tmobile prepaid roaming

[evperry]

Ive tried to research this online but its conflicting.

If you have prepaid tmobile will it allow you to roam as if you are on the postpaid tmobile?

 

[Andrew Martonik]

There are varying reports. In my time with T-Mobile prepaid (about the last 8 months), I've only once seen the phone indicate that I was roaming, but the signal was so weak that I wasn't able to use data or call. There are many times where I would sit in a place with literally no service / "emergency calls only" and it would never kick over to roaming. These are places that now on my Straight Talk AT&T SIM I get perfect service (and others with me had AT&T postpaid), so I know AT&T is available for roaming.

I think the safest bet with prepaid is to expect no postpaid-style roaming and be happy whenever you do get it. I'd say at best, you'll be getting voice roaming only. I would never expect data roaming on prepaid. They're just not making enough money off of you to spend money on roaming agreements for prepaid customers at this point.

 

[evperry]

Aarrggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

The downsides of prepaid!

 

[patruns]

If you are asking because of a planned trip to another country, it is often much cheaper to simply buy a SIM card while you are there. I was in Belgrade 2 weeks ago and bought a data only SIM. 1GB of data was something like $7. My wife had her own SIM card so I did not need voice.

 

[vor]

Most everything I've read up until the AC story on prepaid in the last week says it does not Roam at all. I have also read that there is a lot of speculation that Straight Talk is the only Prepaid that does roam between the AT&T & Tmobile since they use both. After having Verizon for 15 years I've been pleased with my Tmo Prepaid for the last 3 mos, though I have only been throughout the SoCal area with pretty dense cell towers of all colors.

 

[jpr]

Ive tried to research this online but its conflicting.

If you have prepaid tmobile will it allow you to roam as if you are on the postpaid tmobile?

No, the T-mobile prepaid and contract maps are different. If you look at the prepaid coverage map on TMO's website, you will see very tiny pockets of areas that have "roaming" coverage. You will have to zoom in and look around quite a bit since these are so few and far between. And you may or not be able to get coverage in those areas even. It's effectively the same as not get roaming at all but you may on rare occasions get lucky. Also, as far as data, TMO states quite clearly that there is no data roaming on prepaid.

 

[evperry]

I will deal with it.

Half the price of Verizon so I can deal with half the service. my verzion bill is $130 a month. Tmobile is $60.

Im also gonna try a straight talk SIM to see what the speeds look like.

 

[Andrew Martonik]

If you are asking because of a planned trip to another country, it is often much cheaper to simply buy a SIM card while you are there. I was in Belgrade 2 weeks ago and bought a data only SIM. 1GB of data was something like $7. My wife had her own SIM card so I did not need voice.

He's talking about domestic roaming.

 

[evperry]

Andrew,

Downsides of straighttalk? Are there any?

MMS?

He's talking about domestic roaming.

 

[Andrew Martonik]

Andrew,

Downsides of straighttalk? Are there any?

MMS?

MMS works fine. The downside may be that AT&T's speeds are lower than T-Mobile's if you go the AT&T route. They also have interesting policies on data usage, considering that it's "unlimited" but depending on the market and usage of other ST users in the area, you may not get much more than 2GB-3GB of data per month.

 

[chunkcohen]

MMS should work fine on Straight Talk, as long as your APN settings are correct.


Downsides to Straight Talk? I can only think of a couple:

1. Their "unlimited" data isn't truly unlimited. Common wisdom is that if you exceed 2GB of usage in a month or more than 100MB of usage in a day, they'll call to warn you about excessive usage or in some cases, shut your data service off. The problem is that ST really isn't clear on the specifics of what constitutes excessive usage anywhere in their TOS. YMMV.

2. If you're an "all-in" Google Voice user, I'm fairly certain that ST doesn't have a way to completely disable your carrier voicemail, which could cause you some problems with getting GV's voicemail to "catch" in all missed/declined call situations. Andrew probably knows the straight answer to this. But this was one reason I decided on T-Mobile prepaid instead.

 

[Andrew Martonik]

2. If you're an "all-in" Google Voice user, I'm fairly certain that ST doesn't have a way to completely disable your carrier voicemail, which could cause you some problems with getting GV's voicemail to "catch" in all missed/declined call situations. Andrew probably knows the straight answer to this. But this was one reason I decided on T-Mobile prepaid instead.

Theres actually no problem with GV Voicemail because Straight Talk has Conditional Call Forwarding just like postpaid service.

On T-Mobile prepaid, the reason why you "have" to disable your carrier voicemail is because they do not support Conditional Call Forwarding. Its all negated, however, if you just use your GV # as your primary #. No forwarding needed. I used GV as my primary # on T-Mobile prepaid for months without voicemail issues, even with my T-Mobile # and voicemail still active.

 

[chunkcohen]

Theres actually no problem with GV Voicemail because Straight Talk has Conditional Call Forwarding just like postpaid service.

On T-Mobile prepaid, the reason why you "have" to disable your carrier voicemail is because they do not support Conditional Call Forwarding. Its all negated, however, if you just use your GV # as your primary #. No forwarding needed. I used GV as my primary # on T-Mobile prepaid for months without voicemail issues, even with my T-Mobile # and voicemail still active.

Okay, so do they support conditional call forwarding on both the T-Mo and AT&T SIMs?

 

[Andrew Martonik]

Okay, so do they support conditional call forwarding on both the T-Mo and AT&T SIMs?

I believe so. They definitely do on their AT&T SIMs. I'd call and check (or see what others are saying).

But like I said, CCF isn't important unless you plan to use the carrier number + Google Voice Voicemail. If you use your GV # as your primary #, you don't need CCF .

 

[evperry]

Ohh boy.

I plan to use Tmobile prepaid. I plan to use Google voice for my voicemail but not to port the number to google voice. What do I need to do.

 

[Andrew Martonik]

Ohh boy.

I plan to use Tmobile prepaid. I plan to use Google voice for my voicemail but not to port the number to google voice. What do I need to do.

Call T-Mobile and disable your carrier voicemail.

 

[jpr]

That won't work because TMO prepaid does not forward. So they will just have no voicemail in that case.

 

[evperry]

I cant believe there is no work around for this. I researched online and there is some sort of forwarding method that appears to work on the phone for some people.

Annoying.

 

[marlonperez]

Theres actually no problem with GV Voicemail because Straight Talk has Conditional Call Forwarding just like postpaid service.

On T-Mobile prepaid, the reason why you "have" to disable your carrier voicemail is because they do not support Conditional Call Forwarding. Its all negated, however, if you just use your GV # as your primary #. No forwarding needed. I used GV as my primary # on T-Mobile prepaid for months without voicemail issues, even with my T-Mobile # and voicemail still active.

This answered my question about T-Mobile and GV functionality.

 

[skola28]

I can confirm that roaming data DOES NOT WORK on T-Mobile Prepaid.

The customer service rep was kinda confused by this (as am I). I know some people think that they make less money off of the prepaids, and maybe they do, but the logistics of running two separate groups would incur additional costs, not to mention that they already have my money. The postpaids they have to worry about people not paying. Plus, they have to operate the service for the month while the postpaids make 'interest' on that money. With prepaids, they get a fat bank accounts worth before the services are rendered. Seems stupid. Unfortunately, I roam too often to not get data so I'm dropping my service with them.