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gabriel925fm

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 12, 2010
55
0
Hello all,

Im runnig an iphone 4 on att gophone fine. I pay 75 a month for unlimited calling and text plus 200 mb of data. I've been using about 40mb a month since almost everywhere i go i have wifi access.

Now about h2o....

They have a very simillar plan as att gophone with unlimited call and text but 50mb of data for 49.95. They use att network and it works on the iphone without being unlocked. Has anyone use h2o wireless for a few months that would give me a review of their service? Like data usage, using more than the 50mb, calling, texting....

Thanks
 

bella92108

macrumors 68000
Mar 1, 2006
1,610
0
Hello all,

Im runnig an iphone 4 on att gophone fine. I pay 75 a month for unlimited calling and text plus 200 mb of data. I've been using about 40mb a month since almost everywhere i go i have wifi access.

Now about h2o....

They have a very simillar plan as att gophone with unlimited call and text but 50mb of data for 49.95. They use att network and it works on the iphone without being unlocked. Has anyone use h2o wireless for a few months that would give me a review of their service? Like data usage, using more than the 50mb, calling, texting....

Thanks

I tried one of their SIMs to see what happened when the data cap was hit. It just stops accessing data, lol. I thought maybe it was just to deter people from using it heavily, but no. Sure you CAN use it with your iPhone, but the data goes quick, then it's as good as dead until next month. The coverage is the same as AT&T so texting\calling is the same experience, and the data speeds are about the same too (altho I didn't do a lot of testing as a 2 mb speed test is 4% of the allotment of data, haha)....

Sounds like AT&T sticks it to everyone, even their MVNO's haha
 

gabriel925fm

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 12, 2010
55
0
Thank you. Great review. I just wanted to hear from people that have use them in the past like yourself.
 

drappraisals

macrumors newbie
May 22, 2011
2
0
h2o wireless

bought a locked at&t ip4 a couple days ago. its my understanding that a modified h2o wireless sim can be used on the ip4 without a jailbreak or unlock. correct or no? thanks.
 

eastercat

macrumors 68040
Mar 3, 2008
3,323
7
PDX
It sucks that you have to have the 49.99/month plan to get any data.
I tried one of their SIMs to see what happened when the data cap was hit. It just stops accessing data, lol. I thought maybe it was just to deter people from using it heavily, but no. Sure you CAN use it with your iPhone, but the data goes quick, then it's as good as dead until next month. The coverage is the same as AT&T so texting\calling is the same experience, and the data speeds are about the same too (altho I didn't do a lot of testing as a 2 mb speed test is 4% of the allotment of data, haha)....

Sounds like AT&T sticks it to everyone, even their MVNO's haha
 

Vlad33141

macrumors newbie
Feb 16, 2011
21
10
h2owireless does work on iPhones.

I just connected my iPhone to their service, they now provide you with an unlimited data, text and calls for $60.00 . You don't need to unlock or jailbreak. Unless you want tethering then jailbreak. By the way I'm running iOS5 beta 7.
 

hackthatphone

macrumors 68000
Jul 28, 2010
1,590
1
bought a locked at&t ip4 a couple days ago. its my understanding that a modified h2o wireless sim can be used on the ip4 without a jailbreak or unlock. correct or no? thanks.

Correct, just cut the sim down. Been using them since they were o2.
 

PigsOnTheWing

macrumors member
Jul 16, 2002
83
49
Orlando, FL
I just connected my iPhone to their service, they now provide you with an unlimited data, text and calls for $60.00 . You don't need to unlock or jailbreak.
Dumb question, perhaps, but how much would it end up costing to shut off AT&T's service but keep an iPhone 4S?

Can you buy an unlocked 4S to start with in the US?
 

manyu79

macrumors newbie
Oct 14, 2011
5
0
I just connected my iPhone to their service, they now provide you with an unlimited data, text and calls for $60.00 . You don't need to unlock or jailbreak. Unless you want tethering then jailbreak. By the way I'm running iOS5 beta 7.


