best cellular phone service for low minutes user?

[shaveice]

just wondering. my t-mobile sucks. lots of bad receptions and i hardly use any minutes per month. wasting my money.

any ideas/suggestions?

thanks.

[kimo55]

Re: best cellular phone service for low minutes user?

just wondering. my t-mobile sucks. lots of bad receptions and i hardly use any minutes per month. wasting my money.

any ideas/suggestions?

thanks.

39 bux for the phone, 39 bux for the monthly. cingular, kapiolani blvd.
about 490 minutes per month, 5000 nites weekends.
rollover minutes, too.

[pzarquon]

Re: best cellular phone service for low minutes user?

Have you considered a prepaid plan/provider? Turns out the minutes do expire, but as long as you're not one of those folks who don't use your phone at all, you should be okay. Fixed cost, cheap phone, and you always know exactly where you stand.

[shaveice]

questions for kimo and pzarquon

thanks for your suggestions.

kimo, could you comment on the reception quality of cingular? if it's like t-mobile, i wouldn't be happy. i don't think i'm expecting too much. all i want is a clear reception. it sucks when i'm talking to someone i have to move my phone around to find some invisible spot where the connection might be clear and sometimes nothing helps. pitiful.

pzarquon, can you recommend a specific pre-paid plan? i'll check out whatever you recommend. i'm just not familiar at all with the different providers out there. keep in mind that a clear reception is very important.

looking forward to your comments and thanks!

[kimo55]

Re: questions for kimo and pzarquon

thanks for your suggestions.

kimo, could you comment on the reception quality of cingular?

I convey this cuz all da peeps i talk with who have it say it is crystal clear, ...or at least the best they have had, and many have experienced other companies and the other offerings.



as fer prepaid, try talk with the quick gas minimart place across from Academy of Arts. Seen this offering and it looks pretty good.
Try an independent store, you know da kine get allll the plans and companies. One down da street here at Koko marina, x from the theatre multiplex, up from teddy's bigger blander burgers, x from pricebusters here in Hawaii Kai, ... da braddah get planny li'dat.
Prepaid and all other non prepaid... set you up wit da custom kine. whatevahs you comfortable with.
chance um!

[shaveice]

Re: best cellular phone service for low minutes user?

kimo, u wun funny guy! dat iz, i tink u one guy!

ha! ha! tanks for your suggestion. i see on yahoo dat the cingular plan requires you fo give 'em your gonads for TWO yearz!!!!!!!!!!!!! man, dat's one long time fo get screwed! i mean, if da plan no good. eh, i no like chance um for 2 years bra!!! i heard uv bending ova but dat's ridiculous!

anyway, i try talk to some cingular guy and lata check out da independent guys too.

tanks!

[kimo55]

Re: best cellular phone service for low minutes user?

kimo, u wun funny guy!

eh. no make fun! I was born with these looks. No can help.

dat iz, i tink u one guy!

for nigh on a half century I have been. Still got my gonads, so muss be.

[malia]

Re: best cellular phone service for low minutes user?

I just switched from T-Mobile to Cingular last week. I couldn't receive or make any calls when I'm up in Wai'anae with T-Mobile. I was constantly getting dropped calls elsewhere, as well. My phone would often be "dead" and I'd have to turn it off, wait a minute or so, then turn it back on to get service again, even in places like town! I was fed up with it. When I missed two emergencies because I could not be contacted on the cell because I was "out of the service area," I knew I had to find a new provider.

So after researching providers online, I found out Cingular had the best coverage. If you look at their coverage maps, you can see that the coverage for O'ahu not only reaches the tops of the mountains in Wai'anae, but it also reaches out into the ocean a bit too (neighbor islands don't look too good though...). Plus, as a low minute user as well, I thought the roll over minute plan would be good, as most months, I use maybe 2 minutes on my phone, and just 3 or 4 times so far I went over my alloted 60 montly minutes. I always thought, if I had rollover, I wouldn't have that problem.

Rollover minutes, I found out, though, are only for the higher-priced plans. I got the lowest plan for $29.99 and it is 200 "anytime" minutes and 1000 night & weekend minutes (so that makes "anytime" = "weekday days"?), which does not cover rollover. But I got a free phone, and one that can receive phone calls when I'm deep in the Wai'anae valley, and is very clear that people have commented they can't believe I'm calling from a cell phone, especially when I'm in the back of a big old store (I used to have to walk to the entrances just to be able to get a "bar" on my antenna display to be able to call out).

So although it's not as cheap as T-Mobile's low-minute plan was...I'll gladly pay the extra $10 if it means my babysitter can now contact me in case of an emergency, rather than getting a message saying I have "moved out of service area". but yeah...2 year contract but they do give you a 30 day trial period, so you can try them for 30 days, and if you find out the coverage is not as good as you'd like, you can cancel without fear of "early termination" fees, which was important to me to find out that I can make or receive calls from wherever I am before committing to 2 years. So far, it seems okay

ETA: GoPhone is their prepaid phone thingie, if you wanted to check it out. I don't know anyone who has that plan, though, so I can't vouch for it.

[pzarquon]

Re: best cellular phone service for low minutes user?

In addition to the aforementioned Cingular's GoPhone (which swallowed AT&T's prepaid option), other prepaid offerings include Verizon's PayAsYouGo, and Verizon's InPulse. I don't know if Sprint does prepaid (though I use their standard service and like it well enough). There are also prepaid-only providers, like Virgin Mobile, but I don't know what their coverage is like.

[hinokei]

Re: best cellular phone service for low minutes user?

Actually, Virgin Mobile is a MVNO that uses the Sprint PCS network.

Recently, I've seen Virgin Mobile starter kits at the Pearl Kai, and Honolulu Sprint stores.

[cezanne]

Re: best cellular phone service for low minutes user?

just wondering. my t-mobile sucks. lots of bad receptions and i hardly use any minutes per month. wasting my money.

any ideas/suggestions?

thanks.

So were you unhappy TMobile users able to get out of the one year contract without penalty?

[shaveice]

thanks for the info

i especially appreciated your comments, malia. unlike you, i'm actually right in town and the reception is often so bad i want to throw the phone into traffic! (from the side walk, not from my car!) just awful. and the calls are not even to places like waianae. for example, if i talk to a friend in manoa or another one at moanalua kaiser, i have to do the stupid "search for some weird position where the connection seems to be okay... for a minute!" that's just ridiculous. no plan is worth it, no matter how cheap. if it's unusable, it's not worth it.

thanks for the info. i'll try cingular for a month and see how the reception is. the only thing that makes me cringe is the thought that it can't reach the neighbor islands. isn't that what you meant? that's also ridiculous! it's so close! does that mean there's no free roaming or maybe it can't even reach the mainland? no, that can't be. that'd automatically make me look elsewhere. anyway, i'll check it out.

no, i can't get out of the 1 year contract early but i've only got about 4 more months before i drop t-mobile like i was carrying dennis rodman in full drag!

thanks for all the info!

[kimo55]

Re: best cellular phone service for low minutes user?

this just in:

http://www.cingular.com/gophone?id1=..._Media_GoPhone

back to you, Shave.

[shaveice]

tanks kimo!

hey, that looks pretty good! like i said, i've got about 4 more months before my t-mobile contract ends. when it does, i'll definitely switch.

tanks!

[Glen Miyashiro]

Re: best cellular phone service for low minutes user?

Which reminds me of an ad for Virgin Mobile that I ran across while looking for that Burger King ad we've been laughing over.