Look Here for Best Deal on Cell Phone Service-Anytime Minutes (3000min1.9 Cents)and Free Phone!Post Your Best Deal!

[rav]

Please post all your best deals on Cell Phone and calling plans.

Criteria in the order of importance(For heavy users who hate landlines):

Maximum Anytime Minutes
Lowest Per Minute Cost
Free Phone with lots of features
Shortest Possible Contract
Unlimited geographic locations

Currently VoiceStream $56.98-3000 Minutes Anytime (Comes to 1.9 Cents a minute!!), Anywhere is the Best Deal in Cellphone and calling plans. Get Motorola T-193 (GPRS Ready for $1.99 internet). You need to subscribe service in mid-southern states and then you can move on!

Also get $25 Web Certificate-MasterCard (AOL Giftcard which can be used prettymuch anywhere as it gives MasterCard Number).

Here are the details:

$49.99 for 3000 any time
$6.99 for Nationwide Toll Free (Called America's Toll Free)-just the name is weird, it means you can call anywhere and pay no long distance charges!
---------
$56.98

Motorola T-193 $49.99
Rebate $50
------------
$-0.01

One Year Contract-Not bad at 1.9 cents a minute!!

This is a GSM based service so use Telular's Fixed Wireless and say goodbye to landlines! Also the SIM card can be used with friends' phones!! Share all the minutes. SIM could be a rage pretty soon. Any where you go you can find Phone Booths with SIM card phones-no need to carry your cell phone except in cars. AT & T soon would be swithching to GSM. Currently VoiceStream and Cingular are GSM. One more advantage:technically your phone works all over the world-including Europe!

T-193 allows adding addresses via internet (any one knows how to import from outlook or similar PIM?)
Same for ringtones etc.


Available from:

VoiceStream
Amazon

Any other deal come even closer? Forget about weekends/nights thats just marketing.

Thanks.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

the best deal anytime is to go to any asian store and get the phone for free or get back some bucks while other places charge full price for the phone.

 

[Go Terps]

that is an amazing deal... wish it was available here in the DC Metro area

 

[jimmyhaha]

most cellphone network in US is CDMA and PCS ?
GSM, are u kidding me ?

I seldom see a sim card in cell phone in here, except in asia...

 

[MesBoogie]

I've been eyeing this deal.

I've got a Visor Deluxe and Handspring is offering the Visorphone free with service (used to be upwards of $300). Kinda bulky by cell phone standards but allows one to have PDA/Phone in one.

I'm in the Chicago area. Anyone using Voicestream around here?

-mb

 

[rav]

Jimmyhaha, GSM will be the most prevalent soon, considering AT & T is switching it too. As I said two major cell phone carriers are already GSM-VoiceStream and Cingular. Cingular is also going for SIM card if you look a some of phones.

With free Motorola T-193 you get lots of features including Voice dialed numbers.

Kingofcomputer-just to get free phones is not worth specially when you consider contracts you need to sign as well as those many credit checks -which lowers your score so be careful. Short term gain may not be worth.

 

[TyroneWashington]

<< Kingofcomputer-just to get free phones is not worth specially when you consider contracts you need to sign as well as those many credit checks -which lowers your score so be careful. Short term gain may not be worth. >>



What are you smoking man? The asian stores are usually resellers for Cingular and ATT, so you'd get the free phone, rebate, and whatever special plans that are offered. Whatever contracts that have to be signed are for your plan, and that's it, unless of course, you go to a store that tries to rip you off...

 

[mscubsfan]

does anyone know which phone plans are the best for family kind of plans? me and my wife have been using sprint and our advantage agreement signed last year expires tomoro, so we are looking to switch soon, as we don't use the phones very often anymore and just want a simple, cheap, family plan for 2 phones. Was talking to sprint and seems like $60 is their cheapest plan, but it requires 1 year agreement (which we don't want to do since we've been so fed up with problems with sprint int eh past). So if anyone else has good family plans or knows of any promos comign up, please post!!!! thanks so much in advance....

 

[MesBoogie]

I can only get the Visorphone through Handspring. The 3000 anytime minutes for $49.99 is available (.0166 cents per minute) but is a regional rate plan. The $6.99 option for long distance is not an option. Can I use one of the Sam's Club Calling Cards (.0347 cents per minute) with a cell phone? This is still in the .05 cent per minute range. Excellent deal if it will work.

-mb

 

[Sangfroid]

rav - Where did you see this 3000 minutes anytime deal? All I see are the 60-1400 anytime/unlimited off-peak deals at amazon and voicestream.

 

[MesBoogie]

Sangfroid - Here's the link to the offer in Illinois. When you go to Voicestream's site, you have to pick your state. From there you choose National or Regional. This plan is a regional plan.

-mb

 

[Racketear]

Voice stream is suck. They had bad coverage and bad service. If you only travel on the freeways in major urban areas then they may be ok. Most voicestream areas dont cover suburban areas that well. I would go with verizon or att. They are more expensive, but who really need to talk 3000 minutes a month besides verizon is offering 3500 weekend minutes with most of their plans. i was totally dissatisfied with voicestream, and the piece of junk nokia phones.

If you even think you are going to abuse you phone buy a motorolla. They are the most durable on the market.

