I was using that plan, but I was finding that I didn't really have enough voice minutes (100 was less than I'd need). T-Mobile does throttle after 2GB on that plan, though that wasn't a big deal for me. The big problem for me was that T-Mobile's coverage area sucks; there were whole areas of Boston and Cambridge where I got absolutely no signal.

I recently moved to the $45 unlimited-everything plan on Straight Talk, which uses AT&T SIMs, and I'm pretty happy with it. (I don't know if they too throttle over 2GB, but I rarely hit it anyway.)

T-Mobile throttles after 5GB on that plan, not 2. Straight Talk straight up terminates your data connection after 2 GB. They claim that they throttle, but they effectively terminate it - the throttled connection is so slow and has so many packets dropped that I couldn't use a single app on my 'throttled' phone without it timing out and giving up.

I've read that elsewhere, but that doesn't match my experience in the New England area on TMO. I had my connection completely croak after my phone read 2GB of data usage. Maybe the behavior is different in different geographic areas?

(The last time I went over 2GB was a year ago on TMO when my home internet wasn't yet installed, so for me it's basically academic.)

Are you sure you weren't just on a plan with a 2GB cap? Different plans are different.

$30, "Unlimited" data and text, 100 minutes?

I was interested in StraightTalk but this article scared me a bit:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2414418,00.asp

Yeah, I've seen that. I don't really care, though - my real number is on Google Voice, so if I get tossed I'll just put my TMO SIM back in my phone. In the meantime, I get way better coverage.

All I see is a giant popup ad bigger than my screen. Is it a news story about cell phones?

So talk using VoIP over 3g/4g and have unlimited minutes.

T-Mobile will not throttle until at least 5GB. In my experience they just don't throttle at all though.

VoIP for me over 3G tends to be not nearly as stable as an actual phone call.

I think the plan works over LTE, which would make it a much more tenable position once T-Mobile's LTE rollout is a bit more fleshed out.

The few months where I need more than 100 minutes, I can just add balance to the account and keep making calls. I usually just use Skype.

Do you have a link to the $30 prepaid plan? I can just find the $50 one (?)

As mcpherrinm said, you can get a SIM for it at Walmart, or you can get it online. I got it online:

http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans

Scroll down and you'll see '100 minutes talk | Unlimited text | First 5 GB at up to 4G speeds'

You have to buy the SIM card online and have them ship it to you; then you open it up and use the activation info in the box to set up the $30 plan and pay for your first month. It's pretty straightforward. When I did it the SIM only cost like a buck so it's pretty much as advertised - no hidden costs.

It's the walmart special. http://see.walmart.com/t-mobile/