basic cellular bill + added taxes ?

Larry wrote:
> People are stupid.

People have different needs.

> I justify it by not having an AT&T landline at home, which I
> consider obsolete. I'll never figure why someone with a
> SELLphone they're paying so much for has another drain on their
> funds with a useless landline with even MORE stupid addon
> charges, like "long distance", a throwback into the 1930's.

I have to have at least two phone lines. both with 5 Mbps DSL.

One has unlimited long distance to use a dial-up ISP in another city to
test my web servers from the outside. I can't use one DSL line to look
back into the other DSL line.

If line one is busy, it rolls over to line two. Cellphone is too awkward
to take a second call and flip between the two, compared to hitting the
hold button on the phone and answering second line.

I have a multi-line phone system at home with voice mail.

I can receive or place a call on my home phone and transfer the call to
my cellphone on the fly (and it frees up the land line).

At 04 Dec 2007 19:47:08 -0500 Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:

> > PagePlus is probably the best option
>
> except, you can't buy it.
>
> Go ahead. Try to buy any of what you claim. It doesn't exist. Even on
> Ebay.

Activations available on eBay:
http://search.ebay.com/page-plus-act...Zm37QQfromZR40
....or directly at http://www.uglyeric.com

Refill minutes available here:
http://www.babblebug.com/product_wir...cfm?type_id=23
or,
http://www.telecomservices.net/cgi-b...tam?tcon=21130

....among others...


PagePlus is certainly a weird outfit in that they don't really sell phones
(that I've been able to find- they simply activate phones you acquire
yourself.

I bought a used Verizon phone on eBay last month, e-mailed the info to
"Ugly Eric" along with a few bucks via PayPal, and my $25 eBay phone was
active within an hour.

At 05 Dec 2007 02:04:48 +0000 Paul Miner wrote:

> If I can find a less expensive service, I'll switch to it. My wife
> uses less than 10 minutes of wireless service per month, so Virgin
> costs me $15 every 3 months, plus taxes and fees. I haven't found
> anything cheaper.

For minimal use, T-Mobile is $100 the first year, $10 (yes, ten) each
additional year. Target stores run a "free phone" with $100 card (1000
minutes/one year) purchase as a promo occasionally

Page Plus is $10 every 120 days, or $2.50/month.


Check out Dave Markson's excellent prepaid comparison chart at:
http://www.cellguru.net/prepaid_compare.htm

"Todd Allcock" <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote in message
news:ZAr5j.325$vs5.161@fe119.usenetserver.com...
> At 04 Dec 2007 19:47:08 -0500 Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
>
>> > PagePlus is probably the best option
>>
>> except, you can't buy it.
>>
>> Go ahead. Try to buy any of what you claim. It doesn't exist. Even on
>> Ebay.
>
> Activations available on eBay:
> http://search.ebay.com/page-plus-act...Zm37QQfromZR40
> ...or directly at http://www.uglyeric.com
>
> Refill minutes available here:
> http://www.babblebug.com/product_wir...cfm?type_id=23
> or,
> http://www.telecomservices.net/cgi-b...tam?tcon=21130
>
> ...among others...
>
>
> PagePlus is certainly a weird outfit in that they don't really sell phones
> (that I've been able to find- they simply activate phones you acquire
> yourself.
>
> I bought a used Verizon phone on eBay last month, e-mailed the info to
> "Ugly Eric" along with a few bucks via PayPal, and my $25 eBay phone was
> active within an hour.
>
Page Plus sells phones.
http://www.pagepluscellular.com/onli...re/phones.aspx

On Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:00:19 -0700, Todd Allcock
<elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> scribbled:

>At 05 Dec 2007 02:04:48 +0000 Paul Miner wrote:
>
>> If I can find a less expensive service, I'll switch to it. My wife
>> uses less than 10 minutes of wireless service per month, so Virgin
>> costs me $15 every 3 months, plus taxes and fees. I haven't found
>> anything cheaper.
>
>For minimal use, T-Mobile is $100 the first year, $10 (yes, ten) each
>additional year. Target stores run a "free phone" with $100 card (1000
>minutes/one year) purchase as a promo occasionally
>
>Page Plus is $10 every 120 days, or $2.50/month.
>
>
>Check out Dave Markson's excellent prepaid comparison chart at:
>http://www.cellguru.net/prepaid_compare.htm

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.

