T-Mobile already offers that option with the "Value" plans you can configure from their website. I have stared at the 2-person family plan that gets 1000 shared minutes and 2GB of shared 4G data for $69.98 a month many, many times. We are currently paying about $100/month ($110 after taxes and fees) for a fairly similar plan on AT&T with less convenient data rules (wife has to stay under 200 MB or we get pinged for more money) AND with an employee discount we don't really qualify for. $720 savings over 2 years is enough to cancel out two subsidies for basically all mid-range smartphones, and it's not like we upgrade exactly every 2 years anyway.

For an individual, the savings are even more ridiculous. 500 minutes talk with 2GB of data on T-Mobile Value is $44.99 a month. The best similar deal on AT&T is $70/month - savings of $25/month = $600 over two years. iPhone 5 unlocked is $649 vs. $199 locked, so that $600 more than covers the difference. And that's the most expensive phone on the market. If you want unlimited texting, AT&T adds $20/month. T-Mobile only adds $5. Bumping AT&T to 5GB of data will cost an additional $20, while T-mobile will put you up to UNLIMITED for just $10 more. Like things unlimited in general? T-mobile gives unlimited talk/text/data for $70/month. On AT&T, that's $140/month and you still only get 5GB of data.

If you like T-Mobile's service and are willing to shell out full price for the phone every few years, the T-Mobile value plans are way better than the AT&T plans in general. (Of course, if you're an individual, you do even better with something like StraightTalk.)

I am pissed that my Galaxy Nexus doesn't have native calling over IP. That was the shit, because T Mobile doesn't charge for those minutes, and that takes care of home and work, and the shitty reception at the office was a non-issue. Now I'd have to do a GrooveIP thing, and I just don't want to get into the confusion...though maybe if I had Tasker kill the cell reception if it's connected to the work network and fire up GrooveIP...okay, maybe I'll give that a shot.

But, in general, phones should let you do that, and I shouldn't pay more money for a fancier phone that's missing an actual trufax handy moneysaving feature. ::no fair:: I honestly didn't think to check, because I figured I was trading up, yeah? And then I realised I didn't know anyone else whose phone did that, so I should suck it up if I'm not going to root it (I'd hope it'd be an option then...)

Anyway...I've made peace with the replacment NAS. I still can't get, for instance, the Oracle share to appear in the SHARED section of Finder, but I can navigate there from Volumes, so it's annoying, but a workaround. When I get some time I'll get back on the horn with support to get that and the weird Media Server behaviour ironed out, and it better not involve a new device.

I'm almost done migrating the files over, with some bonus reorganisation (but not too much--can't loose my messy cred), and what's the best way to wipe a NAS before giving it back? I'd rather make a due diligence cleanup attempt before I send it back--I don't care if they find my "reference" pictures, but it is where I was backing up my Mac and PC.

WTF are gaming chairs and how can I get one for my brother and kidlets?

Gaming chairs are low sitting chairs that are glorified pillows on the floor with a back rest. You can get them at Target: [link]

You can get them at Best Buy, and Amazon too.

2-person family plan that gets 1000 shared minutes and 2GB of shared 4G data for $69.98 a month

That is pretty tempting. We pay twice that on AT&T (for 4GB data and unlimited talk & text, but still).

Yep. And the $70/month savings would pay for two iPhones in about 13 months, so you get the other 11 months savings as pure profit.

Unfortunately, though iPhones work on T-Mobile just fine at 3G speeds, there's no LTE. I'm pretty sure they can use the T-Mobile HSPA+ frequencies, but even that might not be true. So you are losing something.

We don't have 4G now - we both have iPhone 4 (not 4s). (And I've already decided that I'm bored with iOS and my next phone will be Android.)

Gris,

I cannot give up my LTE though. They need to pry that from my cold, dead hands.

(shrug) Fair enough. If you're using AT&T, though, there's plenty of evidence that T-Mobile's HSPA+ 4g speeds are comparable to AT&T's LTE 4g speeds

Verizon's LTE is consistently faster in much of the country, but T-Mobile's HSPA+ network beat even it in some areas.. How you get the best speed seems to have more to do with your location and phone than your carrier.

yes, I am now on Verizon. It was worth it to us (painful for the termination fee) to move to Verizon.