Prepaid carrier for MA/NH

I live in SW Manchester, near the Bedford line.

T-Mobile will probably be OK in the area you describe. However, if you EVER go north (Lakes Region, North Conway, Mt. Washington Valley, etc.) forget it, they have virtually no coverage there. Very poor coverage north of Concord.

I recommend Simple Freedom. If you don't use the phone much, you can get by with a $20 refill every 2 months, and there is no "daily" charge like Verizon has instituted. Best of all, it uses Verizon's network. Cost is 25¢ per minute.

If you do go outside of Verizon's territory (which is a LOT more extensive than T-Mobile's). SF will roam on US Cellular at 50¢ per minute. But again, no daily charge.

Check out www.cellguru.net, Dave Markson's excellent site devoted to New England Cell Phones.

Simple Freedom phones are available at the New Hampshire Wal-Marts. Activitating is a simple process, and your number should be local (my neighbor has SF and his local number is a Suncook NH exchange).

-way

 

Your choice.

"Half the cost of Verizon" is still pretty expensive, in my book. With Simple Freedom my neighbor pays about $10 a month ($120 per year) and uses around 80 minutes a month. You did say you were a very light user.

However, if T-Mobile fits your budget and does the job, go with it.

-way

 

Bars are not the good/best way to describe which service is better. Every phone shows more/less bars for the same signal strenght, voice quality is important, since, for example, my old Sprint phone used to show 1 bar where my cousin's Samsung Sprint would show full serice...the samsung was overstating the signal strenght by far.

 

Just wondering where your neighbor gets discounted rates for Simple Freedom. All their published rates are 25 cents a minute which would be about $20 a month for about 80 minutes. If lower rates are available, it becomes a very attractive service.

 

My mistake. I meant to say she uses 40 minutes a month and refills every 60 days, so her net cost is $10/month, one of the lowest available prepaid rates for CDMA service.

Sorry.

Telzone, you imply that 25¢ a minute is a high rate. Can you advise me who has cheaper rates for low-volume users? I don't know of any. Most of the services are now charging a per-day rate or a "connection charge" in addition to the per-minute rates.

For somebody who wants the phone for emergency use, and just an occasional non-emergency call, there isn't much choice that is reasonably priced.

-way

 

Welcome to the sweet sound of GSM. Welcome to the WA forums too.

 

The low volume users I know aren't at all interested in coughing up 100 bucks for cell service, no matter how low that gets the monthly rate. $20 every two months is a lot more manageable in a fixed-income budget.

Your point is taken however. Unfortunately, in my area (NH) T-Mobile has limited coverage at best. So, add that to the large "nut" and it's not a good deal.

-way