Latest cheap emergency cell phone deal

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Its working out for me so far. Thats what I have in my dads car. An old at&t free2go phone with beyonds service. I have an outlook reminder every 7 weeks to make a call to keep the minutes active. Providing they never go out of business or change terms and conditions, and providing my dad never needs it for an emergency, it will take roughly 2.8 years to use up the free 35 minutes they gave me when I signed up. They use the old at&t tdma network, which has fairly good coverage in most areas. Although cingular, who now owns that network, may very well dismantle that network at some point as it ages, or may not continue to subcontract it out to places like beyondwireless...

But for now, as long as you dont make a big investment in a new phone or anything, its worth playing it out.

 

[ERD50]

Lazyday's GoBeyondWireless looks the best -- too good to be true. What am I missing?

Al, I've been on Cingular's old TDMA KIC plan - $20 every 90 days (pay by CC - no tax), minutes roll over if you pay on-time. Looks like their current plan(GoPhone Pay As You Go) is GSM. $25 keeps you active for 90 days. $30 for a refurb phone. My experience with Cingular Cust Service is horrendous - but as long as the phone/service is working, it's OK.

Looks like the GoBeyondWireless is $25 for 75 days? So, maybe Cingular on GSM would be slightly better for low minute users?

-ERD50

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Beyond wireless minutes never expire if you make or receive a one minute call every 60 days.

They give you 35 minutes to sign up for free.

T-mobile gives you 1000 minutes good for a year for $100. Additional minutes get a 15% bonus and are also good for a year regardless of denomination once you've put a $100 charge on it. Phones are $39 and up.

As far as I know, Beyond is the best for 'never use'; for mild to low moderate use, I havent seen anything close to the $/minute and long expiration that t-mobile has.

 

[lazyday]

I'm still happy with Beyond Wireless.

I think they've taken the free phone deal off the website, and have added a GSM service, but not as cheap as the TDMA service which they still have also.

Still have the two old Nokias, one for girlfriend, one for me. I don't like the phone too much as it's bulky and has no vibrate, so use it only as a spare, and my main wireless phone is an old high quality phone I got from ebay years ago. Was able to set it up with Beyond Wireless over the (landline) phone, and got the free 35 minutes, which I still haven't used up yet!

 

[SC]

Just to chime in, I've been using Beyond Wireless for about a year with no problems. My PDA reminds me to use a minute every 6 weeks to make sure the account stays active - if you don't use the phone for 60 days the account is terminated and your prepaid time is lost.

It sure beats paying a monthly fee for a seldom-used phone...

 

[justin]

This may be a dumb question, but when you are broken down on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, how do you know the number of the local tow truck company? Dial 411 and ask for Tow Truck, Bumfucc, North Carolina?

Back in the old days before cell phones, you would walk to the nearest pay phone, look up the phone number for a tow truck company, and tell them where you are.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I use a similar approach. I keep a yellow pages under the passenger seat in all of my cars.

Last years model will do ya when the phone co gives you a new one. Stores and service companies usually dont change their phone numbers.

On my dads emergency beyond wireless phone, I put in two tow/emergency numbers for his town and two for mine; its about 35 miles between. If he cant get me on the phone, he can just dial 'roseville tow #1' or 'yuba city tow #2'.

Phone book really comes in handy some times, even in non-emergency situations..

 

[REWahoo]

This may be a dumb question, but when you are broken down on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, how do you know the number of the local tow truck company? Dial 411 and ask for Tow Truck, Bumfucc, North Carolina?

Justin, I'm pretty sure the tow truck number anywhere in redneck country is BR549.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

This may be a dumb question, but when you are broken down on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, how do you know the number of the local tow truck company? Dial 411 and ask for Tow Truck, Bumfucc, North Carolina?

Back in the old days before cell phones, you would walk to the nearest pay phone, look up the phone number for a tow truck company, and tell them where you are.

I also want to point out that the 'u's in 'bumfucc' are pronounced 'oo', as in 'boomfooc'. Want to make sure nobody gets the wrong idea. Hand me my banjo please...?

 

[ERD50]

Beyond wireless minutes never expire if you make or receive a one minute call every 60 days.

I understand about the minutes rolling over, but you still need to buy a $25 card every 75 days, correct?

My Cingular KIC contract is $20 for 90 days. As long as I add the $20 before the 90 days runs out, the minutes rollover. You have 14 days to add the $20 before they suspend your account, but that could leave you in a non-911 urgency w/o service, so I normally pay up on the 88th or 89th day, just to be safe.

The current Cingular plan looks to be GSM, $25 for a 90 day card - not sure about the minutes rollover, though. But if you do not use it much, not an issue. I use our rollover minutes for long distance calls.

ERD50

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Nope, you need to make no additional purchases with beyond until your minutes expire. Unless they've changed something, I dont see anything on the web site or t's&c's that require any purchase on any interval.

The thing that killed cingular for me was the dollar charge for any day you use the phone, plus 10c a minute. T-mobile was a flat 10c a minute taken away only when I use the phone. No daily or monthly fees.

My 30 second "want anything at the store?", "I know I just went out for to get gas, but i'm going to go shopping for an hour so dont start calling the precinct when I'm not back in 10 minutes" calls cost me 10c, not $1.10 ...

 

[ERD50]

The thing that killed cingular for me was the dollar charge for any day you use the phone, plus 10c a minute.