 

[odog]

GSM is dead.... long live CDMA!!


watch out for a cingular/voicestream merger as they share the same tech..... also watch for the sprint/verizon merger, which IMHO would create the best of both worlds... sprints dope phones and plans coupled with verizons rural coverage.


and anyone touting GSM, as better should be shot...... G3 is a CDMA based tech and will replacing almost everything in the years to come(cept damn cingular and the damn edge tech)

voicestream has nice phones and good plans but i don't believe in GSM.... or at least the tech behind it.

 

[Wasert]

hey, king of computers. where can u get free cellphone? i really need just a cellphone w/o contracts

 

[CyBrShRk]

I have the AT&T Digital Advantage plan for $39.99 a month and I'm happy with it so far. Includes 400 peak / unlimited nights and weekends and free long distance. Add to that all the extra options like caller id, call waiting/forwarding, voice mailbox, text messaging and it seems like a great deal so far. Plus, we got the Nokia 5165 for free after MIR.

 

[wedi42]

the only problem i see with voicestream is that they disable the analog celluar part of the phones
so you can't use them in rural areas w/o gsm service (like my cabin)
if it wasn't for that i would have signed up long ago

 

[Kingofcomputer]

there is no free lunch.
if you want free nice phone such as 8290, you must sign 1 yr contract of higher than basic plan, that's at least the $30 or $40 plan.

and GSM has been in the US for more than 3 years, I've been using Pacbell GSM for 3 years, although the US GSM is the non-standard 1900Mhz (US likes to have own standard on everything), there are many triband GSM900/1800/1900 phones now.

don't forget that GSM is evolved from TDMA. it won't be hard for AT&T to switch from TDMA to GSM.

 

[Byte]

anyone find a good plan for non monthly fee cel phones?

 

[OrlandoTiger]

How about the best plans for low or moderate usage cell customers? Some of us will be keeping our landlines for modem use and dont want to spend $55 a month for a cell package.Thanks

 

[japangirl]

some dealers give cell phones free with basic plans. I have seen one with voice stream
19.99 plan giving a nokia 3390 free. Its cute and you have a lot of freaky features
along with it.

Jpgl

 

[DieselMan]

<< GSM is dead.... long live CDMA!!


watch out for a cingular/voicestream merger as they share the same tech..... also watch for the sprint/verizon merger, which IMHO would create the best of both worlds... sprints dope phones and plans coupled with verizons rural coverage.


and anyone touting GSM, as better should be shot...... G3 is a CDMA based tech and will replacing almost everything in the years to come(cept damn cingular and the damn edge tech)

voicestream has nice phones and good plans but i don't believe in GSM.... or at least the tech behind it. >>



According to my co-worker, who is an expert on the wireless basestation market, it's quiet the opposite; most US service providers are trying to migrate the path to GSM first, in order to allow for a smoother transition to 3G (3rd Generation) since it is a more direct upgrade path. Therefore, GSM is actually coming mainstream. GSM is very popular in Europe too, so if you travel a lot, all you need is to carry a whole bunch of SIM card (one for each country/area), and you can swap them around when needed.

 

[SLEEPER5555]

GSM was the old standard CDMA is the New standard. Yes voicestreme and cingular are merging but sprint will not merge with verizon, the only way that could happen is if verizon continued to hurt for cash and sprint bought them but that is a long shot!

As a side note Sprint PCS is the first to rol out 3g. this will happen mid 2002!

 

[DieselMan]

Ok, my bad; I asked my co-worker again; here are the facts:

GSM is indeed an older technology than CDMA.
However, companies like AT&T and Cingular, coming from TDMA originally, must transition from TDMA to GSM first before being able to implement 3G. This is why GSM is not going away anytime soon; it would cost way too much money to switch over from TDMA to CDMA for these companies.

The guys using CDMA will also be able to transition directly to 3G, so indeed CDMA is also here to stay.

So in summary, there are two upgrade paths to 3G, all depending on what the service provider already has:

TDMA -> GSM -> 3G (AT&T, Cingular)
CDMA ----------> 3G (Verizon, ...)

Thanks guys for correcting me. Kingofcomputer had a good point.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

CDMA is actually older than GSM.
5 years ago, when I was using LA Cellular (bought by AT&T), which is analog, Airtouch (bought by Verizon) is analog too.
Then 4.5 years ago, LA Cellular came out TDMA 800Mhz + Analog dual mode, Airtouch came out CDMA 800Mhz + Analog dual mode. CDMA was used by military only for a long long time before public can use it.
Then 4 years ago, Pacbell came out PCS (GSM 1900Mhz).
Then 3 years ago, SprintPCS came out something also called PCS (in Europe and Asia standard, only GSM high band cheapy solution can be called PCS, that's 1800Mhz), which is CDMA 1900Mhz.

To 3G, everybody has to convert to CDMA2000.
CDG 3G overview

Verizon and Sprint have the advantage, they can convert to cdmaOne first easily.

 

[FrankRizzo]

ATT has already converted Seattle to GSM and will continue converting. At least one nice feature of a GSM phone is that you can swap the SIM card to a new phone with no programming changes required (as opposed to SprintPCS where they charge you something like $30 to set up a new phone).

The new Nextel phones also have Sim cards which contain your phone book.

ATT Seattle conversion