Cell phone advice

[Dave_Schuldt]

I am going to get a cell phone. The problem is I will only use it once or twice a week. The service plans I know about aren't set up for this kind of use.

[mec]

All I know is that Cingular sucks... I have not had much luck with their service range. Cuts out all around town... I am not too sure about the plans though.

[robert]

You might look at one of the pay as you go plans. There were plans that didn't include any minutes, but I don't know if they are still available. The deal was you paid a small monthly fee to have the phone and then something for every minute you used. They were better if you talked less than about 75 minutes a month. When you are looking at plans consider that almost all of them come with free long distance. It may be that you could use the cell phone to save money on your home long distance bill. We never make long distance calls from our home phone anymore.

[thelawgoddess]

i use a verizon prepaid plan where i pay .25/call plus .10/minute. it works fine if you don't talk much, but i noticed that they recently changed their "plan" and now charge a daily use fee of 1.00 even if you don't use it (and that's not counting the per minute charge) ... so it's not such a great deal if you're coming on now and aren't grandfathered under the older plan. but i would guess there are still other prepaid plans that are cheaper for limited use that might work for you.

[knelson]

I have a month-to-month "emergency" plan from Consumer Cellular, out of Portland. You can find them at...

 

www.consumercellular.com

 

... and have been satisfied. I have an old caveman analog phone, so I don't qualify for their cheapest of the cheap plans, but they do have them for $10/month with no minutes.

 

My parents have a "prepaid" phone from ATT (or whoever that is now.). They hate it. They travel alot (up/down West Coast) and their coverage sucks.

 

Don't forget - if you're looking at packing it in the mountains, analog will far outperform digital as far as coverage - even though analogs will be dead in a few years.

 

-kurt

[archenemy]

When I first got a cell, I didn't plan on using it much. That changed quickly. Unless you are sure that you won't or can't use it much, you might not want to lock into a plan that won't let you upgrade, cancel, or change without a huge fee. Just a thought...

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

Fuck cell phones. Marc Twight uses smoke signals from burning Gu packets.