In article <5v6ojaF1jnrc1U2@mid.individual.net>, "Thomas T. Veldhouse" <veldy71@yahoo.com> wrote:
>The biggest drawback of prepaid is the lack of roaming.
Am I missing something? My T-Mobile prepaid ("To Go") account roams just
fine, if (as a novice cellular phone user) my understanding is correct that
this term means using the phone outside of one's immediate area.
I've used my account on the other side of the country with no additional
charges and no indication that this differed from using the phone in my own
community.
On 2008-01-16, Arthur Shapiro <art.shapiro@unisys.com> wrote:
> In article <5v6ojaF1jnrc1U2@mid.individual.net>, "Thomas T. Veldhouse" <veldy71@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>The biggest drawback of prepaid is the lack of roaming.
>
> Am I missing something? My T-Mobile prepaid ("To Go") account
> roams just fine, if (as a novice cellular phone user) my
> understanding is correct that this term means using the phone
> outside of one's immediate area.
No, that's not what roaming means. It means that the phone
will use networks that aren't owned/operated by the carrier
from whom service was purchased (e.g. T-Mobile).
> I've used my account on the other side of the country with no
> additional charges and no indication that this differed from
> using the phone in my own community.
Perhaps T-Mobile has towers "on the other sideof the country".
T-Mobile has native coverage in most medium-large cities and
along most freeway corridors. Being able to use a phone in
another city doesn't mean it's roaming.
--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! I own seven-eighths of
at all the artists in downtown
visi.com Burbank!
At 16 Jan 2008 16:10:18 +0000 Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
> Neither phone would roam off of their own towers though (I was
> doing some work for a company that got absolutely zero coverage for
Cingular
> on the bottom flow [went to "no signal"], but there was a T-Mobile
antenna on
> top of the building and it wouldn't use it with the cingular SIM in it.
Neither service would've roamed on a contract plan either. AT&T and T-Mo
(and Verizon, et al) use roaming for markets where they have no native
presence- not to fill in service holes in covered markets.
> The biggest drawback of prepaid is the lack of roaming.
Both AT&T and T-Mo use roaming on their prepaid plans, T-Mo uses it far
more extensively, however- AT&T only roams on affilates like Edge Wireless,
where T-Mo prepaid roams on most of the same regional carriers their
contract customers do.
It's unfair to single out the prepaid services for lack of in-market roaming,
however, as that type of roaming certainly isn't common amongst wireless
services.
> The biggest advantage
> is there is no monthly expiration of the time purchased [not the same as
> rollover where you still have to pay each month].
At 16 Jan 2008 16:58:26 +0000 Arthur Shapiro wrote:
> Am I missing something? My T-Mobile prepaid ("To Go") account roams just
> fine, if (as a novice cellular phone user) my understanding is correct
that
> this term means using the phone outside of one's immediate area.
That used to be the common definition, since in the early days of cellular,
carriers were generally regional (i.e. "Nebraska Cellular".) In these days
of "nationwide" carriers like T-Mobile, roaming generally refers to using
your phone on a different company's network.
> I've used my account on the other side of the country with no additional
> charges and no indication that this differed from using the phone in my
own
> community.
Probably because you were still on T-Mo's network in that city.
However, T-Mo's prepaid service does roam on a variety of small regional
carriers- with my contract and prepaid T-Mo accounts I've roamed on Viero
in Eastern Colorado and Nebraska, Western Wireless (Alltel) in Kansas, Iowa
Wireless in (you guessed it!) Iowa, and Movistar in Cancun, Mexico.
In article <fmlp6g$g0k$2@aioe.org>, Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote:
>Probably because you were still on T-Mo's network in that city.
Thanks for the clarification - yes, I was on their network. That all makes
sense.
Hey, at the risk of usurping a topic, let me ask another question as a
relatively new user:
I use the phone quite rarely - a few minutes a month - so the prepaid plan is
wonderful; beyond the initial hundred bucks, I apparently only have to throw
in $10 / year to keep it going.
But there are times where I'd love to get on the Internet, if only for a
minute or two, to check a web site for some info.
Is there any way of doing this with a prepaid plan?
At 16 Jan 2008 23:59:56 +0000 Arthur Shapiro wrote:
> Hey, at the risk of usurping a topic...
Too late- this thread was pulled from it's original topic looooong ago! ;-)
> ...let me ask another question as a
> relatively new user:
>
> I use the phone quite rarely - a few minutes a month - so the
> prepaid plan is
> wonderful; beyond the initial hundred
> bucks, I apparently only have to throw in $10 / year to keep it going.
Absolutely. Cheapest "casual use" prepaid plan available!
> But there are times where I'd love to get on the Internet, if only
> for a minute or two, to check a web site for some info.
That's too bad... :-(
> Is there any way of doing this with a prepaid plan?
Not with T-Mo. They offer a Very limited "walled garden" internet they
call T-Zones. Mostly it's there to sell you ringtones, but it allows
access to ABC News, CNN Mobile, and ESPN.
AT&T offers internet with their GoPhone prepaid plans, at $0.01/kb, but
they have a higher per minute rate.
Right now, most likely due to an unplugged loophole of some sort, PagePlus
(a prepaid Verizon reseller) has unlimited slow-speed (14.4kbps) internet
on older Verizon phones that allow "QNC" or "Quick2Net" connections. No
telling when/if it'll stop working, but I picked up an old Verizon Samsung
i600 Windows Mobile Smartphone for $25 shipped from eBay just to try it
out. It's worked for e-mail and web browsing since I bought it before
Thanksgiving, and hasn't used a minute of airtime.
PagePlus isn't a bad prepaid plan either- you can activate any old eBay
Verizon or Alltel phone, it has better coverage than T-Mo, runs $0.08-
0.14/minute (depending on the denomination of card you buy) and requires
$10 added every 120 days to keep it active. Not quite T-Mo's $10/year, but
not bad.
Arthur Shapiro wrote:
> In article <5v6ojaF1jnrc1U2@mid.individual.net>, "Thomas T. Veldhouse" <veldy71@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> The biggest drawback of prepaid is the lack of roaming.
>
> Am I missing something? My T-Mobile prepaid ("To Go") account roams just
> fine,
In all regions, all carriers have holes in their coverage. If you're
someplace where a carrier thinks you're covered, you can't roam. Even if
you're *not* covered. (Sprint will let you do this.)
Look at the T-Mobile coverage map for, say, northern Wisconsin. You'll
see both 1900 MHz and 850 mHz roaming. The web pages say prepaid only
roams on 1900 ... and not 0n 850 ... but it *does* !
Regards
> Look at the T-Mobile coverage map for, say, northern Wisconsin.
> You'll see both 1900 MHz and 850 mHz roaming. The web pages say
> prepaid only roams on 1900 ... and not 0n 850 ... but it *does* !
Yeah, they've never fixed the webpage verbiage to reflect the changes they
made in regards to prepaid roaming 2 years ago.
Contracts. Why?
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