What area are you in? try this site to check wireless coverage in your area.
http://www.rootmetrics.com/compare-carriers/
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Carrier T-Mobile to start paying AT&T, Verizon & Sprint early termination fee on Jan 15 2014
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http://www.rootmetrics.com/compare-carriers/
Yeah, I get a discount through my company and still have unlimited, but my wife has the 3GB data bucket before they moved to mobileshare bullcrap. So I plan on sticking with them for another 6 months. Then I'll jump to TMO since they'll have much of their new network push built out by then. I get the same speed on LTE with AT&T and TMO in my area, so it doesn't matter to me. Whoever wants to give me more for my buck, that's who I go with.
I live in Lehigh Valley, PA. It seems per that link that T-mobile's coverage is great with hardly any bad spots.
If I convert over and the experience turns out to be horrible, I'll be in a difficult situation to go back to ATT though.
Get a pre-paid line to test out coverage. Then fully port over all your lines and cancel the pre-paid line. That is, of course, if T-Mobile actually delivers a working network in your area.
I know I thought about that too but then maybe they will pay to bring you back!
T-Mobile is bringing competition to the wireless industry right now with their aggressive innovative plans.
pay of your t-mobile iphone, get it unlocked if its not unlocked and take it to AT&T. you will even pay less than before since there won't be a contract
I think you won't have to…. AT&T will probably pay you to come back!
http://www.att.com/att/switcherpromo/#fbid=frzVtF-JNwA
I currently have all 3 of my phones unlocked, but I'm still under contract.
So the deal states that you must trade in your working phone to be eligible, can't you just put go phone's on your account and trade those in? Then after, switch your unlocked phones back onto the new T-Mo account?
So the deal states that you must trade in your working phone to be eligible, can't you just put go phone's on your account and trade those in? Then after, switch your unlocked phones back onto the new T-Mo account?
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I don't think you have to give up your iphones to switch and have T-Mobile still pay your ETF....
See post #186 here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1694009/
You do. I just went to a T Mobile store. To get the deal about paying EFT, you have to trade-in your phones.
This is what I wanted to do too. Give them cheap att go phones, buy the cheapest tmo phone and pop in the tmo sim into my 5s
Same here. I haven't heard much about people trying this bc it seems unclear on what you can trade in. Although even on their online trade in site there are old phones on the list you could obtain for cheap. I read one comment on the arc technica opinion piece of the program where the user did exactly what we are thinking. Not sure if it's true though.
As for buying their cheapest phone and swapping the sim, I don't see why that wouldn't work at all. Even their cheapest smartphones are around $100 I believe. Made back pretty quickly from cheaper monthly service. Or sell it and recoup even quicker.
The purpose of the phone trade in is to have you pay towards the T-Mobile phone you're required to buy when you switch. You're only required to trade in a phone from your old carrier to qualify for the ETF payoff. So yes if you have a 5S but don't want to give it up, you can find some cheaper phone to trade in and also just buy the cheapest T-Mobile phone they offer. Pay for the cheap phone in full (Concord is $50) and use your 5S instead.
I just thought I would chime in here since I plan on taking advantage of this and may be in the same boat as some of you.
I have 4 lines with AT&T.
I have the following phones:
iPhone 5S
iPhone 4S
Blackberry Curve
Pantech Ease
3 of the lines have early termination totally around $700
Obviously the Blackberry and the Pantech are not worth jack, but the 2 iPhones are easily worth $800. T-Mobile would give me $400 for the two, so it would obviously be insane for me to do that.
I went into my local Corporate T-Mobile store and confirmed that you don't have to trade in your current phone, but for every line that has an ETF, you have to turn in a phone that is on their list. ANY phone on their list as long as it powers on and doesn't have a broken screen.
You can figure out which phones are on their approved list by going to their site and checking the trade in value of old phones:
http://www.t-mobile.com/DeviceRecovery/cell-phone-trade-in.aspx
The cheapest phone I could find on their list is an AT&T Go Phone ZTE Z431
You can buy them new on Amazon for $35 or better yet, I see them used on eBay for as little as $9
I'm still not sure if the Blackberry is eligible to trade in yet because my son-in-law is out and about and I can't reach him to get the model number, but even if I have to buy 3 Go Phones, that will cost me maybe $30. T-Mobile pays off my $700 ETFs and I get 4 new iPhones for 0 down and I sell the 2 old iPhones for $800. To top it off, I'm going to be saving at least $50 a month going to AT&T and probably even more because they have no overages and no need to get an international data plan for my son in law every time he goes to Spain for 3 months a year.
