# AT&T Prepaid?



## Coyotex (Feb 10, 2019)

Walmart is advertising AT&T Prepaid 25G for $50/month (including mobile hotspot). And, if you do auto pay, it's $40 a month! Is anyone else doing this or usuing this?


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## PlanoGuber (Feb 14, 2019)

As long as you don't expect exactly the same performance as post paid you'll be fine. Most AT&T MVNO and Prepaids have higher latency and often see their speeds capped (although neither of these "features" are advertised).


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## Ignatowski (Mar 23, 2019)

I've been doing Uber+Lyft on a FreedomPoP SIM for a week. I did notice one area just north of downtown St. Paul MN where my Lyft screen map was getting small black rectangles in it during a ride (so maybe it had slow data), but the nav kept working , and I've had no other problems. (I needed AT&T coverage, and the SIM cost $126 for 12 months, so I'm not complaining). Also, it was working fine when I gave a ride out of town that I knew was beyond T-Mobile data coverage. Note that I would recommend against using FreedomPoP in general; just mentioning it because it's an AT&T MNVO.


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## Coyotex (Feb 10, 2019)

Ignatowski said:


> I've been doing Uber+Lyft on a FreedomPoP SIM for a week. I did notice one area just north of downtown St. Paul MN where my Lyft screen map was getting small black rectangles in it during a ride (so maybe it had slow data), but the nav kept working , and I've had no other problems. (I needed AT&T coverage, and the SIM cost $126 for 12 months, so I'm not complaining). Also, it was working fine when I gave a ride out of town that I knew was beyond T-Mobile data coverage. Note that I would recommend against using FreedomPoP in general; just mentioning it because it's an AT&T MNVO.


What kind of data do you get with that package?


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## Ignatowski (Mar 23, 2019)

FreedomPoP 12-month SIM, 5GB/Month on AT&T. It is "data only" (no telephone number!). FreedomPoP does provide a voip app and a phone number, but you're better off not installing (use Google Hangouts).

Lyft & Uber don't work with VoIP phone numbers. My solution is to use an old second phone with a Tello $0/month pay-as-you-go SIM. I gave that number to Lyft & Uber. There doesn't seem to be any real need to run the driver app on the same phone that you use for your uber/lyft phone number.

FreedomPoP is kind-of scammy. If you give them your credit card number, they may make random charges for stuff you didn't want (see the warnings in the freedompop reddit). Buy it from BestBuy.com instead ($149.99, or goes on-sale for $119.99+tax for about one week every 2 months). You do need to create a FreedomPoP account to activate the SIM, but you don't have to give any billing info. If you do ever decide to give them billing info, use paypal, then later go into paypal.com and delete them as an authorized merchant.


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## Coyotex (Feb 10, 2019)

Hmmmm......so you use a two phone set up. On for data only and one for phone calls only. Do you then have a regular cell phone as well? Your personal cell?


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## Ignatowski (Mar 23, 2019)

I'm using my Google Voice number as my personal number. That lets me switch between a large stylus phone and a tiny phone (e.g. to take to the beach or jogging). Not worrying about the SIM phone number also lets me switch cell phone carriers without porting a number, and it came in handy when my phone got stolen on a trip (I had a backup phone at the hotel, so my travel wasn't interrupted).

If I could figure out how to make Lyft and Uber use a VoIP phone number, then I wouldn't need to take 2 phones in the car. On the other hand, it's kind of nice to be able to send a text to the pax without removing my nav phone from the dash mount, or leaning forwards and trying to type on the phone in the dash mount.

I guess the big takeaway from my experiment is: there's no reason the device you use for Nav needs to be your primary cell phone. It could be a separate phone; or even a tablet. It could be using wifi Internet, tethered from your cell phone. Another takeaway is that the phone number you give to Uber/Lyft doesn't need to be your personal phone number. A paygo plan like Tello (sprint MNVO) or Lycamobile (T-Mo MNVO) will give you a SIM and number that can get/send calls and texts, for 5-10 cents per day.


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## Brunch (Nov 4, 2016)

That is a good deal to be on AT&T's network if you want hotspot... That price doesn't include taxes, so it will be closer to $45/month. Were you needing a new phone? The deal requires a prepaid phone purchase from Walmart. 

Last year AT&T Prepaid had a deal with the same price for unlimited data, but it didn't have hotspot.


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