Your report matches my impression of their coverage. I head out of the city just often enough to go with a carrier that has better coverage. I've thought about getting some cheap plan on a better carrier for those occasions, but it's not quite worth the trouble. They're so close!

Worth noting - as part of the fall out with the AT&T deal - they got a ton of bandwidth from AT&T and they're putting it to good use across their spectrum. Not quite on par with AT&T/Verizon - but getting there!

Ive had tmobile for the past 4 years, across 4 different smart phones.I can honestly say that i don't have any bad experiences with them. I find their network fast and reliable, and I don't live in a big city. I'm amazed they aren't more populatlr given how cheap and reliable ive found them to be.

Now reflect on this old news:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_purchase_of_T-Mobile_...

$80? Pre-paid that's $45.

Even less if you don't talk much:

http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans ($30/m for 5GB of 4G, unlimited text, 100 minutes)

I'm always worried that someone at T-Mobile will notice that plan, say "whoa, how did that get there?", and delete it. It's just so much cheaper than everything else on the market.

The plan can only be deliberate, egregious price discrimination. I found out about it because T-Mobile was heavily advertising it on their website. So I tried to sign up. You can't do that; you have to either order a SIM card from them (which is free), or get one from Walmart. I tried to get a SIM card from the local T-Mobile store. They don't sell those. I ordered a SIM card online and had to wait a week. When it arrived, I activated it on (surprise!) the T-Mobile website. I guess you can do that after all.

Note that in ordering the SIM card I did not indicate that I wanted any particular plan. The $30 plan just "happened" to be available for that card.

Was I willing to wait for one week in order to lower the bill for a large recurring cost by 40%? Yes. But T-Mobile seems to be gambling that most people aren't.

Actually SIMs aren't free, they're normally $10. You can sometimes find them for $1 if you look around hard enough [1].

I've been using this plan for about a month or so and coverage has indeed been a little spotty in my area but it's good enough for my needs. If you do want to try it out here's a tip port your number: do NOT do select the option to port during the online activation process. Sign up and activate your SIM FIRST and then call in to initiate a number port request. Once you've activated and signed up for the $30 plan with a port request, there's no way to get a temporary number while waiting for the port request to complete.

[1] http://slickdeals.net/f/6332098-tmobile-99cent-sim-card-sale...

I consider $10 with a $10 discount (applied before payment) "free". I ordered straight through T-Mobile's web site. Yes, I may have actually paid some amount under a dollar, and no, I didn't pay more than a dollar. I'm still willing to call it "free".

That's a rather amazing deal if you do most of your talking on VOIP, but I'm left wondering what this disclaimer means:

This plan is only available for devices purchased from Wal-Mart or devices activated on T-Mobile.com

It seems to imply device restrictions.

It means you need to activate your SIM card for this particular rate at Walmart or on their website -- T-Mobile stores and phone support can't do it.

Several of my friends have done just that, get a stand-alone SIM card and then activate it on T-Mobile's website.

Wow I've been overpaying by going into a store. I use T-Mobile pay as you go whenever I come to the States (twice a year for 2-week stints usually).

Do you know if I buy a SIM card and activate it for that deal will I be able to let it lapse and then re-up it when I come back in 6 months? Or will I have to buy a new SIM card every time?

I was on that plan and let it expire. My account page still displays the plan, while noting that it's unfunded and I can't use it, so it seems that you can let it lapse and re-up. I've been curious whether that will still be true come the new year.

I have been living in London since 2011, so I let me old T-Mobile plan lapse. When I came back my SIM was dead, so I bought a pay-as-you-go SIM in the store. They told me if I don't top it up every 3 months it is not guaranteed to work. However after I am typically gone for six month cycles, and the last 2 times it was still active.

I'm very keen on trying this new plan though as $3/day on top of pay as you go is not a good value on a 2 week trip. I'd be very happy to just pay $30 and get a reasonable amount of mins/texts along with great data.

There's no device restrictions, plenty of people use this with Nexus 4s and the like. The catch is you can't get it in a T-Mobile store.

If you bring your own device, you have to either buy a SIM from T-Mobile.com and then put it in the device, or you can buy a SIM card kit from Wal-Mart.

I have this on my Nexus 4. You can either order a sim online or (as I couldn't buy it with a card registered to a P.O. box) buy a 20$ phone at walmart and swap the sim into your device.

No device restrictions.

Most of the time the guy at the Walmart phone store will have a spare SIM card lying around and will give it to you for free. That happened for both my phone and my wife's phone.

pre-paid starts at 45 but thats with 500 mb at 4G speed and then unlimited 3G speed afterwards. $80 gets you like 12 gb of 4G.

Personally I'm happy at 500 but use cases vary.

I switched to T-Mobile last month after Apple released the 5s. This has also been my experience.