Discuss cell phone plans35 responses total.
I am trying to convince a friend with landline phone and minimal cell phone service that she is overpaying for to switch to cell phone only. I suggested trying out some service first. I can give her phones to use. 1. Page Plus - Verizon phone (but some of them are tricky to set up). $12/250 min/month or $10/100 min usable for 4 months. 2. RingPlus - Sprint phone except for a few of the newer ones. $2/50 min,.....$18/unlimited with $8 for about 300 min and some data. She has home internet and could use any android phone with GrooveIP to make free phone calls at home or at work, and just use a minimal amount of cell phone minutes. RingPlus used to offer 300 min/month free and get its money from advertisers that advertised at you while you were waiting to connect. I suspect they still advertise since they have a page taking bids for ads. Another friend is paying, he says, $86/month for his landline phone including by-the-minute calls to out of town. He has no internet. He is also paying $100/month for Comcast TV and could add internet for $30 and use it for free wifi calls if he bought an android phone. Kroger had new ones for $20 and since he does not care about screen size and features that should work. He does not expect to talk on the phone while not at home. GrooveIP does not port numbers or offer voicemail but he has no answering machine now anyway and is tired of all the non-profits calling him and wants a new no. FreedomPop offers 200 min/month free on a Sprint android phone (including Galaxy II) which can be had on ebay for $35 or so. $20 setup fee. Cheaper than a year of RingPlus and more free minutes but you also need to pay for a phone. Ringplus is cheaper for extra minutes (4 cents on the plan with fewest minutes, going down to 2 cents for plans with more basic minutes). A friend in Detroit has 250 min/month free and no internet. He does have (somewhere) an android phone but his area tends not to have free wifi signals. State St. Walgreens has free wifi here. I will ask if his phone is Sprint. I have tried only the GrooveIP (on an Android 2.2 2009 HTC Mytouch 3G). It works most of the time but one day I was unable to call Jim's free cell phone with it (it just rang and rang) though other numbers worked. We use Google Voice and Callcentric and Ipkall.com for free calls with an ATA and regular phone line plugged into it (it routes calls to the phone system or the computers) or with Zoiper softphone from a computer.
Aside from the Android smartphone I have for work, I have a simple CDMA flip phone on a $25/month smartphone plan from Virgin Mobile (who provide service using Sprint's CDMA network). I get 300 minutes of talk, which is enough for my needs and unlimited text. The plan may cost more for new customers.
They have a lot of cheaper competition from Ringplus and Ting ($6 basic charge for 100 min 100 texts 100MB plus $3 to up it to 500 min) using any sprint phon. How do you use a CDMA flip phone on a smartphone plan? Ringplus and Ting do not charge extra for use of smartphones. Ringplus informed me 8 days ago that they would answer my question soon - about whether you need to pay for and enable data to get text notifications of voicemails. Assurance Wireless is giving new and returning customers unlimited texts, along with the 250 min all 'free', paid for out of phone surcharges, for which the provider gets $10/month. You could get the same or more service cheaper with Ting ($9 for 500 min plus 100MB data) or RingPlus ($2 for 100 min plus 4 cents/min - Jim never even uses this much). $10 with RingPlus could get you a plan with 400 min and 300MB, or $8 300 min and 100MB.\ A friend is paying Verizon $80/month for minimal service on two phones. RingPlus unlimited minutes is $18. The same friend pays for landline. RingPlus does play ads while you wait for someone to answer, but so do a lot of businesses when they put you on hold, and the other party does not hear the ads.
RingPlus charges 6 cents per MMS :(
So use email instead. Ringplus claims you don't need to turn on data to get text notifications of voicemails. A friend wants to get a qwerty-keyboard feature phone, the kind with tiny keyboard on bottom half and small screen on top, to send texts. I keep offering to show him how to type faster with T9 predictive text. A phone I gave another friend who insisted T9 did not work and she needed a physical keyboard turns out to have the best T9 of any feature phone. It predicts words from a few letters and even predicts the following word in a commonly typed phrase. It also does 3G and has an SD card slot and music player! The friend who wants the plastic keyboard types with one or two fingers and would probably find it faster to use the alphabetic keypad. I found several android keyboard apps that let you choose between 'full', 'compact' (QW ER etc. - 2 char/key) and 'T9' (abc def.....). The latter two can do predictive text, given a dictionary, and provide much larger areas to aim at with a finger that is fatter than the key on the standard keyboard (small phone). Multiling, Smart, and a really odd Swedish one with 5 char per key, the central one being e t a i o n or a with umlaut, and the less used ones requiring that you swipe up down left or right. Multiling has a date and a time 'key'. None of the compact or t9 keyboards do predictive text when used with connectbot to ssh to sdf to do email, nor do they work with the Ctrl key (found in connectbot by pressing the screen) with or without predictive text (I turned it off and type Ctrl and three taps of abc, with either no result or something random). If I try to use predictive text, no chars appear. Pressing Next gives me the text predicted for the word last typed before starting connectbot. Most keyboards (full) won't even let me log in. Keyboards with compact or T9 include Perfect, A, Super, Tio, Dextr, SmallQwerty, and LittleBig (the Swedish one - which surprisingly works perfectly with connectbot but would take a long time to learn). LittleBig is a 76K download, Super is 6MB. My phone is short on memory and Multiling uses up 10MB of it (leaving 36MB to run in, AFTER killing all the app that start themselves up, or keep starting every time you kill them). Multiling and Smart offer optional arrow keys. Hacker's has Ctrl Alt and I think Fn keys but not a compact layout. There are various ways to get at number and symbol keys.
