Free trial of T-Mobile network

REWahoo

REWahoo

Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give
Joined
Jun 30, 2002
Messages
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Location
Texas: No Country for Old Men
T-Mobile is offering a free trial of their network for anyone who is not or has never been a T-Mobile customer.

Sign up (name, address, phone # and email address) and they will send you a free wi-fi hotspot device and sim card to use for 30 days or 30GB of data, whichever comes first. No strings attached - you don't give any CC info and the sim card auto deactivates at the end of the trial. Then you can keep the device, give it to someone to activate their own trial or return to T-Mobile.

https://www.t-mobile.com/offers/free-trial
 
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Fantastic! T-Mobile is the other network available to Consumer Cellular customers (I chose AT&T). This sounds like a low-impact way to compare side by side. Thanks for the heads up.
 
Thanks. I just signed up. I had been thinking about changing to T-Mobile 55+ plan. This should allow us to test the signal before transferring out phone number. ATT seems to have changed somehow and signal strength is constantly changing, often dropping calls.

P.S. MS Edge would not allow me to sign up. Wouldn't allow me to agree to Terms and Conditions. Chrome did.
 
REWahoo said:
Google T-Mobile rate plans and it should bring up their hotspot pricing.
Click to expand...

I did and I'm still confused. I don't see any hotspot plans or devices on their site.

Weird promotion.
 
CRLLS said:
P.S. MS Edge would not allow me to sign up. Wouldn't allow me to agree to Terms and Conditions. Chrome did.
Click to expand...

I saw some discussion about the T-Mobile promotion sign-up page being finicky as to what browser you were using. Anyone having issues should do as you did and try a different browser.
 
I'll give it a try. Coverage on all networks I've tried is really terrible. Our house is in sort of a valley.
 
I ordered the device yesterday and expect delivery soon and am looking forward to it.

I ended up spending time in a waiting room yesterday afternoon and had a chance to look through the offer more closely. A few interesting things:

Your trial begins when you activate the SIM/hotspot. I might delay activation since I’m anticipating a new device to use with and test.

After the trial is over, you can keep the gadget or give it to someone (or, I suppose, return it). This has been mentioned already. T-Mobile of course hopes you keep it and get a plan.

Other call/data traffic may be prioritized higher than the hotspot depending on network conditions. This doesn’t concern me as I’m more interested in coverage/signal than performance.

They included language in the offer “while supplies last”. Who knows whether supplies are limited, could be just to cover T-Mobile.
 
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I signed up. will be interested to see if the coverage is good. can you use the hotspot from anywhere you go or does it have to be at home?
 
Great idea! Especially for someone like me in a questionable coverage area. I'm a bit confused about whether this will actually tell me what kind of voice coverage I'll get. From what I see it looks like you use this for data? So I can connect to this instead of my home router and see what I get, but this may or may not give me a solid indication of voice coverage and quality. Can you put the sim in your phone instead of the device? But it doesn't look like a micro sim like I need. I signed up for it so I'll see what I get. If it works, the over 55 unlimited data plan looks pretty good.
 
I would think the strength/quality of the data signal would be an indication of what you could expect for voice coverage, but that's only a fractionally educated (very small fraction) guess. It appears the data and voice signals come from the same tower but use different channels.
 
Got mine yesterday- signed up Wednesday- they ship 2 day air but I got it one day early!
The sim I got has to be activated by January 2021 - so I’m going to leave it in the box until our next trip - use it for iPads and laptop.
 
LastOfTheBoomers said:
Got mine yesterday- signed up Wednesday- they ship 2 day air but I got it one day early!
The sim I got has to be activated by January 2021 - so I’m going to leave it in the box until our next trip - use it for iPads and laptop.
Click to expand...


Happy day! I hope it works well. Mine’s supposed to show up Tuesday. It’s good to learn there’s a time limit for activation, Jan ‘21 (or ‘20, even) is a long window.
 
We switched to T-Mobile a few months ago after 15+ years with AT&T. Their 55+ plan of two phones with unlimited everything for $70/month (inclusive of all taxes and fees) is pretty hard to beat. Coverage has been fine. AT&T was almost twice as much.
 
Just checked, mine will be here Tuesday. Since I am just about ready to pull the rigger for T-Mobile, I'll check out ASAP before I commit. Anyone know if the box is accessible via computer to read the receiving signal level?
 
I signed up on the 30th and a shipping label was created but that is as far as it has gotten. must be the holiday weekend.
 
We've had the T-Mobile 55 and over plan since last fall since the price was very compelling compared to others..but coverage and signal strength have been absolutely God-awful compared to our old carrier (AT&T). Unfortunately, even though we don't have a contract per-se and "could" leave at any time, they sucked us in with the BOGO iPhone offer with monthly equipment payments - and we have roughly $500 to go on wife's phone..mine is "free" for every month we pay on hers..but if we drop their service, the cost of both phones (so, 2X or ~$1,000) is due..so, we're toughing it out and hoping things get better IF the Sprint merger ever happens but that increasingly seems to be far off..

We live in a pretty populated area with roughly 1,000 houses and major shopping, restaurants, etc within a stone's throw of our house. There are actually places smack in the middle of this that my signal drops to 1 bar and I can't even make calls. Forget about coverage in the middle of our local Kroger or CVS (seriously?!). Phones are TOTALLY unusable inside the buildings..even the parking lot of my Kroger is iffy..

We were at a family party a couple of weekends ago, and everyone was using their AT&T and Verizon phones. Us? ZERO bars. Had a series of dots where the signal strength indicator should have been. No-one else had a lick of trouble using their phones..

Never had any of these issues with AT&T, and while it's hugely more expensive compared to the T-Mobile plan, I guess the old expression about "you get what you pay for" is pretty apro-po in this case..

YMMV, but I'd highly recommend testing the bajeebus out of your coverage area. Don't make the same mistake I did and trust the online coverage maps or think "hey, it's 2019..OF COURSE every major network is decent (they're not)". The online coverage maps are also questionable - they're total BS (IMHO) or "creative marketing" at best..
 
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My hotspot arrived today, that’s pretty quick given the Labor Day holiday.

Now to fight the urge to activate until I have a new device with which to test.

I’ve thought a bit about what sort of tests would be meaningful, as there are a few knobs to turn and keep in mind. The purpose of the hotspot is to take the cellular signal and feed it via wifi to the client.

Coverage and strength are still most interesting to me and those knobs (for me) are AT&T vs T-Mobile.
 
Up at my high-country boondocks home, the carrier is Cellular One. I could even see the wireless tower from my home.

Coverage is terrible, for both voice and data. That is true with both AT&T which I had earlier, and T-Mobile now. It appears roaming users do not have the same priority in getting through, compared to Cellular One subscribers. This cell tower serves a small town nearby of a few thousand inhabitants, plus travelers on the highway cutting through the valley below us.

My daughter sent a message, and I received it 2 hours later, compared to the timestamp at transmittal. That is during the day. In the early AM hours, it is a lot better and I could actually surf the Web.

When there's not enough bandwidth, there's nothing that can work unless you get priority somehow.
 
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