This review is a summary of my personal
opinions and experience with this
service.
I use my cell phone infrequently, mostly
in my car. Otherwise I use my office phone or my home phone which
I think sound much better than any cell phone. My old plan was
with Sprint PCS and was the cheapest plan they offered:
Monthly rate - $10
per-minute charge prime time = $0.30/minute
per-minute charge nights/weekends = $0.10/minute
first minute of incoming calls is free
includes caller id, voice mail (must be checked from phone)
My typical monthly bill was around $17 broken out as follows
Amount
|
Itemized
|
Description
|
$10.00
|
|
Basic Plan Fee
|
$0.00
|
|
Included 2 free incomming minutes
|
$2.59
|
|
Taxes
|
|
$0.35
|
Federal Tax |
|
$0.54
|
Maryland State Sales Sax -
Services & usage |
|
$0.25
|
Maryland State 911 |
|
$0.15
|
Federal Wireless Number Pooling
and Portability |
|
$0.40
|
Federal E911 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Summary of prepaid plans
Service
|
Best/Minute
|
Expiration
|
SMS
send/recv
|
Web Access
|
Monthly
Cost
|
Notes
|
T-Mobile
|
$0.10
|
1 year
|
$0.10/free
|
limited
|
$8.33
($100/year)
|
t-zones are free, these are
espn, cnn, stock quotes. You can not go to arbitrary urls.
|
Boost
|
0.20/0.10
|
90 Days
|
$0.10/free
|
$0.20/day
|
|
Available at Target, (day
rate=0.10, nights/weekends=0.20)
|
Virgin
Mobile
|
0.25/0.10
|
90 Days
|
$0.10/free
|
yes/ cost?
|
$20/90
days
|
0.25/minute for the first 10
minutes/day, 0.10/minute after that
|
NET10
|
$0.10
|
~$0.82/day
|
$0.05
|
|
$25
($300/year)
|
All cards are 0.10/minute,
larger cards have longer expiration periods. $300 gets 1 year.
|
As you can see the t-mobile has the lowest monthly cost assuming you
don't talk over 85 minutes/month. I haven't done the math (yet)
but I suspect the crossover point for the other plans is still above
t-mobile. At some point you are better off getting a monthly plan
with unlimited minutes. It get complicated by the whole
night/weekend thing. You should look at you actual usage pattern
to determine what you really use. Don't overbuy! You
should go with your monthly average. The higher months will be
bought at the per minute rate, the lower months will be lost unless you
have carryover.
I think of of it this way. Most products or services I buy are
paid for on an as-consumed basis. (Gas, Food, Clothes,
CD's) I rarely choose the all you can eat style and I like
thinking this way for cell phone minutes as well. (Phone,
Internet, Cable TV are the few examples I think I still buy in bulk.)
Comments About T-Mobile
The prepaid
customers seem to treated as second rate customers in terms
of features.
- The T-Mobile web site doesn't
recognize prepaid accounts (you
can't even register using your prepaid phone number.)
- T-Mobile says you can not send
email to sms messages to the phone
(normal T-Mobile accounts can use ######@tzone.com, or a web interface
at T-mobile, but neither work for the prepaid accounts.)
No interface from PC to the phone for
address book/contact list, calendar/reminders etc.
- There is no cable to connect
to a mac (usb, firewire or bluetooth and no isync
support)
- I got the samsung x495
phone. I searched google and found a data kit available for $79
which includes a windows
disk and phone-serial port cable but I have not looked at what it can
do.
SMS Messaging (text messaging)
A Note
on Privacy and security
Both email and SMS messaging are the electronic equivalent of a
post card. Any messages sent over these systems may be read,
copied or even modified by anyone along the delivery path. (You
might trust you network provider but they sometimes use subcontractors,
have disgruntled employees etc.) My advice is to never send any
information you wouldn't feel comfortable sending on a postcard.
This may seen unlikely, but it is technically very easy.
Sending a message from you computer to your
prepaid T-Mobile phone
- The T-Mobile
messaging web site does NOT
work for prepaid phones.
- I'm testing the google sms gateway.
- You can send email to the following email-to-messaging gateways
and they work for the prepaid phones:
- ##########@tmomail.net - (I've checked this site is owned by
T-Mobile)
- 1##########@teleflip.com - (see the security noate above
and teleflips privacy
policy)
Cool Tips and Tricks
Text Message google from your
phone and get a text message answer:
Send the following messages to googl (phone number 46645)
(This will cost $0.10 to send the message and the answer reply is free,
so it is cheaper than calling 411 from the phone.)
**
This does NOT work on T-Mobile prepaid accounts. **
(I was VERY dissapointed to discover that T-Mobile
blocks
access to some/all common short
codes.
They don't explicitly tell you this, but when you try sending to one
like googl you get a reply "Prepaid service failed". references: virgin-mobile at
wikipedia, 2)
I guess this is a way they punish prepaid users to try to convert them
to monthly service plans. I looked and found a 10-digit search at
synfonic. I haven't
tried
them and hope to find a 10-digit number for google.)
**EVEN WORSE** They charge
0.10 for the sent message they block!
|
- To find local bussines send the name or category period followed
by the zip (example: pizza.21045)
- Driving directions send the address, city state (or zip) to
address (example 251 e huron 60611 to 130 N State St Chicago il)
- Price
lookup send "price" item name model (or ISBN or 12 digit UPC (below
the bar code)
- you could lookup quotes, but they are free under tzones
Looking up stock quotes:
- Enter "tzones" (this is free)
- Select "news"
- Select "CNN"
- Select "Business"
- Select "Stock Quotes"
- Enter the ticker symbol
Complaints
- T-Zones - stock quotes often time out. When I try between
9:30 AM EST and 11:00AM EST it usually doesn't work. I've tried
the "retry" button with no success.
- T-mobile blocks access to some 5-digit common short codes like
46645 (googl - googles sms
service)
