nokia 8290 deal for all those ppl that asked ( Bay Area)

[DongTran]

Shaady1,

The radio link method chosen by GSM is a combination of Time­ and Frequency­Division Multiple Access (TDMA/FDMA).

Pacific Bell/Cingular ONLY operates on 1900mhz frequency. GSM phones sold in the United States ONLY transmit and receive via 1900mhz GSM frequency unless otherwise stated, such as world phones, such as the Ericsson T28World (NOT to be mistaken for the T28z), the Nokia 8890, there are some others... The T28World and the 8890 both offer compatibility with 900, 1800, and 1900mhz GSM networks - almost the entire world.

Pacific Bell/Cingular offers no CDMA/AMPS coverage whatsoever.

Technicalities aside, I drive to work sometimes across the Bay Bridge, other times I take the Bart. I admit that the T28 and 8890 that I have both offer MUCH better reception than the 5190 I had initially when I signed up my contract, especially the 8890, however the multi-band features are of no use unless you travel to a different GSM network.

 

[urameatball]

DongTran,
I see you stated your $300 deal on 8890...
I'm looking for one of these, do you know if they would bother shipping to Canada?

 

[hoomza444]

for the record.......anyone in the bay area that wants the cest reception.........go to AT&T......

however, for the best deal and good reception, pacbell is great.......i had verizon and it was o, but my pacbell service is better.

Also, Shady, you were wrong Pacbell doesn't operate on a cdma network......i think someone already corrected you. but yeah, i can vouch for service in San Jose. It is OKAY, about the same or better than verizon, MUCH better than sprint...but not quite as good as AT&T. it is usually clear, even with no bars, as long as you get service. the only complain is that in malls and stuff you don't always get service. in comparison to verizon, though, it is better because verizon i seldom got full and if i didn't get full i actually got static. and i never got reception in the malss with verizon either.

for the price....i recommend cingular....you can't beat the unlimtied nights adn weekends........but if you want the BEST reception.......for san jose anyway, i would say go with AT&T......just $0.02

 

[hoomza444]

for the person asking about the 8890 in canada........search the other 8290 threads......i read somewhere about a site that has the 8890 for about 250 US.....but they would probably ship to canada....good luck

 

[urameatball]

thanks hoomza

 

[DongTran]

urameatball -

I highly doubt they will ship the phone for the price. The way that these guys make money is through the trailing commission of cell phone plans. If you don't sign up with a plan, then they don't get commission, and I guarantee that they will not sell you a phone for a discounted price. I don't suppose those guys who give away the 8290s for free with activation will ship a Nokia 8290 to you in Canada with nothing in exchange?

The rest of you -

Be advised, Cingular/Pacific Bell/whathaveyou agents will NOT sign you up a plan with a phone # in a different home zone (by home zone, I mean if you are signing up in LA, they will not give you a number in San Diego home zone). There are many reasons behinds this. You also have to remember that comission rates are different for different regions. Your best bet is to sign the contract at wherever, accept whatever area code you get, and an hour later, just call 611 service, and ask the customer service representative to change your area code. For your account (notice I use the word account, you can have more than one cell phone under identity/SSN/whatever), you get one free area code change - each additional one is $15.

The general rule of thumb for # the number of lines Pacific Bell will let you sign up is as follows:

Class A Credit - 4 phone lines, no deposit
Class B Credit - 2 phone lines, no deposit
Class C Credit - 1 phone linee, no deposit

I know those are #s, but they aren't exactly cemented. When my agent called me in for a credit check, Pacbell said that I had Class C credit, but to give me a third line anyway, so there it is. Whereas my buddy next to me had Class D credit, and they wanted $974 deposit in order for him to activate an account.

Lemme know if you guys have any more questions regarding plans, services, whatever....

 

[hoomza444]

not sure how far the home region counts for.......but when i was getting my phones.......the guy overheard me and my sister talking about her moving to san ramon and he was going to give her a san ramon area code but she wanted a san jose area code. my point is just that he was willing to giv ea different area code for the phones. Considering these places are only about an hour away, i don;'t know how things woudl work from the Bay Area, to say, LA, but yeah. okay, i'm done.

 

[DocGumby]

This is my first post but ya know what, down here in Los Angeles, if you find a asian/chinese shop you can get a 8290 for free when you join cingular, you just gotta sign up for a plan. The cingular stores charge you 99 bucks, the smaller asian shops will charge you either 40 dollars or give you the darn phone for free, the catch is that you gotta pay for activation and tax on the phone but i think you have to do that anywhere else.

 

[flippo]

Hi Docgumby,
If you could tell me more specific which asian/chinese store you go to get 8290 in the LA area for free ?
I'm looking for wireless phone right now probably cingular.

thanks
flippo

 

[baloobear]

there is no place you will get the 8890 for free! he was talking about he 8290.

 

[Healey]

I don't think you can get the 8290 for free anymore in SoCal. If I'm wrong, please post where you can still get the deal. I was going to get one from MCI but the negative reviews about their customer service scared me off.

Looking for a Cingular deal now.

 

[trend]

also, bestbuys sells the 8290 for 100 - 50 best buy gift cert..... but they say that the cell phone works with cingular wireless ( bellsouth) which this phone is pcs (gsm 1850-1990) and analog .... but cingular only works with tdma and analog... which if you want ananlog on and off service... go for it.. but i don't even think this phone can be activated with cingular... ticks me off

 

[baloobear]

the best buy in my area is selling the 8290 for cingular (pacbell)--pacbell network is GSM 1900...digital--not analog.

 

[DocGumby]

I kid you not about the 8290's... i have no clue why folks to go pacbell stores when the free phone is the cheap lil 5190... but ya... if you find a small asian shop in montery park... they line both garvey and vally blvd... there is a cell phone store here in El Monte, its near the corner of Ramona and Peck Rd... its in this small shopping center just north of the cross street... next to a dimsum shop, and the last time i checked, (few weeks back) they were offering the 8290 as their free phone... they offer cingular (pacbell) plans there... but once again, you just gotta pay the tax for the ophone which is usually like 30 dollars and teh regular activation... if you want addesses, i'll find some today or tommorow just request them in a post.

 

[Brix13]

When ever a "small mom & pop" store offers a phone like the 8290 for free all that comes to mind is resellers like MCIWorldCom Wireless comes to mind, and I can't tell you how much that company sux

 

[baloobear]

any news on the upgrade policy of cingular wireless?

 

[DongTran]

Brix13,

You just have to be careful about who you are signing up with. Only 1/10 of the Pacific Bell resellers do billing through MCI/Worldcom, which is terrible. Just make sure that when you sign the contract, that it's a Pacific Bell/Cingular contract, and not anything else. I think that your impressions (first if not all) of 'mom/pop' stores does not adequately represent all of them. Most of them I must admit are difficult to deal with, but you just gotta find the right ones...

 

[sygyzy]

Balaboo, looks like nobody wants to help us

 

[baloobear]

i guess not