CFB, the Cingular $1 a day to use the phone is a different plan. I agree, that is not a good deal. My pre-pay with Cingular is $20 every 90 days, minutes rollover, 25c/min prime, 10c/min nights/WE. But I rarely use it, so the per/min charges are of almost no consequence to me.

Are you sure that you don't need to add to the beyondwireless account every 75 days? From beyondwirelessgsm.com, re: $25 of Airtime:

This card will add $34.00 to your GSM account, which is equivalent to approximately 204 minutes of talk time. This airtime will expire 75 days from when it is loaded unless additional airtime with an expiration date greater than your current expiration date is added before it expires.

I'm assuming that extends the expiration to the date of the new card? Or maybe you are referring to a different plan. I'm trying to keep my eyes open in case I want/need to replace my Cingular service.

-ERD50

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

That too is a different plan...look at gobeyondwireless; it uses the cingular tdma network. The new beyond wireless gsm plan uses new and more expensive phones, a different network, has different call costs, although that gsm network might be around a little while longer than the tdma network one.

If your cingular phone is a tdma one from the old at&t network, then it would work with the regular beyond wireless plan. If its a GSM cingular phone, it MIGHT work with the beyond wireless gsm plan. Not sure. Never looked that hard at it.

 

[free4now]

Doesn't Cingular lock their phones so you can't use non-Cingular SIM cards in them?

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Yes they do, but unlocking a phone isnt usually that hard. Even when it is, there are plenty of places that will do it for you for 20-30 bucks, and sometimes that includes a firmware upgrade with extra features. Many phones can be unlocked by hitting a bunch of keys in sequence, and then running a software program on a PC using some of the numbers the phone spits out, then entering a code the software program kicks out. Usually takes a few minutes tops. Then you can insert any sim card. Which isnt to say that its a bargain...a lot of companies will give you a phone for free but charge you $30 for their sim card. But if you have an expensive phone, like a razr, it might be worth it to not be tied into a contract with a new company, or to take your 'free' phone from your old carrier to a pay as you go plan.

The phones i'm using were at&t tdma phones, that cingular sucked up with the at&t wireless aquisition. at&t sold excess capacity to a number of smallish companies, including beyond wireless. Cingular has kept up that practice, at least so far.

You can usually buy one of these old tdma phones for under 20 bucks on ebay. Call beyond wireless, they give you 35 minutes and activate you for free. You probably wont get a local phone number from them unless you live in michigan, florida or texas, but their base is growing. Since long distance is included in the per minute charge, doesnt cost you anything to call anyone. Someone having to call you in 'florida' from your home state might discourage them though, which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned...

 

[justin]

Someone having to call you in 'florida' from your home state might discourage them though, which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned...

I don't like people either.



(this is sarcasm)

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I just hate it when people cant wait to call me, call me on my cell and use up my dang minutes!

 

[VoyT]

I'm going to chime in, too. I've been using the Beyond system for nearly a year, too. Overall, I've been pretty pleased with it (outside of not getting a good signal downtown).
When they offered the free phone with the $10 card, I got one for DH. Which reminds me ... I have to find a way to remind him to make calls on the thing, or he's going to lose that phone # (grrr)

 

[free4now]

When I was over in Europe a year ago, I decided to try buying a local Vodaphone SIM card for my AT&T/Cingular phone purchased in California. Because the phone was "locked", meaning it won't accept non-Cingular SIMs, I took it to a place in Dublin that specialized in unlocking phones, and paid I think 50 Euros to unlock and upgrade the system software (the software upgrade was reported to fix bluetooth issues I had encountered). It turned out they installed the wrong version of the software (for a different revision of the phone) and as a result the microphone was disabled. Didn't realize the microphone problem till I was out of Ireland and then the phone was basically dead weight for the rest of the trip. When I sent the phone home in a package of stuff from Nepal, a customs agent or someone stole that phone out of the package. It was rather delicious to know that someone took the risk of theft and got shafted with a nonworking phone.

Because of that experience I now stay away from any attempts to hack phones, but in retrospect I think it's probably safe to say that my issue was from the software upgrade not the unlocking. I suppose that it's probably pretty safe to unlock phones.

 

[justin]

I just hate ... people...

Me too.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Whats that my wife says on occasion when she gets home from shopping? I think its "I love my dogs more every day..."

Fireme...one bad experience with someone who either didnt know what he was doing or wasnt paying attention may not quite constitute a policy Most of the places that I've seen that do unlocking/upgrading will replace the phone if they screw it up and cant recover it. I havent seen too many 'upgrades' that I'd care about, although someone has a hacked firmware for the razr that does a three dimensional address book thingy that looks very cool.

 

[Papi]

I talked with the folks at GoBeyondWireless yesterday and they will no longer activate phones/customers on the TDMA network.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a cheap emergency phone?  DW will be on a road trip with the kids this summer to visit parents and wants an emergency phone.  We currently have no cell phone (the only ones in our town  )

 

[MasterBlaster]

STI mobile has prepaid plans that only cost 10 cents a day plus 10-12 cents a minute when you use them.

www.stimobile.com

 

[bow-tie]

I talked with the folks at GoBeyondWireless yesterday and they will no longer activate phones/customers on the TDMA network... )

I need help understanding what this means?  The DW and I have considered GBW for our cell phone plan here in the near future...

 

[Papi]

GBW will only sell air-time for the TDMA network to existing customers.

You can still sign up with them, but only for the GSM product. This is what the lady told me on the phone.