I am in a similar situation as keysersoze. I live in Las Vegas and have many friends in LA and in the bay area with cingular plans. I can call them anytime with absolutely no long distance or airtime charges. And since all of california is considered part of my local calling region, I can call them when they are at home, or call my friends without cingular plans, without any long distance charges, it just uses minutes from my calling plan. Their airtime plans are competitive with all the other providers. I also get a free service which they call "InfoPak", where I get news and sports scores sent to me, and it is customizable, so I can choose which teams' scores are sent to me. The service plan also includes free text messaging (you can receive AND send messages, phone-to-phone, email-to-phone, phone-to-email, web-to-phone). They also have the best deals IMHO on phones. I got the nokia 6190 for like $40 out the door. I think now you can get the 8190 for about that price, maybe less. If you don't know anyone who has a cingular service plan, you don't have to get the unlimited mobile-to-mobile option. You can get unlimited off-peak minutes (fri 8pm-mon 8am, and tues-thurs 8pm-8am, I think), or free long distance. If later on down the road (you don't have to wait until your service contract expires), you decide you want to change your plan, you just call up a CSR, and they will switch your plan without altering the length of your contract (although they usually keep you on hold for a while). This way if your friends' current contracts expire, and they end up signing up for Cingular, you can take advantage of the unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes. <edit>Also, if they come out with a new promotion which you like better than your current service plan, you can change to the new plan in the same manner(when I called to change my plan from free weekend minutes to free mobile-to-mobile, They informed me that their new plan included 20 more anytime minutes than I was getting, and they switched me)</edit>Their CSR's have always been very helpful to me (unlike Sprint PCS's CSR's, who constantly made things difficult for me). I know this might sound like an infomercial, but I assure you I am in no way affiliated with cingular wireless, I am just completely sold on their service. Just my 2 kopeks.