cell phones

[Rick F]

Food for thought...

There are a number of folks in South Florida who decided NOT to have a land-line phone--but instead have just a cell phone. After hurricanes Frances (and Jeanne), they had no way to communicate after about 24 or 48 hours. When the power goes out, cell phone service relies on batteries at the cell towers. When there's no electricity to recharge the batteries, the batteries go dead and no more service. All cell phone service was out after 2 days of no commercial power in Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie counties. If you had a land-line phone AND one of your phones happend to be a phone which does not need to be plugged in, you had phone service. No outside electric power is needed for those phones. The 24 volts needed to operate those is supplied by the phone co.

[Stefan]

No, people don't need cell phones. But then again, there are a lot of things people have that we don't need.

Anyway, I use cingular. But I am probably going to switch to Verizon because I hear they are better for rural areas. Someting about the network they use.

Stefan

[Rick F]

My cell phone is my ONLY phone. As a poor law student, a $39.99 plan is much cheaper. <snip> Somehow telemarketers haven't gotten my phone number either.

You should register your cell phone number with the Nat'l Do Not Call List. They now accept cell phone numbers to be added to the list. Who wants to pay for telemarketing calls?!

National Do Not Call Registry
https://www.donotcall.gov/FAQ/FAQDefault.aspx

You can register up to 3 phone numbers.

[Rick F]

I answered "Verizon" in the poll. The service has been good, but I only use about 30 to 40 minutes per month. I'm 'grand-fathered' in a plan that's no longer offered... $20 for 150 minutes a month. It's a convenience for quick contacts or in the event of an emergency. It's a good phone - Motorola's StarTac (no longer available). When the phone dies, I think I'm going to go with "Virgin Mobile". It's one of those 'pay as you go' services. My wife has one of these for emergencies. You have to add $20 every 90 days to keep it active. That's about $7 a month. All calls - local and long distance - are 25 cents per minute for first 10 minutes, then 10 cents / minute after that. Sounds expensive, but when you don't need to use it often, it makes sense to me. Virgin uses the Sprint-PCS towers so it has good coverage.

[ThomasDodd]

Another poll I cannot answer

TracFone for me. good pricing and decent service.
Since I seldom use 300 minutes a year, it's tended to cost me $100 a year. never any more, and payed once a year. No one else comes close to my needs for that price.

[ThomasDodd]

IIt's one of those 'pay as you go' services. My wife has one of these for emergencies. You have to add $20 every 90 days to keep it active. That's about $7 a month. All calls - local and long distance - are 25 cents per minute for first 10 minutes, then 10 cents / minute after that. Sounds expensive, but when you don't need to use it often, it makes sense to me. Virgin uses the Sprint-PCS towers so it has good coverage.

Do they not offer a years service plan? The rates sound rather high too.

The TracFone rate are higher on the 1 year cards, but I coul get 800 minutes for $80 if I would ever use that much time. Only 2 billing options normal and roma. Roaming uses double minutes (charged 2 minutes for a 1 minute call). I've never had roaming trouble anywhere I went though, since they don't have their own network, but piggy back others instead. They have no preference for network either, so I get the stronged suignal where ever I am.