Woo hoo!
 
bogus1 said:
I just switched from VM to the $30 T-Mobile pre-paid plan. I got my phone from Google Play and went to Walmart and bought the Sim Starter Kit. It comes with a micro sim card and the $30 plan. Went to T-Mobile's site (in the instructions) to activate it. Had the same problem mentioned about having to call VM to get my account number. I had assumed it was my phone number. NOT! It totally messed up the activation. Had to go back and forth with VM and TM support. You can guess how much fun that was. If I had started out with the correct account number I think everything would have gone smoothly though. Now I'm loving my N5 on a $30 plan. Woo hoo!
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if having the correct account number would been any easier. I recently tried switching my number over from Straight Talk to Tmo. Well it seemed to go fine. I got my Sim in the mail, bought a refill card, and activated it online. Usually these things take minutes, so I called them the next morning when it wasn't activated and they said at 1:52pm it will be. So at 3pm I was calling then again to see what was up, they had then advised me to wait another 24 hours because that's how long it takes. In the meantime I was given no temp number and my service days were already paid for/running out... Anyway, I waited 24 hours called again and literally talked to probably 12 different reps in that one day trying to see what the problem was. They called straight talk with me in the phone and apparently the request was never processed. So instead of waiting longer I asked to cancel the request so I can start a new number instead. They said sure, canceled it and said wait 2 hours. 2 hours later I called to activate the Sim but for some reason, the cancel request wasn't done properly, and in order to cancel it they had to open a special ticket for higher ups to handle it which takes 72 hours.... Jesus Christ people. I'm not gonna wait 2 weeks to get my Sim activated and only have 2 weeks left of service. So I'm still using my straight talk Sim, which I cannot refill the service because they no longer have my number either (even though a request wasn't processed...? Odd) so now my number is lost somewhere in the satellite abyss. On the plus side, my ST service was supposed to end last Sunday, and since I can't refill it I haven't paid for it, but to my advantage I can still make calls, text, and use data. And my friends still contact me with the same number so idk what the hell happened. I got free service for now though. (:
 
Oh and P.S. I know for sure I had given them the right account info because I had called multiple straight talk reps and asked before transferring to make sure I got it right. I wanted to avoid hassles, but they happened anyway.
 
Lona808 said:
Oh and P.S. I know for sure I had given them the right account info because I had called multiple straight talk reps and asked before transferring to make sure I got it right. I wanted to avoid hassles, but they happened anyway.
Click to expand...

Wow that sucks. That kind of stuff is so frustrating. I know that with changing from VM to TM, within minutes of my getting the correct account number to the TM rep my number was ported and I was good to go. I have no experience with straight talk. But I did think it was pretty lame of VM to hide your REAL account number and force you to call a rep to get it. Otherwise we've been pretty happy with VM. Only reason I switched was to get the N5!
 
I never told VM I was leaving. I called them to transfer my remaining balance into my wife's account and just asked for my account number while I had them on the phone. I didn't feel like talking to the "retention department".
 
Have any of you Virgin Mobile guys verified that the Nexus WON'T work on Virgin? They're a Sprint MVNO, so since it works on sprint, logic says it would work on Virgin too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom