t-mobile pre-paid, no contract: $70/monthly UNLIMITED nationwide data at 4G speed & voice & text. No throttling, no tethering.

Quote from random2 : http://www.cse.sc.edu/~wyxu/paper...schulz.pdf paper (older) re: tethering detection

My summary: network providers should just give up trying to detect tethering. But I'm guessing they won't, because they can't let go of their pride. It's a war that they somehow enjoy.

Quote from SonofZeus : I tether too. My Amaze 4G is unlocked and rooted. It will be my hotspot in foreign lands using foreign prepaid SIMS.

Yep! Same here... Same phone with ICS 4.0

Just rooted .. :/

Was looking to upgrade to the S3 (had several, including a TMo 32GB internal) Let go

I now have the Nexus 4 16GB, sitting nize n safe - I kNOW.. Strong Will Power

Must find an Amaze buyer first....

Last month was 1st time I neared 5GB at 4.8GB - Thanks to tethering to a PS3 to watch a
movie on Netflix (burned 3GBs+ in about 2hrs) - Never Again...

Quote from evilgiantrobot : How are you tethering? Are you using a custom rom? I want to keep my S3 and tether, but haven't found a viable tethering solution with JB and my current in-contract plan. So I would imagine it may be just as difficult with the prepaid.

For some, T-Mo actually allows tether on few phones - Like mine, Amaze 4G,
Settings/Networks/Tethering/On ... I know simple...

I had issues with the S3 (with Flash/justin.tv as well) and tethering, but one can try
Fox Fi (i got it free while back) - Allows tethering via wired or BT connections (under radar)

I tested my Nexus 4, it also has the built-it tethering option & works great

Quote from BDavis280 : How much video (or music?) streaming would you have to do to use more than 2GB of data? Seems like a lot, maybe for kids in high school or people doing a lot of traveling? Most places have WiFi these days (i.e., college, work, home, friend's house, hotels, coffee houses, even some cities). I use 3g/4g on my commute for Pandora (sometimes), and i'll leave it on if I'm out and about during the week or weekends (primarily just so I have instant access to email). I could understand using YouTube every once and awhile (bus stop or something), but do people actually watch TV shows/movies when they are not around WiFi? I'm on VM and couldn't justify double the monthly cost just for truly unlimited data.

1 email (text only) -- 20Kb
1 webpage -- 180Kb
1 min of streaming music -- 500Kb
1 min of streaming HD video on YouTube -- 5.1Mb
1 session on Social media download/upload w/photo -- 350Kb

I'm at UCA and the wireless network here is known to have always been notoriously slow. You won't even get a signal in many of the buildings. Some of the people I know do a lot a traveling and rely on their data plan. As for how my younger brother and sister racked up a $400 phone bill...lol, no idea. Too lazy to switch off the 3G/4G maybe?

Quote from BDavis280 : How much video (or music?) streaming would you have to do to use more than 2GB of data? Seems like a lot, maybe for kids in high school or people doing a lot of traveling? Most places have WiFi these days (i.e., college, work, home, friend's house, hotels, coffee houses, even some cities). I use 3g/4g on my commute for Pandora (sometimes), and i'll leave it on if I'm out and about during the week or weekends (primarily just so I have instant access to email). I could understand using YouTube every once and awhile (bus stop or something), but do people actually watch TV shows/movies when they are not around WiFi? I'm on VM and couldn't justify double the monthly cost just for truly unlimited data.

I do netflix streaming and espn streaming, both pretty much always happen when I don't have wifi (otherwise I generally have access to a computer). I would tear through 2GB/month

Quote from geekor : don't even add Virgin Mobile in here. It's like the difference between dial up and high speed, unlimited or not, it's practically worthless (just moved from my grandfathered $25 VM plan to TMo less than a month ago, after being on VM for 2 years).

Thank You!

I can't stress this enough

Why give so much cred to an MVNO that has some of the worst CS, Data Speeds, and...

I was too on the $25/Mo with Triumph... No More

Quote from abstraxion : "Unlimited" doesn't mean anything, I highly, HIGHLY doubt that you won't see any throttling if you hit 10 or even 5 GB.

