-= Hawk =- wrote:

> If you don't use a lot of air time there's no beating T-Mobile. We'll be
> going into our third year of pre-paid service for another $10 in Feb.
> Not counting the cost of the phone $120 for three years cell phone
> service is amazing. Judging by the minutes we've used over these last
> two years and as long as t-mobile doesn't change it's way of doing
> things I expect to get five years of service before having to spend
> another $100 on another block of 1000 minutes.

I don't think they'll change their policy for existing customers that
did the "Gold" thing of $100 for 1000 minutes and future airtime
expiration of one year for all future purchases. That was essentially a
contract when they said that future airtime purchases last a year. What
they _could_ do is to stop selling $10 airtime cards, or no longer offer
the 1 year expiration to new customers.

The problem I have with T-Mobile is that their coverage in my area is
poor. I have no coverage at my house in Silicon Valley, and I'm not out
in the boonies. NIMBYs have stopped T-Mobile and Sprint from putting up
more towers, and at 1900 MHz they need a lot more towers than AT&T or
Verizon to cover the same area. T-Mobile was recently granted permission
to put up a tower near me, on an office building, with the only caveat
being that they needed to shield the equipment from the view of
neighboring residences with some sort of a low wall. They dropped their
plans because of that restriction, which would have added only a few
thousand dollars to the cost.