After posting earlier about AT&T’s discriminatory practice of only giving pre-paid subscribers a subset of the coverage area that their contracted mobile customers get, I thought I’d expand on the topic.

As a participant in the Nokia Blogger Relations program, periodically I receive phones to trial and review. Thus, I’ve looked for GSM providers in the U.S. and have used AT&T and T-Mobile. In the US, there are 4 major cellular providers. AT&T is the granddaddy of the GSM market and is known for having better network coverage where T-Mobile has excelled in customer service year over year.

First Option: AT&T

When signing up for AT&T on a pre-paid basis, you have two choices. In my geographic area, GoPhone will allow you to pay by the minute. Currently there are two offerings, Pay as You Go Unlimited talk which costs $0.10/minute and you pay $1.00/day on days in which you use your phone. Alternatively, you can pay $0.25/minute and there is no per day charge. Both options include voicemail and unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes while calling someone on the AT&T network.

If you want to have a bucket of minutes rather than paying by the minute, you can chose GoPhone Pick Your Plan. This unique plans start off at $29.99 (for 200 minutes per month) and go up to $69.99 for unlimited talk and include nationwide long distance and some additional features. Note: the only way to get a flat rate data plan on a pre-paid basis with AT&T is to use a Pick Your Plan option. This is crucial for those with smartphones who want to do a pre-paid plan with AT&T.

As I posted before, you don’t get access to AT&T’s wireless network while on either pre-paid plan.

Second Option: T-Mobile

T-Mobile offers three options for pre-paid. If you chose Pay By The Day, you pay $1 for days you chose to use the phone and pay 10 cents per minute, unless you’re calling a T-Mobile customer or anyone during the night hours where these minutes are unlimited.

A second option called Pay As You Go involves paying by the minute. The most popular plan is $100 for 1000 minutes, which works out to be 10 cents per minute.

Finally for those wanting a month-to-month conventional bucket of minutes plan, T-Mobile offers FlexPay. FlexPay gives you access to any T-Mobile calling plan on a month-to-month basis with no annual service agreement or credit check.

This is a very important point: T-Mobile gives you access to any monthly plan with FlexPay, unlike AT&T. T-Mobile’s plans are better priced and offer more minutes when compared head to head with AT&T. Plus, you get access to T-Mobile’s entire network, not just a subset of it as with AT&T.

As with AT&T, you must chose the monthly option of FlexPay from T-Mobile to get a flat rate monthly data plan.

Conclusion

In my opinion, T-Mobile is a better choice for pre-paid customers. They offer a full suite of rate plans and don’t discriminate against those who chose to be month-to-month type customers. T-Mobile also gets high marks for superior customer service.