In article <ZAr5j.325$vs5.161@fe119.usenetserver.com>,
Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote:

> > > PagePlus is probably the best option
> >
> > except, you can't buy it.
> >
> > Go ahead. Try to buy any of what you claim. It doesn't exist. Even on
> > Ebay.
>
> Activations available on eBay:
> http://search.ebay.com/page-plus-act...Zm37QQfromZR40
> ...or directly at http://www.uglyeric.com
>
> Refill minutes available here:
> http://www.babblebug.com/product_wir...cfm?type_id=23

Go to that page. Now, pull down the menu.

Where are the $80 cards? Only in someone's imagination, apparently.

PagePlus is a ****ed up company.

In article <_Ar5j.326$vs5.187@fe119.usenetserver.com>,
Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote:

> For minimal use, T-Mobile is $100 the first year, $10 (yes, ten) each
> additional year.

No, after the second year everything expires and nothing rolls over.
You're back to $100 every other year, if that's what you're doing.

On Wed, 05 Dec 2007 05:57:00 -0500, "Elmo P. Shagnasty"
<elmop@nastydesigns.com> scribbled:

>In article <_Ar5j.326$vs5.187@fe119.usenetserver.com>,
> Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote:
>
>> For minimal use, T-Mobile is $100 the first year, $10 (yes, ten) each
>> additional year.
>
>No, after the second year everything expires and nothing rolls over.
>You're back to $100 every other year, if that's what you're doing.

That's the first I've heard of that in the two years I've been reading
this group. Odd you're the only person in all that time to bring it up.

Paul Miner wrote:
> On Tue, 04 Dec 2007 10:20:28 -0800, SMS ???• ?
> <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
>
>> P.Schuman wrote:
>>> wonder which prepaid you are using ?
>>> We have our son on Virgin Mobile right now....
>>> but he's starting to eat up the minutes :)
>>> It seemed the best at 90 day interval for adding funds.
>> Virgin is one of the worst prepaid plans in terms of cost.
> <snip>
>
> If I can find a less expensive service, I'll switch to it. My wife
> uses less than 10 minutes of wireless service per month, so Virgin
> costs me $15 every 3 months, plus taxes and fees. I haven't found
> anything cheaper.

7-11 Speak-Out has a minimum cost of $25/year. It's 15¢/minute plus
$1.25 per month. You only have to add time once a year. Ten minutes per
month would be $1.25 + $1.50 = $2.75 per month. AT&T network.

PagePlus is 50¢/month and the cheapest card is $10 for 83 minutes, or
12¢/minute. Ten minutes per month would be 50¢+$1.20=$1.70, but since
you must buy airtime every four months, $10/4=$2.50/month.

With T-Mobile, if you buy $100 to start (1000 minutes), your airtime
lasts a year, and then future airtime purchases, even the least
expensive amounts will last a year. So while the first year is
$8.33/month, future years will be $10/12 months (33 minutes for $10), or
83¢/month, as you deplete the initial 1000 minutes, which would take you
about six years if you add 33 minutes a year for $10. There is no
monthly fee. If T-Mobile has coverage where you expect to need it, it's
the cheapest by far, after the first year. Alas, in many areas,
including where I live, their coverage is not good. In the latest
Consumer Reports, T-Mobile got a black circle for coverage in my area
(though they still were the second rated carrier).

In terms of coverage, look at the January Consumer Reports Magazine that
just came out. In _every_ market, a CDMA carrier was #1 (Verizon in 17
out of 20, and Alltel in 3 out of 20). PagePlus uses Verizon (and can
roam on Alltel, though at extra cost, plus there is AMPS roaming when
needed, also at extra cost). With Virgin, you're on the carrier that was
rated worst in 19 out of 20 cities, and second to worst in one city, and
you aren't able to roam onto other CDMA carriers, or onto AMPS. AMPS is
_not_ going away in rural areas in 2008, only in metro areas that have
overlapping digital.

See "http://www.cellguru.net/prepaid_compare.htm" but I notice at least
one error in his table, 7-11 is now 15¢/minute not 20¢,

Todd Allcock wrote:

> PagePlus is certainly a weird outfit in that they don't really sell phones
> (that I've been able to find- they simply activate phones you acquire
> yourself.

PagePlus does sell a couple of refurbished phones.

PagePlus also sells through dealers, who presumably offer either new or
used phones, but I've never visited a dealer though there is one not far
from me.

Reality is that used CDMA phones are very cheap on craigslist or eBay,
or free on a Freecycle group (http://www.freecycle.org/), and people are
often happy to give away their old phones rather than tossing them.