Down and Dirty- the question that is....

So do you not really need a national plan? Many carriers have local/regional plans. For VZW, you get more minutes for the same price. However, nothing is going to completely cover the entire "northeast". By "northeast", do you mean "new england" or are you including NY, PA, DE, MD, etc?

7p nights is rare. Unlimited N&W is very common.

Who doesn't have a camera phone? Some are small, some are big. Sprint has a new little one--a Samsung I think.

Not hard to get several of the things you want for this price. You might have to go up to $50 or more to get everything.

M2M is becoming standard. Free incoming is in Europe.

Really, you've got to decide whether you can trust VZW again or if you need to check the coverage of others. Don't forget you can get a phone and try it out for 14 days.

 

VZW' newest America's choice plan is "no nonsense", & gives:
450mins/$39.99
Unlim Nights & weekends (9PM)
Unlim mobile to mobile, & included Long distance, no roaming charges.
The N/W/Mobl do not "use up" your 450, even if you use them first.
All the above is Nationwide, & is included anywhere your phone works, regardless of whether you are on a VZW or roaming carrier's network.

Shop around, sme companies N/W Mobl only apply if you are "on their network" only, some charge extra for n/w, some will charge/cancell or penalize you if "X" percent of your mins are used off-network in a given month.

 

You laugh..., but a group did an Internet protocol using carrier pigeons once.

http://www.blug.linux.no/rfc1149/

Probably not much help in wireless.

 

If US Cellular is available in your are-I'd definitely give them a close look. They offer very good service in a lot of areas, and they roam on Verizon outside of their coverage area. Minute wise, US Cellualar gives you a lot for the money, especially if you stay close to home.
Hope this helps,
Andy

 

You failed to mention Cingular. Do you know if there's good coverage in your area? They have a plan that can fit your needs:

(If you want National) $39.99:
450 Anytime with 5,000 Night and Weekend Minutes
Only $3 per month gives you 7PM night minutes.
Unlimited Mobile to Mobile.
This plan includes ROLLOVER minutes.

(If you want Regional) $39.99:
600 Anytime with 5,000 Night and Weekend Minutes
Only $3 per month gives you 7PM night minutes.

As for phones, you can get some good camera phones for cheap. For example:

Samsung P207 with Advanced Voice Recognition (Speach to Text messaging), dual color screens, camera for pictures and video, sleek black flip design. This phone is only $79.

Ask if you have anymore questions!

 

Did Cingular 7PM nights go down to $3 and I didn't know? Last time I checked it was $7.

Beware that Cingular's Regional plans DO NOT have Rollover and Mobile-to-Mobile. The national plan is actually a better deal for most people.

 

aah, you saw that too, that's what i thought also, last time i checked it was $7, of course i wouldn't mind if it goes down to $3...

 

I just checked Cingular to make sure. I guess it is $7 extra. I could've sworn that it was $3 but I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe because it's that much less than $10 or something I don't know. But yea here's the national plan and phone again with the correction :

Nation 450 w/ ROLLOVER:
450 Anytime with 5,000 Night and Weekend Minutes,
$7 per month gives you 7PM night minutes,
Unlimited Mobile to Mobile...
Plan costs $46.99/mo, just over your budget.

This is a very good plan IMO and I am getting the same thing when I migrate from my ATT plan (plus a 200 SMS/mo. plan and 3MB/mo. plan added to it for a total of $61.97/mo. for me). I am probably also getting the Samsung P207 sense it's only $80 and has everything I need (except Bluetooth unfortunately).

Tell us what you get!

 

That's the plan i have now, except for the 7PM nights, i'm fine w/o it for now, so my plan is only $39.99. After noticing about 1900 rollover minutes i figured i could downgrade my plan to this one and save some money.

 

Depends where in Maine you are. If it's Portland south, VZ, Sprint, US Cellular and Cingular will work OK. North and East of Portland, I'd get US Cellular.

Paul

 

It's not like we're a bunch of losers with no life. We at least have cell phones! j/k

 

In my opinion, go with US Cellular. If you get their Regional Plan (still available, but not mentioned on their web site) you can get 500 anytime minutes for $35. Add unlimited nights and weekends (starting at 9 PM) and that adds $4.95. So for 40 bucks you get what you asked for and the anytime minutes are good anywhere in 9 northeastern states. The night and weekend minutes have to be used in ME, NH, VT (US Cellular territory).

Cingular is not going to give you decent coverage except in the cities - they are just not a decent choice in ME-NH-VT generally. Verizon is the other choice, but you will roam on US Cellular in most of Maine anyway. US Cellular customers roam on Verizon, Alltel, and many other CDMA providers, when USC native service is not available.

I've had USC for 8 years and am well satisfied. Consumer Reports recently got access to the FCC's complaint files for 2004, and USC had the fewest complaints per million customers, less than half Verizon's complaint rate, and about 1/8 the complaints Cingular generated per million customers.

T-Mobile - same comments apply as Cingular, no coverage in the boonies. Same thing with Sprint/Nextel.

Unicel may be an alternative, but their GSM coverage suffers the same as Cingulars does, poor coverage in the boonies, at least at the present time.

-way

 

I would have to go with Cingular on this one for you...

You can get a national or regional plan - both include FREE/UNLIMITED Roaming and Long Distance, Unlimited M2M and N/W . You also can get M2M and connect to over 51 million people for FREE. Cingular also offers 9.99 add a line and 9.99 for 7pm Night and Weekends.

Cingular has great coverage throughout the nation!

AND THEY HAVE ROLLOVER!

 

EXPERT ADVICE: Make SURE you use the trial period given with each carrier. Maybe try out Cingular, US Cellular and Verizon. Then go back and sign up with the one which works better for you.

 

Speak for yourself! I'm a loser with no life... mostly because I spend many of my waking hours at work. Ugggh. :O

 

That's weird... for me I can only see waywith's post (#15), then it goes to Aaron's post (#18). Why can't I see the ones in between? Were they deleted?

 

They must have been, I see the same thing. Guess they needed to be deleted for a good reason, since you don't see that happen often.

 

Me too, probably a bunch of posts with indescriminate swearing... I know talking about rate plans usually ends up with me in a tourettes-like state.
:biggrin:

 

Waking Hours mostly at Work? Is'nt this a great Life?
Maybe we should adopt European 4-day work hours.
Back to Topic, is Northern Maine Inhabitable?
Are there Roads that goes up There?

 

Good News, According to one Poster that lives in Maine
Unicel GSM is UP and Running

 

Look at the areas NOT covered by GSM.

The OP is still better off with US Cellular.

-way

 

US Cellular is probably the best bet. GSM might not be up to par with Unicel or just in many rural areas with CDMA or analog only.

 

What area?
This is just Unicel.

 

Unicel is GSM.

 

I'll rephrase what I meant: Unicel's GSM might not be up to par.

 

According one Poster
there was improvement Yesterday.

http://forums.wirelessadvisor.com/showthread.php?t=7823

 

Ah ok