T-Mobile Monthly 4G eating through minutes too quickly?

[willdogs]

Hi all

Just curious to know if anyone else thinks that t-mobile pre-paid may be using up your minutes too quickly on the $30/month plan?

I have barely used my phone over the last 10 days since I first put my new N4 on T-Mobile and my 100 minutes are already gone! Also, apparently i've used $10 of extra minutes in the last 3 days? I SWEAR that I haven't used the phone more than 10 minutes max in the last 5 days...

So In total I'm already into t-mobile for about $40 in just 15 days of owning the phone....

To compound the issue, t-mobile does not provide detailed call records for pre-paid customers... could this be the reason why? They are overstating minutes used in order to get more money out of us?

Curious what others experiences have been?

I checked my last 3 months of verizon activity before switching over, and on Verizon I only averaged about 120-180 minutes a month of voice usage...something is not adding up

 

[pespule]

Voicemail counts for minutes used, maybe that could be it?

 

[willdogs]

Voicemail counts for minutes used, maybe that could be it?

I've gotten 2 voicemails in the last 15 days. Also, I use t-mobiles visual voicemail app which only uses data.

 

[HTCTundaBow]

I've had my phone for almost a week, and I have 97 minutes remaining out of 100. . . Google voice + GrooveIP(paid version) is a real minute saver

 

[donec]

Hi all

Just curious to know if anyone else thinks that t-mobile pre-paid may be using up your minutes too quickly on the $30/month plan?

I have barely used my phone over the last 10 days since I first put my new N4 on T-Mobile and my 100 minutes are already gone! Also, apparently i've used $10 of extra minutes in the last 3 days? I SWEAR that I haven't used the phone more than 10 minutes max in the last 5 days...

So In total I'm already into t-mobile for about $40 in just 15 days of owning the phone....

To compound the issue, t-mobile does not provide detailed call records for pre-paid customers... could this be the reason why? They are overstating minutes used in order to get more money out of us?

Curious what others experiences have been?

I checked my last 3 months of verizon activity before switching over, and on Verizon I only averaged about 120-180 minutes a month of voice usage...something is not adding up

You can go into settings then data usage (right under bluetooth) and it will show you what is using your Nexus and if you tap one of the items like I use Talkatone for calls it will show foreground and background usage for the time it shows the listing for. Look at all of them and you may find an app that is using your phone when you are not. One of the reasons I try and avoid apps that have very many permissions required.

 

[willdogs]

You can go into settings then data usage (right under bluetooth) and it will show you what is using your Nexus and if you tap one of the items like I use Talkatone for calls it will show foreground and background usage for the time it shows the listing for. Look at all of them and you may find an app that is using your phone when you are not. One of the reasons I try and avoid apps that have very many permissions required.

Data use is not my concern, its Phone Minutes...

 

[Mike Dupp]

Something is configured very wrong on your phone. Spending $40 in 15 days on the $30 plan is 200 minutes. Check your call logs on the phone. You don't mention whether you are using Google Voice or not. Calls made with Google Voice do count against your T-Mobile minutes. It's either that or the Visual Voicemail app.

I have been on the $30 prepaid plan for almost a year and have never had even the slightest issue with disappearing minutes. I just checked my minutes used on the website to the minutes used on the call logs and they match up exactly.

 

[Jeremy8000]

Check your call log, and remember that all calls round up to the next minute. And while you may be using Visual Voicemail, I've seen carriers in the past count the 'minutes' (again rounded up) of time that callers have left as voicemail counted against you (and counted again in the time you spend retrieving them, if via call to voicemail). Only other thing I would think might contribute would be if you had your calls forwarded from your cell to another number, or if you were making multi-party calls and T-mo counted each connection on a separate timer.

 

[mrdwong]

Never mind I was wrong.

 

[yfan]

I have been using this plan for a while, and I have never had any problems with it deducting more minutes than I actually use. Something has to be going on. Is anyone else using your phone to make calls? Are you calling customer support from your phone (dialing 611 uses minutes, I think)? Is it possible that you're pocket dialing?

 

[N4Newbie]

As an aside, if you can live with 3G data speeds, it might be worth looking into a new service T-Mobile is bringing to market, $45/month unlimited talk/text/data (first 5GB at 3G speed). See https://www.gosmartmobile.com/

The article I read said T-Mobile is testing this in "limited markets" but the website makes no mention of that. I am in Connecticut and the other day I went through the entire signup process stopping only at the very last "Place your order" button. At no time did it stop and say, sorry service not available in your area or anything like that.

100 minutes per month is very confining, even for me; I don't make a lot of calls but it is amazing how fast even short calls from my wife and son can add up. From November 20 through today I have managed to use 100 minutes on my plan plus an additional 60 minutes at $0.10 per. Realistically, I probably need around 200-250 minutes per month.

 

[willdogs]

Thanks all, I looked thru my call logs and was surprised to see a 17 minute call to voicemail! Wtf?.