If your iphone is not jailbroken and without having to download the "tether me" tweak via Cydia, would the MMS and Data still work? I believe you have to do that in order to go into the APN settings and so on.

Also, does the locked official iOS5 give you the option to go into the APN settings?
 

manyu79

macrumors newbie
Oct 14, 2011
5
0

If you're not jailbroken, You can have your data setup via the H20 website. They have this automatic push notification setup that will send you the profile for the APN data settings.

Now my question is, why can't they provide this for the mms...
 

Arisian

macrumors 68000
Sep 14, 2007
1,546
1
China
I heard their data is slow as hell.

For someone like me it doesn't really matter - All Im using data for is pushed info and some very quick business emails while I'm in the states. Youtube, netflix, etc - don't need it.

I think that h20 is going to be a better solution for while Im in the states - after all, they charge $20 LESS for the same service that ATT provides with the gophone. For me, it sucks because Im in the states about once a year and need something that I can reactivate every time I come over.

I just bought two iphone4's to take back with me and will have to wait for hte jailbreak/unlock to come out in order to use it in China, Malaysia, Nepal, Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan, etc... for my business. But for now not having to unlock it and jailbreak it, while using h20 seems like a good solution.

Has anyone tried using the gophone on a LOCKED iphone4? Do I just need to cut the sim, or does it straight not work?

Thanks,
Brian
 

Arisian

macrumors 68000
Sep 14, 2007
1,546
1
China
It works

Ok, so I thought I'd go ahead and write a quick update about how I'm currently using H2O.

First, This is an absolutely fantastic option for people that live overseas, such as myself. The reason being it's fantastically cheap and basically everything can be managed over the internet so that the second I land in country, I can have my phone working (which is especially fantastic with Google Voice)

The Setup
- iPhone 4
- Non-Jailbroken
- Non-Unlocked (I bought it from an old ATT customer)

The actual account setup took me longer than I actually feel like it should have. Make sure you have changed your APN settings before adding the sim card. Also, you will have to register & activate on the website before your phone will pick up a signal. You don't have to actually pay to activate the number. Once you get everything setup, reboot, enable 3G + Data... everything should be working

The Data
Attached below is a screenshot of a sampling of data speeds I got to help answer some of the questions about data speed. Here's the conclusion I've come to.

H2O will always be secondary to ATT data. What this means is that the data speed is actually pretty fast, but if there is a lot of data going through ATT's towers, you will be bottlenecked/queued... not necessarily throttled. I've seen my pages sit for about 5 seconds and then load very quickly onto the page w/ a sudden burst of data. I was seeing the same with the speed results... pause... very fast... pause... fast... rinse, repeat.

I was able to load youtube videos w/ no problem after it buffered for about 15 seconds.

Conclusion
My home internet in China barely gets 4mbs, so this seems decent to me. I know it's not touching on the 4G lte speed/performance... but in my opinion I don't care if it does.

h2o really great on the cheap, esp for someone who just needs data for uploading images, twitter, the occasional email, etc.

I might update this with more thoughts when its not 1am.

Cheers,
Brian
 

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oldertwin

macrumors newbie
Jul 29, 2010
11
0
Can someone please post Edge Speeds? I live in a area where there is no 3G service and I am interested in what H2O has for Edge Speeds.
 

Arisian

macrumors 68000
Sep 14, 2007
1,546
1
China
Can someone please post Edge Speeds? I live in a area where there is no 3G service and I am interested in what H2O has for Edge Speeds.

EDGE is pretty trashy unfortunately - will work for small updates (twitter, instagram, etc).

See attached image. These results are all on edge.

