H2O wireless Pay as you go plans anyone?

[nuke_diver]

As the possibility of a buyout just raised it's head it seems that my plan to leave the workforce in June might get accelerated. I was going to ask this question later but might need the information sooner. I am looking at H2O wireless Pay as you go ($9 with autorefill for 90 days 200 min or 200 text or 100MB). This seems to be the most flexible plan allow calls or data or text and can be used internationally (at least text) as I see. Most of my data could be done using wifi same with text so it seems like a good choice for someone who makes few calls/text a month and I have an AT&T iphone 5 so it should port over easily.

But I have no experience if this is a good or bad company to go to so I figured I ping this group many of which are keen on getting good deals and spending little $$

https://www.h2owirelessnow.com/mainControl.php?page=planMin10

 

[pb4uski]

I use airvoicewireless and it is similar. You bring your own AT&T phone and buy a $5 SIM card from them. I'm on the $10/month automatic refill plan so my account increases $10 and 30 days each month via an automatic charge to my credit card.

Voice is deducted at 4 cents a minute, 2 cents for each incoming or outgoing text and data is 6 cents per mb. Any unused money rolls over into the future. So the per minute, text or mb cost is slightly better than H2O but the monthly cost is $1 more. If you have a heavy use month and are running out of money rather than time you can add $10 to the phone but the time doesn't increase.

Since we are modest users, it cost us about $120/year per phone. When I'm traveling and get low I might need to add $10 here or there, so worst case $150 a year.

While I occasionally hear of slightly better deals out there the hassle of changing isn't worth the effort to me and airvoicewireless service has been good.

We found out that any AT&T goPhone, which you can buy at Walmart or other retailers, will work on airvoicewireless, or you can order a phone from them or on the internet if you don't have an unlocked AT&T phone to use.

 

[marko]

With WiFi being more and more ubiquitous, has anyone explored the option of buying a smart phone and not connecting it to any provider?

If you're in a location where WiFi is always nearby you could make calls and text using providers like Google Voice or Skype etc for free as you might do with a laptop.

If you're an Xfinity user you could also connect almost anywhere using their (controversial) hot spots. Agreed, it's "not quite there yet" but for a casual user (within air shot of a McDonalds) it might be a workable option.

 

[travelover]

With WiFi being more and more ubiquitous, has anyone explored the option of buying a smart phone and not connecting it to any provider? ...........

Sort of. I have an old Verizon smart phone and I have service from PagePlus at $10 every 120 days, plus if I don't use it, the balance rolls forward. So I mostly use it on free wifi, but if I need to, I can turn on the 3G to access the internet. Calls are about 10 cents a minute and data is $0.10 a meg. I guess I could find a McDonalds and use Skype to make a call for free, but at that price, it isn't worth it.

 

[target2019]

With WiFi being more and more ubiquitous, has anyone explored the option of buying a smart phone and not connecting it to any provider?

If you're in a location where WiFi is always nearby you could make calls and text using providers like Google Voice or Skype etc for free as you might do with a laptop.

If you're an Xfinity user you could also connect almost anywhere using their (controversial) hot spots. Agreed, it's "not quite there yet" but for a casual user (within air shot of a McDonalds) it might be a workable option.

That's the direction we're going. First we'll port our landline number to something like tracfone.

After a period of use, we'll port the number to google voice or some other service. There is no rush to do this, as we have cell phones on verizon wireless. Just chopped 25% off that bill.

It's a moving target.

 

[nuke_diver]

I would the ability to make emergency calls and I don't mean 911 calls (not sure if you need a plan to do those). I ride a bike a lot and plan to ride more when ER and there is the chance of a mechanical breakdown. If I am 40 miles from home it's a long walk in funny shoes. I've had to make that call once when I had 2 flats on a ride with 1 tube and couldn't find the leak/repair the leaks on the tubes that went flat. It won't happen often but it would be worth $10/3 months to have that

 

[nuke_diver]

I use airvoicewireless and it is similar. You bring your own AT&T phone and buy a $5 SIM card from them. I'm on the $10/month automatic refill plan so my account increases $10 and 30 days each month via an automatic charge to my credit card.

Voice is deducted at 4 cents a minute, 2 cents for each incoming or outgoing text and data is 6 cents per mb. Any unused money rolls over into the future. So the per minute, text or mb cost is slightly better than H2O but the monthly cost is $1 more. If you have a heavy use month and are running out of money rather than time you can add $10 to the phone but the time doesn't increase.

