A rolling musubi gathers no nori, only dirt...
I received the prepaid activation kit from T-Mobile that I ordered a few days ago via UPS. The kit basically comes with a fold out card (image below) which includes an 11-digit activation code as well as a standard sized SIM. FYI, the activation code is not tied to this SIM in any way so I was able to use the code to activate the micro-SIM that I already had installed in the 4S. The code provides $3.34 worth of credit which is applied to whatever plan that you signup with upon activation.
I performed the activation using the Prepaid activation website without any issues and was provisioned with a phone number. I selected the $30 per month plan since it was only available for new activations (I originally was going to sign up for the 1000 minute pay as you go plan but I figure I can change to that later). This $30/month plan offers 100 minutes of voice, unlimited text, and unlimited data (see below). As already known, the iPhone 4/4S will only run on EDGE (2G) because it doesn't support the frequencies which T-Mobile uses. This isn't an issue for me as I wasn't planning on using data on the go in the US (unlike my usage in Japan). The speed is ok for e-mail, simple web browsing, and Siri.
Once provisioned on the T-Mobile network, several automated text messages was sent. First thing is to create an account on their website with the new phone number; this results in a temporary password that is sent via a text message. Once you receive and enter that temporary password, you are immediately prompted to change it. Once this step is completed, you are now able to manage your account. The first thing I did was go into My Profile and opt out of the marketing communication (see below). By default, T-Mobile automatically opts you in such that you'll end up receiving marketing stuff via voice, text message, and your e-mail address. There is an additional link if you want to further opt out of receiving marketing material to any other numbers and addresses you may have provided.
Cellular data will not work immediately until the following changes are made. Go into Settings > General > Network > Cellular Data Network. Under the Cellular Data section, the following will need to be entered:
APN: epc.tmobile.com (username and password are left blank)
Under the MMS section, the following will need to be entered:
APN: epc.tmobile.com (username and password are left blank)
MMS Proxy: 216.155.165.50:8080
MMS UA Prof URL: http://www.apple.com/mms/uaprof.rdf
If you want to enable the Personal Hotspot, the following will need to be entered under the Internet Tethering section:
APN: epc.tmobile.com (username and password are left blank)
Once this is completed, restart the iPhone. To confirm that cellular data is working, temporarily turn off WiFi and see if "E" is displayed next to T-Mobile (see below).
Yes, the last speed test was the results over EDGE. Speed demon it isn't but again, it works fine for e-mail, text messages, basic web browsing, and Siri. As far as activating iMessages and FaceTime, all I had to was go into Settings > FaceTime and Settings > Messages, and turn them on. Both will prompt you for your password for the Apple ID that is associated with your iCloud account. Once that is entered, the activation process will be completed (note that iMessages may take some time to activate nut it eventually does).
The T-Mobile signal here is excellent. The reason I say this is my house is essentially one huge faraday cage because it has aluminum siding and the roof top is finished in an aluminum covering. My old dumb phone which is on Verizon would basically drop to one or two bars and calls would occasionally cut in/out or drop completely. I get 4-5 bars with the 4S and surprisingly clear reception. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the ease in getting setup on T-Mobile. The only issue I have to resolve is voicemail (can't setup and get into my voicemail box).
Once I get back to Japan, I plan on picking up NTT DoCoMo's 4G LTE Xi micro-SIM card which they just began selling last week. That provides flat rate data for a monthly charge of around ￥5,800 (this is a promotional amount valid until April 2012 -- after that, the cost goes up to ￥7,300). The card has already been tested and confirmed to work in a factory unlocked 4S. It provides tethering as well as backwards compatibility with 3.5G UMTS/HSPA+ with speeds of approximately 2Mbps on the downlink and 300Kbps on the uplink. Damn awesome is all I can say.
Comments
Rolling Musubi
Dec 5, 2011
Couple of changes to the above in the cellular data section (I'm not editing the original post since it doesn't retain the original post date -- yes, I really should use a real blogging platform and not this built-in one which lacks the basic things).
MMSC should be http://mms.msg.eng.t-mobile.com/mms/wapenc and MMS Max Message Size should be set to something reasonable like 1048576.
Some caveats do apply though. After brief testing, MMS seems to work ok so long as it is iMessage to iMessage. Attempting to send a small image via something like Pixdrop for example wouldn't work; I'd get the message but with an error saying there was an encoding problem.
The voicemail issue was also not really an issue; it was more of a lag on T-Mobile's end with setting up a new line where the voicemail box had not yet been created. When I tried the next day, the system prompted me to setup my voicemail account and I was able access it without problem.
I also realized I wrote -> EDGE (2G) when that isn't exactly true (it is pre-3G; a transitional 2.5 or 2.75G). I just have a really bad habit of referring to it as such. And the "nut it eventually does" is of course supposed to say "but it eventually does".
Rolling Musubi
Jan 10, 2012
Addendum to get MMS fully working between non-iPhone devices (multimedia messages sent between iMessage works fine without this tweak):
A plist file needs to be edited to allow the iPhone to receive MMS messages (without this fix, sending MMS messages will work but receiving will not - you'll always see a resolution mismatch error).
1) perform a sync to backup your iPhone. Double check the date of the backup (click on your iPhone in the sidebar, click Summary, check the last backup date).
2) download, install, and launch a program called iBackupBot: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/40233/ibackupbot
3) select the recent iPhone backup and locate the "Library/Preferences/com.apple.mms_override.plist" file, double-click to open it.
4) select all the text, delete it, and replace it with the following:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>MMS</key>
<dict>
<key>GroupModeEnabled</key>
<false/>
<key>MMSC</key>
<string>http://mms.msg.eng.t-mobile.com/mms/wapenc</string>
<key>MaxMessageSize</key>
<integer>1048576</integer>
<key>MaxRecipients</key>
<integer>10</integer>
<key>MaxVideoBitrate</key>
<integer>131072</integer>
<key>Proxy</key>
<string>216.155.165.50:8080</string>
<key>UAProf</key>
<string>http://www.apple.com/mms/uaprof.rdf</string>
<key>UserAgent</key>
<string>SonyEricssonW800i/R1L</string>
</dict>
</dict>
</plist>
5) save this change and close the file.
6) place a checkmark in the box next to "Library/Preferences/com.apple.mms_override.plist"
7) click File on the menubar and scroll to Restore - this will perform a restore of the modified com.apple.mms_override.plist file back to the iPhone (this will take several minutes - your iPhone will display the Apple logo during the restore and perform a reboot once it is completed).
8) test MMS receive functionality by sending an MMS from something other than an iPhone (like attaching an image to an e-mail sent to "your-mobile-number@tmomail.net" - this will send that e-mail as a text message to your phone).
Just performing the edit in the iPhone Cellular Data settings will not work. The above tweak adds some parameters which are not exposed in the iPhone's setting GUI; namely the user agent part.