For the longest time I had Vodafone, with plans from Czech Railways (the so-called CD Bonus). Then I bought a new SIM from Tesco Mobile. I had it for about 1.5 years, and half a year before I moved Tesco Mobile over to T-Mobile, I also got Kaktus, where I ported my VF number.
I always saved every single byte, so my biggest monthly data package was 150MB at most. I never dared to buy any extra FUP or service, and it showed on my bills: I paid 100-300 CZK a month. But then I got the T-Mobile youth plan for 399 CZK. That one already had a much higher FUP than I was used to: 700MB.
And that’s where it started. I began convincing myself that even 4 GB is too little, and it all escalated now when I was downloading the ISO of Visual Studio 2015, which was 3.7GB. I bought a 4 GB internet package from Vodafone on top of my existing 1.5GB, so I had 5.5GB, and started downloading over the Vodafone LTE network with my Xperia M2. On the first attempt I ran out of space on my SSD drive. Stupid Chrome (just like stupid me) couldn’t resume the download, so I downloaded it again, this time on the T-Mobile network, which only offers H+ at best around here.
I just had to buy a 10GB data package for 649 CZK, which they gave me for 2 months at a discount, for 325 CZK. I had learned my lesson not to use Chrome, so I started the download in Opera 12. However, T-Mobile has a weird network everywhere here. Where Vodafone stays steadily on 1 network type (usually LTE, even when there isn’t a single bar), T-Mobile jumps every 5 seconds from H+ to H, then to 3G, then to E, then to LTE, and it’s simply impossible to work with that connection reasonably, because it keeps reconnecting all the time. I repeat, this happens everywhere: in the center of Ostrava, in our backwater here, and everywhere else.
Then, when uploading several photos, for example to G+, some of them get uploaded and the last few don’t :/. I don’t use my Lumia for things like that, so I don’t know how it does with T-Mobile, and besides, it only supports H+ at most. But T-Mobile started slowing down until it ran at about 100kB/s for a long time. Fortunately Opera was able to resume the download on a different connection, so I finished it on VF LTE.
In the end, the net download time was 3h, and 2h went into preparation, grilling, and so on. A few days later I also bought Shared Internet from T-Mobile. It’s a second SIM card for internet only, which has its own number but a shared FUP with another plan. But as the title says, I’m fed up with all of it. I have to choose: either T-Mobile or Vodafone. T-Mobile has better plans, Vodafone has much better LTE and a better network overall.
But since I still have about 23 months left on my T-Mobile contract at 399 CZK/month, I don’t want to cancel it. That’s why I’ll buy a WiFi antenna for my desktop PC downstairs. Whenever I want to download or upload something over T-Mobile, I’ll put the phone upstairs where the signal is better, share the internet, and I’ll have what I want.
That way I’ll avoid buying some external router, which I wouldn’t use anyway and which usually costs thousands. I’ve also slightly updated my listing for the Xperia M2. I’ll put it on more websites later today; so far it’s only on one. After that I won’t need Shared Internet anymore, so I’ll cancel that too and save 99 CZK/month.
I really have to start valuing money a lot more, otherwise I’ll end up in a very bad place.