I'm going to chalk this one up to a error on my part and see what happens next month. The rest of the minutes in my log seem to add up

 

[bobjohnson201]

Hi all

Just curious to know if anyone else thinks that t-mobile pre-paid may be using up your minutes too quickly on the $30/month plan?

I have barely used my phone over the last 10 days since I first put my new N4 on T-Mobile and my 100 minutes are already gone! Also, apparently i've used $10 of extra minutes in the last 3 days? I SWEAR that I haven't used the phone more than 10 minutes max in the last 5 days...

So In total I'm already into t-mobile for about $40 in just 15 days of owning the phone....

To compound the issue, t-mobile does not provide detailed call records for pre-paid customers... could this be the reason why? They are overstating minutes used in order to get more money out of us?

Curious what others experiences have been?

I checked my last 3 months of verizon activity before switching over, and on Verizon I only averaged about 120-180 minutes a month of voice usage...something is not adding up

you could always switch to straight talk tmobile or solavei to get the unlimited calling

 

[Lttlwing16]

100 minutes per month is very confining, even for me; I don't make a lot of calls but it is amazing how fast even short calls from my wife and son can add up. From November 20 through today I have managed to use 100 minutes on my plan plus an additional 60 minutes at $0.10 per. Realistically, I probably need around 200-250 minutes per month.

After talking to the Tmo rep, I figured the following in theory:

Jan1-15

$30 for 100 min /5gb@ HSPA(+) speed (NO THROTTLING)

Jan 15-30

$30 another 100 min /5gb@ HSPA(+) speed (NO THROTTLING)

So in theory, in a 30 day period you get the following:

$60 ---- 200 min/ 10 gb HSPA(+) unlim text

If the coverage is good around here. Might keep Straight talk active and try out the 30 dollar Tmo sim and see what happens.

 

[N4Newbie]

If you can live with the 5GB per moth data, then your math is incorrect.

With the T-Mobile $30 plan, you get 100 minutes per 30 day period. If you go over that number, you only need to pay $0.10 per additional minute used; you can pre-fund this at any time. So, for example, when I saw that I was getting close to the 100 minute mark, I made an additional payment of $10 on my account; basically, paying in advance for an additional 100 minutes of which I ultimately used 63. My account rolled over today so autopay hit me up for $30 for a new month and I still have an additioanl $3.70 credit to use towards the new month's minutes overage (if any).

 

[Lttlwing16]

If you can live with the 5GB per moth data, then your math is incorrect.

With the T-Mobile $30 plan, you get 100 minutes per 30 day period. If you go over that number, you only need to pay $0.10 per additional minute used; you can pre-fund this at any time. So, for example, when I saw that I was getting close to the 100 minute mark, I made an additional payment of $10 on my account; basically, paying in advance for an additional 100 minutes of which I ultimately used 63. My account rolled over today so autopay hit me up for $30 for a new month and I still have an additioanl $3.70 credit to use towards the new month's minutes overage (if any).

Your thought process was exactly mine. However when I spoke the T Mobile representative he told me it would be wiser just to pay another 30 dollars and reset your month to get another 100 minutes and 5 gigabytes more of data. In this scenario my math would be correct.

I am not sure if this guy knew what he was talking about or not. obviously you are currently using the plan and would have a better idea. However this is why I called to clear up this very argument.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[AtomicFrost]

Your thought process was exactly mine. However when I spoke the T Mobile representative he told me it would be wiser just to pay another 30 dollars and reset your month to get another 100 minutes and 5 gigabytes more of data. In this scenario my math would be correct.

I am not sure if this guy knew what he was talking about or not. obviously you are currently using the plan and would have a better idea. However this is why I called to clear up this very argument.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

It really depends on how much data you have used. If you have only used a few gigs by the 15th, than you are just better off paying $0.10 a minute instead of restarting your month. However, if you have used over half of your data, and you need 4g data speeds, than it could make sense to restart the plan.

 

[taj7575]

I had the same problem. That's why I moved to the $60 unlimited everything plan. I talk too much to have any sort of limit on minutes. I used my 100 minutes in about three days, and another 100 in about 2. That's already $40 bucks anyways.

I may be moving to Straighttalk soon as well, but I'm extremely happy with T-Mobile.

 

[acegolfer]

Why not use voip?

If you use ilbc codec, the call quality is great even on 3g. I posted how to in xda n4 forum.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=35701104

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

[CoMoNexus]

I got the $30 100 minute/5 GB 4G/unlimited SMS plan because I rarely talk on my mobile phone. Yet for the second time, I've burned through all of my minutes in well under three weeks. According to my phone's log, I should have at least 50 minutes left. As far as I know, I don't have any apps making calls. When I check VM, it's from my home phone. I don't use any VoIP services.

Just curious if anyone else besides the OP thinks they're getting shortchanged.