Cheers,
Brian
 

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james714

macrumors newbie
Jun 16, 2008
16
0
Add another experience. I recently converted my wife's AT&T iPhone to H2O Wireless. The porting process was fairly simple (followed the direction on H2O wireless' website), except on the part where they needed your account password/pin. When I called AT&T to find out the pin, the only one they can provide is the voicemail pin. Other than that, it's the last four digits of your social.

Once the number is ported, I stuck in the H2O sim into the iPhone to check if the service worked. Once H2O wireless showed up as the carrier, I proceed to purchase a refill pin from callingmart. Since my wife doesn't use that much data, I put her on the $50 plan with 250 megs of data. Once I refilled, I click on H2O's website and followed their direction to enable data for the iPhone. It worked perfectly with iOS 5.

I did a quick data speed test using my AT&T post-paid iPhone plan and got over 900k download, while my wife's H2O plan got somewhere around 150k download speed. It's a big difference, but not enough for a daily casual data user like the wife.

The best part, I save almost $20 a month! The only thing I'm missing is MMS (which we don't use that often -- and if the other user is using an iOS 5 device, we can get picture messages via iMessage) and Visual Voicemail, but we can live without those two functions.
 

Carl G35c

macrumors 6502
Aug 14, 2008
488
0
Add another experience. I recently converted my wife's AT&T iPhone to H2O Wireless. The porting process was fairly simple (followed the direction on H2O wireless' website), except on the part where they needed your account password/pin. When I called AT&T to find out the pin, the only one they can provide is the voicemail pin. Other than that, it's the last four digits of your social.

Once the number is ported, I stuck in the H2O sim into the iPhone to check if the service worked. Once H2O wireless showed up as the carrier, I proceed to purchase a refill pin from callingmart. Since my wife doesn't use that much data, I put her on the $50 plan with 250 megs of data. Once I refilled, I click on H2O's website and followed their direction to enable data for the iPhone. It worked perfectly with iOS 5.

I did a quick data speed test using my AT&T post-paid iPhone plan and got over 900k download, while my wife's H2O plan got somewhere around 150k download speed. It's a big difference, but not enough for a daily casual data user like the wife.

The best part, I save almost $20 a month! The only thing I'm missing is MMS (which we don't use that often -- and if the other user is using an iOS 5 device, we can get picture messages via iMessage) and Visual Voicemail, but we can live without those two functions.
Did you try going here to enable her MMS? You can download the profile directly to her phone to apply the settings.
http://www.unlockit.co.nz/mobilesettings/settings.php?id=167
 

Arisian

macrumors 68000
Sep 14, 2007
1,546
1
China
Add another experience. I recently converted my wife's AT&T iPhone to H2O Wireless. The porting process was fairly simple (followed the direction on H2O wireless' website), except on the part where they needed your account password/pin. When I called AT&T to find out the pin, the only one they can provide is the voicemail pin. Other than that, it's the last four digits of your social.

Once the number is ported, I stuck in the H2O sim into the iPhone to check if the service worked. Once H2O wireless showed up as the carrier, I proceed to purchase a refill pin from callingmart. Since my wife doesn't use that much data, I put her on the $50 plan with 250 megs of data. Once I refilled, I click on H2O's website and followed their direction to enable data for the iPhone. It worked perfectly with iOS 5.

I did a quick data speed test using my AT&T post-paid iPhone plan and got over 900k download, while my wife's H2O plan got somewhere around 150k download speed. It's a big difference, but not enough for a daily casual data user like the wife.

The best part, I save almost $20 a month! The only thing I'm missing is MMS (which we don't use that often -- and if the other user is using an iOS 5 device, we can get picture messages via iMessage) and Visual Voicemail, but we can live without those two functions.


MMS is possible - just have to get it set up correctly.
VVM is not possible, but you can mimic it through Google Voice and it works pretty well
 

cgomez93

macrumors newbie
Oct 30, 2011
1
0
Unlocking iphone on h2o??

anyone know how to unlock/hack iphone in h2o for unlimited phone (free calls) service?
 
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