Since we are modest users, it cost us about $120/year per phone. When I'm traveling and get low I might need to add $10 here or there, so worst case $150 a year.

While I occasionally hear of slightly better deals out there the hassle of changing isn't worth the effort to me and airvoicewireless service has been good.

We found out that any AT&T goPhone, which you can buy at Walmart or other retailers, will work on airvoicewireless, or you can order a phone from them or on the internet if you don't have an unlocked AT&T phone to use.

Thanks. I did check Airvoice as well but looked at the pay as you go plan not the 250min plan you have (it appears from the prices). Is the difference that the 250 doesn't allow international calls since I see a contact customer service for the pay as you go but nothing for the 250 min plan. The plans aren't that different and it would be rare that I needed to call internationally but family is in Canada so it is a possibility

Also for those that have these kinds of plans, if you travelled overseas do you just get a local sim card and use the phone there (assuming fully unlocked phone). Since I bought my phone I will keep it assuming AT&T will (and should) unlock it but since the service is provided by work it's not a straightforward thing to do and I don't just yet want to say anything here

 

[skyline]

Sorry, a bit late in seeing this, but my wife and I use H2O Wireless, and it works great. Coverage is the same as AT&T, so if AT&T coverage works well for you H2O will work the same. A couple things I wasn't sure about until I signed up:

1) Auto refill doesn't work like you would think. Auto refill can only be setup to refill every month, so the 90day refills won't work via auto refill. I just manually do the refill, which is a minor annoyance but not a big deal

2) For whatever reason, I can't seem to be able to get any of my credit cards to work on H2O's website. This means that I actually have to buy my refills via a third party (I use PINZOO, but there are literally hundreds out there to choose from), then apply the PIN code

3) Minutes and expiry do rollover, so you can refill whenever you want, with the expiry date pushed out based on the scheduled expiry date. So if your minutes expire Mar 1, but you refill Feb 1, the expiry will get pushed out to Jun 1, not May 1.

Hope this helps

 

[skyline]

BTW, re: the question about overseas use - assuming your phone is unlocked, and it is quad-band GSM (which I believe all iPhones are), yes, you can and should buy a local SIM card when overseas. Activation is usually trivial (the place you buy it from will usually be able to sort it out for you), with APN settings (for i-net data) being the only thing that might be a bit tricky, although even those settings usually configure automatically...

 

[nuke_diver]

Awesome Skyline that's very helpful since I was a bit confused about some of the things on the website...like some terms and conditions that talk about 30 days but the pay as you go is 90 days :S And I wasn't sure if the time rolled over or not

I also read someplace (Howards maybe) that they may not have the nano sim cards for iphones but it might have been an old comment. I'm going to try and live chat with them to clarify but this seems to be perfect for my use...low cost lots of flexibility

 

[skyline]

Are there iphone specific nano sim cards? I know H2O definitely carry nano sim cards, so unless there's something specific for iphones, you should be set. Also, instead of ordering a sim card directly from H2O, go to either Amazon or Ebay and buy one from there for $0.01 with free shipping. I don't know what back-end revenue stream they receive when they sell those cards, but it doesn't make a difference to you other than getting the sim card for basically free...

 

[nuke_diver]

Thanks again I saw those on Amazon/ebay wondered what the catch was...$0.01 with free shipping so they seem to lose money with every shipment due to the postage cost but like you say..doesn't matter to me if that's all it is

I chatted with H2O and they were very helpful answering all my questions. I now know more or less what I need to do to transfer my # and sign up with them. I also know that I don't need to unlock my phone at all but I think I still will ask AT&T to do so since I suspect it will make it easier for the future if I do so now.

 

[skyline]

Definitely get your phone unlocked with AT&T while you're still with them. That way, you're not stuck with just AT&T MVNOs - you could just as easily use a T-Mobile MVNO if you find a better deal with one. Also, the whole overseas SIM card option with an unlocked phone is big if you travel a lot...instead of paying dollars per minute, you'll be paying pennies - even to call back to the US.

As for those Amazon sellers, the one I used was called ShopForPrepaid, and it worked out great. They're obviously definitely getting something back from H2O on the backend - in fact, if you order one and never activate it, they will not let you order any more of them. Mine worked fine, and even if it doesn't, you're out a whole penny, so give them a try before you pay $10 or more for a sim card from H2O...

Good luck!

 

[nuke_diver]

Cool skyline that amazon seller is one that I checked out, knowing that it worked great for you makes it sound a lot better since I always get suspicious when something seems too good to be true. Interestingly I found ShopForPrepaid on Ebay as well but there is a whopping $0.99