Buying 8900 -- help me pick a plan?

[Scotty.dont]

Hi guys,

I'm moving to the US soon and I've all but decided to go with T-Mobile's Curve 8900--love the UMA, WiFi; don't really care about lack of 3G.

Can you please help me come up with a strategy for picking a plan? I have been looking at the site for several hours and I find the whole process very confusing.

I don't know a lot of people out there yet (so I won't be making that many calls). More importantly, I will be traveling back to Canada very frequently. I primarily want to use it for BBM, texting, Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, the occasional map reference on the go, etc. I figure most of my calls will go through UMA and anything beyond that will be so rare that I will just go with the 0.40 cents/min thing.

Here's my thoughts:

- The "base" Individual 300 plan (~$30/mo);
- The infamous Unlimited International E-mail (and Data from what I've read on here) to keep in touch with people back home in Canada.

However the description of it carries with it this caveat:

Originally Posted by TMo site

Add this service to your existing BlackBerry rate plan, or another BlackBerry service, and you’re good to go

I'm assuming this Individual 300 plan qualifies since it is an optional Service, but I could easily be wrong. If I try to "pair it" with another BB Service like "Unlimited Web + 400 Messages", they conflict and it won't let me do it. If I go with the International service, does this mean I would have unlimited domestic data too? Seems too good to be true. When I was playing with the other plans, for instance by foregoing a voice plan totally and selecting the BIS Unlimited ~$40 option, the Unlimited Int'l service is not there to choose from.

Looking for any kind of advice you can offer... this will be my first Blackberry and my first US-plan, so I am kind of lost.

[Artemis68]

No, the international email plan is int'l only, not domestic. You add it befoire you travel and then remove when you're done.

If you txt a lot, you might want to get the 34.99 plan which includes unlim texting and data. The hotspot plan (9.99) will allow you to make FREE UMA calls. The cheapest voice plan is 29.99 for 300 min..

Can someone find out if the 9.99 plan is able to be added without a voice plan, just a data plan? BB data only is like 39.99 and if possible, you could add unlim txt and the 9.99 free UMA feature.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[CueyN]

If I were in your shoes, I'd go with the 300 minute per month plan. And since you say that you will do most of your calls via UMA, add the unlimited hotspot calling and you'll be set. This way any calls over UMA won't be subtracted from your bundle of minutes.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Scream_At_Chaboi]

I agree with CueyN. Get the 300 minutes and use Wifi/UmA whenever you happen to have wifl calling available. If you do moderate texting, I would get the 400 sms text. What a lot of blackberry users don't realize is you can email cell phones based on carrier. I never understood paying the extra $10 per month for unlimited texting for tmobile when the emailing function is already FREE. For example, if you sms text a verizon cell phone, its the same thing as emailing that cell phone - "tendigitnumber"@vtext.com or a sms a tmobile cell is "tendigitnumber@tmo.mail.net". From that, it doesn't come away from your 400 sms and it's still free, the frugal in me

If you do a lot of back and forth traveling to Canada, I suggest registering Discount long distance calls with free mobile phone tools for international cell phone plans for VERY cheap VOIP calling. This is great so this doesn't incur charges on your cell's bill and you pay as you go (for use). If you want an example, I spent 60 minutes in calling to Canada and it costed a total of $0.85 cents.

[Scotty.dont]

Thanks for the quick advice, I appreciate it.

If I go with the suggestion of Individual 300 + a text plan, what about data? It doesn't seem like I'd have one for BBM etc.

[Strideberry]

300 minutes
400 texts
unlimited data


29.99
4.99
19.99

Works