Ok here is the deal. I have a few buddies with this phone thats one of the reasons that made my decision much easier in choosing between this phone and the 3g iphone. But here is my problem. I am on a family plan and i choose the data connect with tethering because i envisioned using this thing as a modem like i did with my old kyocera smartphones. and added on like 200 txt messages for 15 dollars....However i like the functionality so much that i leave my laptop and microlaptop home alot more than i use to which leads me to my first question...

I can get weather updates i even have my gmail setup to to look for mail every 15mins but i cant access web via IE. My only connection is att isp gprs. but when i try to create a media net connection it tells me that the name exists already?? but i cant find the connection..(i do have Kaiser tweak installed)

2nd question...
I have a few alerts come to my phone and they do this in the form of txt messages...and i understand that media net is a diffrent service other than the plan i have??? i really dont know because i spent 2 hours in the ATT store and was more confused about the packages than i was b4 i went in and i had done some homework on the plans but they seemed to have a whole diffrent set of packages @ the store...So in a nutshell i would like to know what plan works for you guys because i will most likely be changing my plan but i dont want to pay over 100 a month i am paying 80 now i believe.

One other note since i will be taking over as president of a softball league so i imagine that my txts and alerts as well as phone usage will increase dramitically.... any advice or suggestions on how to maximize the most bang out of my bucks?

If all you see is AT&T GPRS, then there's a configuration issue. If you have the "Connection Setup" setting in Settings-Connections. If not, swing by your local AT&T store. MediaNet should already be there.

If you're expecting text messages to go up dramatically, you might just look at the unlimited plan. It's not that expensive. The MediaNet unlimited runs me $50/mo and includes unlimited data and SMS/MMS messages.

I'd also dump the tethering. Unless you're doing it a whole lot, finding Internet Connection Sharing and just using it without the plan gets you the same function without the additional cost. AT&T isn't monitoring content, just volume, so unless you're using the net abusively, you can do it occasionally without any issues.