Subject: Re: [Shop-talk] prepaid phones

From: steve hochschild <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2012 16:38:03 -0600

I have been a loyal and very satisfied Virgin Mobile customer for nearly 
10 years.  Phones start at $10, uses Sprint's network.  They have no 
contracts, and two plans.  Check them out at http://virginmobile.com/

On 12/12/2012 4:29 PM, Tim wrote:
> Anyone here have any experience with prepaid / "burner" phones?
> thanks
> tim
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From: Doug Braun <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:45:53 -0500

I got a couple of Tracfone burners for my mother in law and a friend of
hers when they visited from overseas. They cost only seven dollars each!
They worked fine, and the minutes were not expensive.
If I was traveling and I lost my "real" phone, I would pop into the nearest
CVS, Walgreens, etc., plop down $7.99 for one, and be back in communication
in a few minutes.

Doug
On Dec 12, 2012 5:29 PM, "Tim" <[email-masked]> wrote:

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From: Doug Braun <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:51:11 -0500

BTW, the only prepaid carrier that uses Verizon's network is Page Plus.
If you have an old Verizon phone lying around, you can use it with them.

Doug

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From: Scott <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:52:49 -0500

Do the prepaid phones need to have E911 capability? I've got every old 
cell phone I've ever had in a drawer somewhere--it'd be cool to rock the 
Kyocera 6135 still.

[email-masked]

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From: Wayne <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2012 18:17:13 -0500

> Anyone here have any experience with prepaid / "burner" phones?

Off topic, but I'm curious too! (pls copy me or list, unless anyone is 
really opposed to the addl traffic.)

I have a Virgin Mobile "Pay Lo" phone. They offer everything from a $15 
or $20 flip phone, which I have, up to smart phones. Payment plans are 
on different scales: you can get cheap minutes (0.05 - 0.10) but there 
is a minimum you have to spend every month, or minutes may not carry 
over. On the other end of the scale (what I'm doing) you pay a big ol' 
0.20/min, but you only have to put a lousy $20 every 3 months on the 
thing, then the accumulated minutes roll over forever. Their web site is 
easy to use and has all the details, and their support people have been 
decent to deal with.

I only keep it around for emergency use, so a dirt cheap phone and $80 a 
year in service works for me. It blows me away how many folks are 
spending $1,000-ish annually for fancy phones.

Virgin Mobile is on Sprint's network, and the coverage is not the 
greatest. Got it through Best Buy, who also demanded an ID and some 
personal info -- possibly a turn off if you're looking for anonymity, 
but there are work arounds there I suppose.

More people around here (western North Carolina) have Verizon -- great 
coverage, even in the mountains and some of the fastest  4G in the 
country (40+ Mbs). Their pre-paid plans are pretty dang expensive also, 
AND they have something like a "$1 per day, each day you make or receive 
a call."

One of the BIG KICK ASS deals (IMO) that I've been trying to turn 
friends onto is Verizon's "Home Phone Connect". As an alternative to a 
land-line, they offer cell service in a box you can use with your 
traditional home phones. You get a black box looks a lot like a wi-fi 
router, has a cell radio in it, 2 RJ11 jacks on the back for phones, and 
electronics to drive them. And a rechargeable battery to keep it alive 
in power outages. I have a 3 handset cordless Panasonic set plugged in. 
Then the other line plugs into the wall jack and back-feeds ring tone to 
the other jacks in the house for a few hard-wired phones. Just 
disconnect from papa-bell and splice all your house wiring together. I 
am told the sound quality is better than the AT&T land-line I used to 
have. Apparently the shitty sound quality on cells is due to the phone 
and not the network (I HATE cell phone sound quality.) Caveat! -- there 
is some major digital compression going on, optimized for human voice. 
Music on hold sounds garbled, and you can not run a modem or fax over 
it, and some home alarm services may not work.

Kicker -- it's only $20 a month, plus tax and fees (mine totals like 
$23.86) for unlimited local and long distance calling. Or if you have 
Verizon mobiles, you can share minutes with them (including unlimited 
time plans) and get it for only $10 a month!!!!!

-Wayne   ( !#@!$  AT&T !!!!!!!)
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From: Dave C <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2012 19:09:32 -0800

My wife and I have had Tracfones for several years.  It costs us about 
$100 a year to add minutes and I have a ton of minutes. Neither of us 
are big cell phone users, and we don't have cell service out where we 
live unless I wander around out in the driveway to see if I can get one 
or two bars to come up, sometimes.  My wife never even programmed the VM 
into her phone.  We both have the cheapest (free) phones they have.   
Needless to say we don't text at all.

I have black Western Electric Model 500 rotary phones in the office and 
out in the shoppe, although I did buy a little plug in keypad so I can 
play phone tree hell when necessary.

On 12/12/2012 2:29 PM, Tim wrote:
> Unsubscribe/Manage: http://autox.team.net/mailman/options/shop-talk/[email-masked]

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