Post by thread:[OT]: Cheap Cell Phone Service

Hi all, Several times, I have seen people mention card-operated cell phone service where you do not pay any monthly charges, you just pay when you buy the phone and you pay for cards that allow a certain number of minutes of use. I'd like to know what companies in the U.S. offer such service and how widespread is it (i.e., does it use the same cell sites as the pay-per-month type service and therefore cover the same area or is it only in certain areas?) Thanks, Sean ---------------------------------------------------- Sign Up for NetZero Platinum Today Only $9.95 per month! http://my.netzero.net/s/signup?r=platinum&refcd=PT97 -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email spam_OUTlistservTakeThisOuTmitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body

I think it's probably much the same as it is here in canada: You pay by the minute at a rate 3x higher than monthly users, pay by the minute to leave and retrieve voice mail, and, depending on the service provider, you may be restricted to digital-only areas. Roaming is usually not provided (though this varies by carrier - Telus Mobility up here offers Analog / Digital coverage with roaming in Canada on the Rogers analog network, but no roaming in the US. Not that we go there much with the sorry shape our dollar's in right now...) Airtime cards here generally last 30 to 90 days, depending on the dollar value. If you refill your account before the balance expires, then your entire account balance (what you had left + card value) is given an expiry date consistent with the expiry of the card. Some providers give you a discounted per-minute rate if you buy a larger card - to the tune of about 4 cents off the 33 cents/minute rate of the cheapest card, if you buy the largest (again, this depends on the service). Overall, if you're not going to be using the phone too much, I'd say it's a good deal. Even if you wind up going through a $50 card every 3 months, you're saving a bit of money - and if you use it even less, you save even more. If you find that the prepaid plan isn't working for you, I think you can get the phone switched to a monthly plan, but ask first. If you think that might be a somewhat likely path, make sure whatever provider you go through for the prepaid service has a monbthly plan that sounds good. Otherwise, you'll be buying a new handset, even if you switch to another provider that uses the same technology (because of SP-locking). The only US provider that I can find that offers a prepaid service is Verizon, but then, I don't live there. You might want to check out the Sept 27, 2001 issue of the New York Times - there was a bit in there about it IIRC, in David Pogue's State of the Art column. Good luck, -Randy Glenn Measure twice, cut once, curse, discard. Repeat.================================================= .....PICxpertKILLspam@spam@cogeco.ca - PICxpertKILLspamyahoo.com http://picxpert.dyndns.org Not that the site works yet, of course... ================================================= {Original Message removed}

You are probably thinking like me - a device, say an alarm or a monitoring device, that does not need to communicate very often at all. If it is an alarm, hopefully it will not go off and so not communicate at all. If the alarm is mounted on a portable device (say your car or your robot) and that device is stolen, then you can home in on it, or home in on a GPS signal. What are the alternatives to cell phone here? Maybe you broadcast output from a voice chip over channel 9 of the CB band: "Attention. This is an automated distress call from a stolen Cragameezer [ or robot or whatever]. If you can recieve this message call the police. " But how to transmit GPS codes? this gets suddenly very complicated. --Lawrence -- http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList EraseMEpiclist-unsubscribe-requestspam_OUTTakeThisOuTmitvma.mit.edu