Four or five years ago, my wife & I got a pair of really low end cell phones (no camera, no pictures) that came with T-Mobile pre-paid capability. I primed each with  $100 for a year's service and 1000 minutes. At the end of the first year I re-upped for a second year ($100 for me, $25 for her because she seldom uses hers). The minutes that she hadn't used carried over to the new year. Other renewals have been similar (except for the time I didn't renew before the year ran out, but we won't talk about that). That's $0.10 per minute and $8+ per month if you use most of the 1000 minutes in a year.

Obviously the cell phones are primarily for emergencies or for calling someone when you're out & need something, like the time I called the Dr's office to say "We're at the address that the phone book gave, but...).

No complaints about T-Mobile's service.

Mark Jarvis

Ryan Rix wrote: 
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Hey guys,

So, my dad had his cell phone service through Qwest for quiet a while now... 
A 15$/month 30 minute plan with the cheapest phone they had available, 
basically just to use in emergencies or to call me when he is driving to 
pick me up from somewhere.

A little while ago, my dad got a letter from Qwest saying they were 
discontinuing their cellular service and he'd have to go elsewhere for 
cellular.

Basically, he wants to pay as little as humanly possible to use his 
cellphone. I think last month he racked up a whopping four minutes of 
cellular usage, so having a plan with OVER 9000 minutes a month is simply 
unnecessary. We looked at a few pre-paid plans, specifically verizon's 
plans, but after doing the math, it seemed that there was no way to simply 
say 'I want to only pay .25$ for every minute I use' without preloading, at 
minimum, 400 minutes. Which expire every 30 days. 

I also suggested that he just get one of those cheap-o phones they sell at 
drug stores and grocery stores, but we kind of worry what the cellular 
service would be like. He travels up north fairly often (show low, pinetop, 
etc) and often is in areas where his Qwest phone did not get a signal, 
whereas my Verizon phone did. 

Where could he get a working cell phone, preferably free or less than 100$ 
with a pay per minute plan with minutes that either don't expire or can be 
loaded (or billed automatically!) in tiny increments? 

This is probably a hopeless cause given how MaBell-ish cell phone companies 
have become lately... :<

- -- 
Ryan Rix
Fedora KDE SIG Member, Phoenix AZ Ambassador, News KDE Beat Writer

Please refrain from mailing me directly in replies, I am subsribing 
via GMane NNTP. Thank you.

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