There's nothing underhanded or unethical about any of this. I told 3 different sales people at the store, including the manager, what I was going to do, and they all said it was fine.
After working all the details of this deal out, I would be insane NOT to do this. Everybody in my family gets new iPhones and I profit by around $750 and save $50+ a month and get better service.
I have 4 lines with AT&T.
I have the following phones:
iPhone 5S
iPhone 4S
Blackberry Curve
Pantech Ease
3 of the lines have early termination totally around $700
Obviously the Blackberry and the Pantech are not worth jack, but the 2 iPhones are easily worth $800. T-Mobile would give me $400 for the two, so it would obviously be insane for me to do that.
I went into my local Corporate T-Mobile store and confirmed that you don't have to trade in your current phone, but for every line that has an ETF, you have to turn in a phone that is on their list. ANY phone on their list as long as it powers on and doesn't have a broken screen.
You can figure out which phones are on their approved list by going to their site and checking the trade in value of old phones:
http://www.t-mobile.com/DeviceRecovery/cell-phone-trade-in.aspx
The cheapest phone I could find on their list is an AT&T Go Phone ZTE Z431
You can buy them new on Amazon for $35 or better yet, I see them used on eBay for as little as $9
I'm still not sure if the Blackberry is eligible to trade in yet because my son-in-law is out and about and I can't reach him to get the model number, but even if I have to buy 3 Go Phones, that will cost me maybe $30. T-Mobile pays off my $700 ETFs and I get 4 new iPhones for 0 down and I sell the 2 old iPhones for $800. To top it off, I'm going to be saving at least $50 a month going to AT&T and probably even more because they have no overages and no need to get an international data plan for my son in law every time he goes to Spain for 3 months a year.
There's nothing underhanded or unethical about any of this. I told 3 different sales people at the store, including the manager, what I was going to do, and they all said it was fine.
After working all the details of this deal out, I would be insane NOT to do this. Everybody in my family gets new iPhones and I profit by around $750 and save $50+ a month and get better service.
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Is the "concord" available on line or only in store?
I just thought I would chime in here since I plan on taking advantage of this and may be in the same boat as some of you.
I have 4 lines with AT&T.
I have the following phones:
iPhone 5S
iPhone 4S
Blackberry Curve
Pantech Ease
3 of the lines have early termination totally around $700
Obviously the Blackberry and the Pantech are not worth jack, but the 2 iPhones are easily worth $800. T-Mobile would give me $400 for the two, so it would obviously be insane for me to do that.
I went into my local Corporate T-Mobile store and confirmed that you don't have to trade in your current phone, but for every line that has an ETF, you have to turn in a phone that is on their list. ANY phone on their list as long as it powers on and doesn't have a broken screen.
You can figure out which phones are on their approved list by going to their site and checking the trade in value of old phones:
http://www.t-mobile.com/DeviceRecovery/cell-phone-trade-in.aspx
The cheapest phone I could find on their list is an AT&T Go Phone ZTE Z431
You can buy them new on Amazon for $35 or better yet, I see them used on eBay for as little as $9
I'm still not sure if the Blackberry is eligible to trade in yet because my son-in-law is out and about and I can't reach him to get the model number, but even if I have to buy 3 Go Phones, that will cost me maybe $30. T-Mobile pays off my $700 ETFs and I get 4 new iPhones for 0 down and I sell the 2 old iPhones for $800. To top it off, I'm going to be saving at least $80 a month going to AT&T and probably even more because they have no overages and no need to get an international data plan for my son in law every time he goes to Spain for 3 months a year.
There's nothing underhanded or unethical about any of this. I told 3 different sales people at the store, including the manager, what I was going to do, and they all said it was fine.
After working all the details of this deal out, I would be insane NOT to do this. Everybody in my family gets new iPhones and I profit by around $750 and save $80+ a month and get better service.
Actually, I may even just but the cheapest phone they have on a payment plan and just put the SIM in my current iPhones since they will work on T-Mobile's network. This is getting more interesting all the time.
Excellent, thank you for posting this here and researching on the trade in phones. This is exactly what I wanted to do for my 3 AT&T iPhone 5s. Do you happen to know about their unlock policy? I'm assuming once you pay the ETF they will unlock the phone?
I'm afraid I can't help you with that. I got my 5S unlocked by one of the eBay sellers before the poop hit the fan.
Ah, really regret not doing that. Guess I'll have to contact AT&T. Switching would surely be easier if I could just swap sims rather than sell and rebuy.
I live and go to school in Philadelphia, and I'm constantly covered in LTE. I travel to Manhattan frequently as well for family, and have perfect LTE there as well.