What have people found to be the best carriers for adding Internet access to a voice plan?

[austingeog]

I have Cingular now and I don't think even with a bluetooth phone and h2210 I would be able to surf the Internet because they only offer a WAP connection.

The only carrier I found that gives you unlimted access to the full Internet is T-Mobile. They said I could add access to a voice plan for $20/month which is not bad for unlimited and it doesn't use voice minutes. It looks like ATT has some mlife stuff but for $20/month with them you get 8mb data transfer and then they start charging per mb, no thanks. Are there other companies that led you add access to the full internet to voice plans other than T-Mobile?

[nosmohtac]

All of the ones you mentioned, are the only GSM/GPRS carriers in the US.

If you want to go to CDMA, Sprint has a plan, but I believe that it is still $99 for unlimited. It is much faster than GPRS, but I don't think it's worth the difference in cost. I expect that the other carriers in the US will start to follow T-Mobile's lead and start offering more affordable Data transfer added to a voice plan.

[dh]

The response from Clark sums it up very well.

Only two carriers offer an unlimited phone data plan, T-Mobile and Sprint.
Sprint have no BT phones, you have to use a data cable with their system and PPCs are not really included in the plan.

With T-Mobile you have a pretty good choice of phone and they have a $20.00 unlimited GPRS option. Verizon also offer a CDMA data plan but it's expensive and ATTWS also charge by the KB for their GPRS service.

Sprint offer a CF access card with unlimited service for $80.00 (sometimes $100.00) if you want to get access without the cellphone. The CF CDMA card costs about $200.00. I'm tempted by this since I currently pay $40.00 for the unlimited T-Mobile HotSpot service. I might go for a T-Mobile phone plan as an alternative, but the HotSpts (when they actually work) are very fast so I can use them for my laptop as well.

[ale2999]

hey i am from calgary canada and here the situation is sad.....
rogers at&t $20 for 1.5 meg
$ 30 for 5 meg (my plan signed up 2day and already used 8 megs....
$50 for 50 megs although in the first 6 months it is unlimited .
fido
$25 for 5 meg, i dont know other plans. telus i dont know even though i work for their landllines haha. btw you can't use normal gsm internet with rogers, so forget about dialup hours
as you can see, wireless net suks in canada, the only good thing is that it is fast (dunno how fast)

[bibap]

Actually, the Sprint information given above is not quite correct. The plans mentioned are for using the data services with a laptop or wireless modem card. If you use a Vision enabled phone then you only pay the extra $10/month Vision fee for unlimited wireless access. I regularly use my Samsung i330 to browse the web and send a receive email for only this extra fee. It's the best bargain in town for high speed access. The Vision access is, from what I read, about twice as fast as the GPRS access on TMobile.