Speakout Wireless from 7/11 is single handedly the best value phone plan in Canada for light users and now they also support data plans!

I’m currently paying $13.25/month

• Unlimited Data: $10/month
• 911 fees: $1.25/month
• Caller ID: free!
• Voicemail: free!
• Incoming texts: free!
• Outgoing texts: 10cents/txt
• Local calling: 25cents/min
• Long distance: 45cents/min

The setup is a little trickier then the major carriers so here’s a quick step by step guide for anyone wanting to switch to Speakout.

Requirements

A rooted Android phone running at least Android 2.2.

The Android image needs to have been compiled with iptables support (most custom roms).

Speakout Configuration

1. Speakout Wireless SIM cards can be bought from any 7/11 for $10, pick one up as well as a prepaid card ($25 is the lowest amount you can buy).

2. Pop in the SIM card, start your phone and dial *#06#. As soon as you type the last # a screen will pop up listing your IMEI number for your phone. Write it down.

3. Head over to the SIM card activation page and enter the required information: the activation code on your SIM card packaging and the IMEI number of your phone.

4. Your phone should be automatically assigned its new phone number and be ready to go, although you may need to wait a few minutes and then restart your phone for your phone to pick up on the change.

5. Create a new Speakout account and then add your new phone number to your account.

6. Now you can go back to the account page and at the bottom of the page you’ll see a list of available addons. Select the $10 – Unlimited Browsing addon to activate your a data plan.

Phone Configuration

1. On your Android phone head over Settings > Wireless and Networks > Mobile Networks > Access Point Names.

2. Delete any existing APN’s.

3. Add a new APN with the following settings:

• Name: Speakout
• APN: goam.com
• Proxy: 10.128.1.69
• Port: 80
• Username: wapuser1
• Password: wap
• Server:
• MMSC: http://mms.gprs.rogers.com
• MMS Proxy: 10.128.1.169
• MMS Port: 80
• MCC: 302
• MNC: 720
• Authentication Type:
• APN type: default,supl,mms
• APN Protocol: IPv4

4. Now you should see your phone get a data connection and be able to browse the web on your 3G connection. Apps aren’t working yet unfortunately, we’re getting to it.

5. Download the latest copy of AutoProxy and install it on your phone.

Scanning this barcode using your phone should automatically download and install the latest version at the time of writing (V0.25).

6. Turn off wireless if you have it on (AutoProxy configures whatever connection is currently active). Then start AutoProxy and add a new proxy with the following settings:

• Proxy Host: 10.128.1.69
• Proxy Port: 80
• Proxy Type: http

7. Save the configuration and then long press on your new configuration > Connect to this Proxy.

8. You’re all set. $10 unlimited browsing on your Android phone!

Questions

What was all that proxy stuff?

Speakout uses a proxy to access the internet which only allows connections through port 80 (the default HTTP port). This allows the web browser to work but any secure HTTPS pages or apps aren’t able to get a connection since they go through different ports.

AutoProxy modifies files in the underlying Linux system Android runs on to trick all your apps into sending data over port 80 instead of the port they’re configured to use allowing all your apps to work even with the proxy restrictions.

Really? Unlimited?

No probably not, but unlimited within what would fall under fair usage. Don’t do things like tethering and downloading 50GB’s of movies and you should be ok. I’ll update later if they ever contact me about my data usage.

Any issues?

Well other then needing to configure a proxy to get full usage of your apps Rogers also blocks Speakout from using the port that Google does its push notifications through.

Basically while on 3G you won’t get instant notification when you get an email and instead will get them when the phone does its usual syncing phase or when you manually sync. This could also affect Google Talk (unsure, I don’t use it) but other chat and email apps will still work correctly.