I've downloaded over 32 gb this month on my unlimited plan now without throttling. Last month was lighter usage, but I ended up using 16.7GB.

This is a true good deal depending on how strong their 4G is in your area.

Quote from annoyedjohn : which plan? does it throttle data or otherwise have a cap?

Needless to say... or a CONTRACT ...

Quote from green_key : The key is the UNLIMITED AMOUNT of high speed data. StraightTalk, SimpleMobile will cut off after 2GB (?) and/or throttle you.

This is the key here. T-Mobile previously offered a $70 plan that capped high speed data at 5GB. I'm currently on a $60 2GB/unlimited plan with them, and that's because they don't offer anything between 100MB and 2GB, lol.

I don't think I'm a candidate for the $70 plan, but it's important to note that it's completely unlimited with no throttling.

now if they would only have a signal where I live...

Quote from pacallen : Isn't $70 kind of steep? StraightTalk (MVNO that uses AT&T's network) is unlimited everything for $45/mo and a much larger network (especially further west).

WRONG.

Until just recently, ST would kick you off their network if you used more than a couple hundred megs a day OR used more than 2-2.5gb in a month. According to their very own reps and managers, streaming video and music is NOT allowed. Of course, this policy wasn't enforced uniformly. People on Howard forums just for kicks and giggles often went well past these hidden caps and got away with it by downloading from different counties or states.

Now I'm hearing they throttle you. Yeah, I'm sure someone will reply "But zeth, that's an improvement!" My response: "Limited is limited is limited."

If something's too good to be true, it probably is. In this case, it's $70 for prepaid, but you have to buy your own phone. The only other catch really is that TMO's network isn't really all that comprehensive and we won't see their LTE network fully turned on until late 2013.

Quote from DonnieT : 1 email (text only) -- 20Kb 1 webpage -- 180Kb 1 min of streaming music -- 500Kb 1 min of streaming HD video on YouTube -- 5.1Mb 1 session on Social media download/upload w/photo -- 350Kb I'm at UCA and the wireless network here is known to have always been notoriously slow. You won't even get a signal in many of the buildings. Some of the people I know do a lot a traveling and rely on their data plan. As for how my younger brother and sister racked up a $400 phone bill...lol, no idea. Too lazy to switch off the 3G/4G maybe?

Thanks for this!

So,

~11,000 webpages
~4,000 minutes of streaming music
~200 minutes of streaming HD video on YouTube (or any source..?)
~6000 Facebook sessions

(Not total, just if you strictly used the 2GB for one of the above actions)

Quote from ajayendra : This isn't a bad deal... I travel a lot for work. Primarily to big cities. I have heard that roaming is not allowed on prepaid plans. I am currently on at&t and enjoy consistent high speeds even when I ma travelling. Can someone please shed some light on it? Thanks

Ehhh, even as a loyal T-Mobile customer, I'd be hesitant to recommend this plan to people who need their data plans to work consistently when traveling around. More specifically, TMO isn't exactly the ideal mobile solution for businesses. You'll get decent coverage ONLY in the cities. Even then, there are some states where their HSPA+'s presence is virtually nonexistent and covered only by EDGE/2G. If you know the exact big cities you'll be using it in, I'd do some further research, ask around, maybe check some coverage maps.

Quote from MozartA : Some people in other forum said T-mobile actually enforce it. For example, people mentioned their data got cut off because of using web browser. T-mobile actually check if you are using desktop web browser and block those. But that also means it can have false positive since some phone browser can ask for desktop version of website. Some people complain they got block also even though they didn't tether but just use their phone browser and ask for desktop version of website.

Interesting. I've gotten "caught" tethering a few times. I would be surfing the web and suddenly find that the webpage won't let me load anything else other than a reminder by T-Mobile to sign up for a tethering plan. The funny part is the last time this happened, I was still running a dungeon in GW2 with my buddies with no hiccups even though I'd gotten caught, haha!!

My solution has always been to simply disconnect/reconnect my phone.

But this is on the $30 plan. For anyone curious, I can't make any guarantees as to whether they'll kick you off their plan if they catch you tethering. And believe me, unless you somehow access only mobile sites on your computer, they WILL catch you.