OT: pre-pay celly-phony

[thenoid]

Provided Link: theNoid's DIY Raffle (http://www.palmbayaudio.com/raffle.html)


So we are going to be getting the daughter unit a prepay celly for Xmas and I don't know JACK about them so what's yer opinions folks?

Noidster

________
WEB SHOWS (http://livesexwebshows.com/)

[paul_n_oneal]

> So we are going to be getting the daughter
> unit a prepay celly for Xmas and I don't
> know JACK about them so what's yer opinions
> folks?

> Noidster
I'm in your boat. I don't use them and I don't like them although I can see there usfullness as an emergency phone when in a car accident, etc. I got a really bad taste in my mouth with cell phones when I worked for Enron. Had to keep that damn thing strapped to me all the time and on call basically 24-7.

[shawn_a]

Avoid Tracfone. Total PITA dealing with code entry and all that crap. Verizon and Cingular both have good pre-paid plans as far as I can tell. I'm with Cingular and I have had no problems at all with them. It was a bit of an ordeal getting my account set up for reasons I'm not really clear on but their support crew was fabulous. I'm talking on par with our very dear PE gang. The one thing to consider is network. It looks like GSM is the way things are heading unless things have changed.... again. Good luck.

shawn

[cptomes]

> Avoid Tracfone. Total PITA dealing with code
> entry and all that crap. Verizon and
> Cingular both have good pre-paid plans as
> far as I can tell. I'm with Cingular and I
> have had no problems at all with them. It
> was a bit of an ordeal getting my account
> set up for reasons I'm not really clear on
> but their support crew was fabulous. I'm
> talking on par with our very dear PE gang.
> The one thing to consider is network. It
> looks like GSM is the way things are heading
> unless things have changed.... again. Good
> luck.

> shawn

Well, we've had tracfone for about three years now with minimal problems. If you let it get to zero minutes (units) and don't buy more soon enough your phone number goes away and you have to go through the initial-signup routine again.

The other vendors may offer more convenience and customer service, I don't know. We've stuck with tracfone. If you buy the big-number unit increments the phone stays good for a year, and the price per minute drops to near contract plan levels.

[irishbreed]

In our neck of the country you can't beat the coverage of cingular. The big V is great up north like michigan. But in the southeast area cingular has the monopoly cause the southern company bought them out.

[romanberry]

Provided Link: Net10 Wireless (http://net10wireless.com)


> So we are going to be getting the daughter
> unit a prepay celly for Xmas and I don't
> know JACK about them so what's yer opinions
> folks?

> Noidster

Try Net10 Wireless at <A HREF="http://net10wireless.com">http://net10wireless.com</A>. 10 cents a minute with no roaming, long distance, monthly or daily charges. I picked up one of their phones in Mississippi while doing disaster relief for Hurricance Katrina and it works like a charm. You can buy a refurbished Nokia 1100 straight from their web site for about 30 bucks or you can spend a hundred bucks for a Motorola flip phone with color screen.

Customer service is very helpful and walked me through every step of acivation. They also saved my bacon when I mucked around (I'm a cell phone newbie) and deleted access to my voice mail. (Voice mail is included.) Text messaging is 5 cents a pop and there are downloadable ring tones available. And no, I don't own stock.

Ten cents a minute with no other charges is the best deal I've found in prepaid cell service. You can buy airtime cards at Walmart, Target and Kmart (among others) or over the net at their web site. Anyway, I like it.

[unknownuser]

Provided Link: Wireless guide (http://www.wirelessguide.org/)


My wife and I have had Tracfones in the past, and we have phones from Virgin Mobile now. TracFone's network actually seemed to be slightly better than Virgin's, probably because Virgin uses Sprint, and TracFone uses Verizon (IIRC).

Virgin and Tracfone both offer a way to link the phone to a credit card, so you don't have to fool with buying airtime cards, and it will automatically renew when you're running low on time. Virgin requires you buy at least $20 every 90 days; Tracfone requires you buy service as well as airtime - the nice thing abour Tracfone is that it shows you how much time you have left, and when the next airtime card is due right on the display.

Virgin seems to cater to the kiddies more (MTV content, ringtones, etc - the phones have more "cool" features), while Tracfone seems to be more basic.

If you think your daughter will use more than about 100-200 minutes/month, you can probably do better with a regular plan.

The link below actually has some good info


(Originally posted by: Chuck Gaither)