Many mobile sites don't offer the option to switch to "desktop view". Of those that do, it's fairly common to get thrown right back to the "mobile" view, after clicking on another link. The transition can also fail in any number of frustrating ways. I've seen sites that automatically re-direct back to the "mobile" view, or take you to the main homepage of the site, rather than shown the "desktop version" of the article you desired. Lately, user agent spoofing doesn't seem to be as effective; it seems sites are using some other browser metadata to determine if the user is a mobile device.

The irony is that a sub-$100 Windows 8.1 tablet with a 1280x800 resolution has no trouble viewing the real web, but a modern flagship smartphone with a Quad HD 2560x1440 display (hell, that's better than my laptop), gets stuck browsing the mobile web. I can only conclude that some web developers must simply hate smartphone users.

T-Mobile has actually been running the two unlimited lines for $100 promotion, for a few months now. It's a good deal if it suits your needs and depending on what your state's wireless taxes cost, since taxes and fees are extra. T-Mobile should tell their customers when switching to a newly-released promotional plan would save them a few bucks, but that'd be akin to AT&T lowering your monthly rate if you didn't use your upgrade eligibility. In both cases, the carriers are just hoping a customer's ignorance will continue to fill the coffers.

Again, if you need truly unlimited, Cricket isn't an option. That's still no reason for people who use more modest amounts of data to pay extra for a higher data tier or unlimited plan that they don't actually need. Heck, a big part of the popularity of Ting (a Sprint MVNO run by Tucows) is that it can be extremely inexpensive for very light users.

I think you're getting the current Cricket, a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T, confused with the old Cricket (a regional CDMA carrier). They allow you to use any AT&T locked or unlocked GSM phone. The coverage is the same as AT&T's native (non-roaming) network. I use a iPhone 5S originally from Verizon, on Cricket; I certainly didn't have to buy one of their phones.

T-Mobile and Sprint are the only games in town if you really need truly unlimited data. Once that becomes part of your selection criteria, you know what your options are.

Cricket throttles at 128Kbps, the same throttle speed as T-Mobile and Sprint. It's just as unusable on all carriers. You are correct, however, that Cricket does not offer any form of wireless hotspot/tethering add-on. They also don't do anything to stop you from tethering if your phone natively supports it, or if you've enabled it by way of rooting/jailbreaking.

More-or-less, MetroPCS (which is now a wholly owned subsidiary of T-Mobile) offers exactly what you're getting now on the same network, for $120/mo. That's two lines at the base price of $60/mo each, a $5 family plan discount on each line for having two lines, then a $5 fee on each line for adding mobile hotspot functionality to both lines.

What you'd lose is the ability to roam in the few places T-Mobile still has roaming agreements (looking at their map, I can't imagine where) and the ability to finance your next handsets. Is that worth $30/mo?

The crux of the issue is, T-Mobile used to offer both options. You could choose a traditional 2 year contract and subsidized handset, which was priced competitively against offerings from the other "big 3" carriers. It actually worked out to your advantage if you wanted a shiny new flagship handset every two years.

They also offered a less expensive month-to-month option, with no handset subsidies. This existed before T-Mobile started calling themselves an "un-carrier" and removed the contract plans.

As I pointed out in my original post (now modded into oblivion, likely by T-Mobile shills), if you already own your phone outright, there are cheaper places to bring it to. As an example, I pay $35/mo with absolutely no bullshit fees or taxes, for unlimited talk, unlimited text and 2.5GB of high-speed data (with the typical unusably slow throttled "unlimited data", thereafter). On T-Mobile, their nearest comparable plan (3GB) would cost $60/mo and they'd tack on all the fees and taxes, too.

Let's ignore the taxes and assume a flat $25/mo price difference. With the money I'm saving by being on Cricket instead of T-Mobile, in 2 years, I've saved a total of $600. Using the iPhone as an example ($650 full retail price), the typical contract subsidy is $450. There's more than enough profit in T-Mobile's pricing to give you a handset upgrade every two years and still keep $150 more profit than Cricket. T-Mobile just uses clever marketing to trick you into thinking you're already getting the best deal possible!

You're an un-customer to the un-carrier.

Then you fell for it, hook, line and sinker. Here's T-Mobile's old terms:

Unless you were signing a contract for a dumbphone or an entry-level low-end smartphone, you generally came out financially ahead over paying full retail price for a flagship handset, even if you left the carrier immediately after signing up.

What if you actually wanted a cheap phone? Well, here's the kicker - T-Mobile always allowed you to establish month-to-month service if you brought your own phone (or purchased one outright). All they've done as the "un-carrier", is put a positive marketing spin on eliminating discounted handsets. In other words, providing less consumer choice.

Congratulations, you fell for T-Mobile's newspeak. Their "un-carrier" initiative basically meant taking everything people hate about wireless service, making it slightly worse and giving it a new name. They don't do contracts with those evil pro-rated early termination fees, no sir-ree! Now it's a finance agreement, which is totally not the same thing as a contract! Of course, they did get a slap on the wrist for being a bit misleading in that regard. However, they're still getting away with advertising "unlimited data" on all of their plans, when it's abundantly clear that the throttled data speed is completely unusable, once you've used up your high speed allotment.

Here's a few suggestions:

Check your data usage settings on your iPhone. Don't allow app updates over cellular data. Apps can also individually have their background data turned off. If you use Facebook, set it to not auto-load videos over cellular data.

Complain to the FTC. They recently went after Straight Talk for offering "unlimited" plans that aren't, and T-Mobile's throttle speed is so slow, it's essentially no different than being cut off completely.

Consider switching to Cricket (now owned by AT&T). You can get a 5GB plan for what you're paying T-Mobile and it runs on AT&T's far superior network.

Lastly, do the math and see if it's just worth the extra few bucks a month to upgrade to the real unlimited plan. If your time is valuable, it might simply make more sense to cough up the dough, rather than hunting open WiFi hotspots and carefully monitoring your cellular data usage every month.

It sounds like you're describing what it's like to browse the Internet on the older iDevices which have 512MB of RAM. If you're dead-set on sticking to iOS, it's time to open your wallet up and make a generous donation to Apple. Or, as suggested by the rest of the peanut gallery, switch to Android.

At the time, Sprint actually offered unlimited EVDO data (they called it "Power Vision", back then) as a $10/mo add-on. They even had a 500 minute plan as part of their "SERO" offering for $30/mo which even included unlimited data. I had Sprint back then, and while EVDO speeds are a sad joke today, they absolutely smoked the EDGE speeds the iPhone got on AT&T's GSM network. Also, no one was using it back then to post pictures of their lunch and watch Justin Bieber videos, so the data speeds were relatively consistent. Sprint's phones, on the other hand, were fucking awful.

What Apple bought to the market was a smartphone that people actually enjoyed using. But, by popularizing smartphones among the masses, they've opened a Pandora's box of data usage that has truly made $10 unlimited, unthrottled data, a relic of the past.

If you don't mind all the caveats of having phone service that only works when you're in range of a WiFi hotspot, Freedompop offers exactly the same thing, nationwide, for $5/mo.

And as others have said, if you don't mind hotspot hunting when you want data, you can easily find unlimited talk & text plans on real cellular networks for under $30/mo. Heck, pony up the extra $5/mo for the $35/mo plan and Cricket (which is now a national carrier owned by AT&T) will throw in 1GB of data.

Leave it to cable companies to be even more clueless than Ma Bell...