> Cell phone plans - what do you prefer and why? > > [...] > > So use email instead. > > [...] > > [long description of how one or another cellphone text entry method > works] Are you for real, keesan?
T9 is great if you text English
There is also Spanish T9. And with an android phone you can download dictionaries for many other languages. I just learned that Freedompop free phone does not work understandably at 3G speeds, but the 500MB free data might be worth a $20 activation fee. However my phone has RandomROM on it which might not activate and I am waiting to hear if I get my money back in case of failure. 500 texts also free. $2/month for 50 min on a different Sprint phone with Ringplus. I have a couple of 3G Sanyo Sprint phones from about 2004 with excellent sound.
resp:8 Slim Thug is the boss.
Re. #3: I was able to transfer my existing smartphone plan
(I had an LG Optimus) to a flip phone (Samsung Entro).
I was able to get free wifi calling working (just pay for the internet connection) on a smartphone. First I tried the free Freedompop app and it was unintelligible via wifi and would be worse using phone data at less than half the speed. Adjusting from 16 to 44 KHz helped some. I tried GrooveIp and it sounds boomy and barely usable. I then got myself a new WA state number from ipkall to go with my free callcentric VOIP number (1777....) and pointed Google Voice at the WA state number (had to verify it). I installed Zoiper for Android on the phone, used Google Voice to place the call, and it rang both parties and the sound was almost as good as over our hardware ATA (analog telephone adaptor). Freedompop gives 200 free VOIP minutes using its own app, plus 500 texts (which don't work for the first 24 hours) and 500MB (of which 400MB are usable without setting your account to let you go over 500MB and pay for extra). You can also pay $2.50/month for voicemail, and $4 to roll over unused MB, and various other add-ons. At 1.2MB per phone minute, I could make about 350 min of calls, or use it for voicemail or to check the weather. Andy, why did you transfer your plan to a non-smartphone?
Re. #11: My smartphone reached the end of its useful life.
The battery wouldn't hold a decent charge, the operating
system was out of date (wouldn't work with some of the
apps I use most, e.g. Google Maps) and reception had
become very hit-or-miss. I didn't want to lose my smart
-phone plan and certainly didn't want to start paying
for each text message. Fortunately I was able to keep my
existing plan and transfer it to an inexpensive flip
phone that has nice audio quality, decent reception and
great battery life (I charge it once or twice per week).
I would like to find an inexpensive way to call the
U.K. and Canada. I used to use Skype but moved to Google
Hangouts for video chat and I don't think that offers
calls to telephones the way that Skype did through
"SkypeOut". I should probably look for a UK SIP
termination (and perhaps origination) provider and run a
SIP client on an Android tablet.
You can replace the battery for about $4 at ebay. You can phone US and Canada with GrooveIP via wifi even if the cell phone part of your phone is dead. Doesn't Google Maps work from a browser? A neighbor kindly gave me a 2010 Sprint phone upgraded to Android 2.3.6 and I have not run into any apps that will not work with it. 2.2 won't work with most of the internet radio apps I tried with it but other apps work.
Re. #13: On an Android smartphone Google Maps works through
an Android app, not through the Web browser. I thought
about putting Cyanogenmod on it and giving it to my
daughter for use as a miniature tablet but that turned
out to be horribly difficult to install and someone else
has already given her an iPod Touch, which works for
FaceTime and the odd game.
Google Maps 4.70 (from http://freewarelovers.com) 6MB works with Android 2.3.6. I did not try 5.0. Opera at http://maps.google.com displays only the left 2/3 of any map. I also found much smaller old apps for Kindle and Google Play (Market) but in 2.3.6 Google Play updates itself every time you try to use it. The older version does not insist on running continuously and it uses far less RAM and in 2.2.3 (2009 phone) it only updates with permission. I now have new icons for Latitude Navigation and Places as well as Maps. It would be nice to get just Maps. Navigation insists on GPS (which I turned off since I am indoors). Places lists things I would never go to such as bars and coffee and gas stations. Two local minor museums, a park in Wixom, assorted places in Westland and Stockbridge, a lawyr in Brighton, places in Tipton, Manchester, Royal Oak, Kalamazoo, Jackson, Ohio, Windsor, various MI cities I never heard of, but it omits nearly all the local museums, the university, farmer's market, library, food stores..... Looks like these are paid listings. Version 3.4.0 is only 4MB but will not download.
Google Play store let me download Freemaps 1.6MB, no ads, typed in 48103 and got our street (with wifi turned on). Instant load. Info comes from OpenStreetMap and OpenLayers.org No settings except Close. No lists of gas stations and restaurants. No driving directions. Usable offline, I think. Identifies as Maps Browser and I can't find it now in Applications.
I use Sygic for GPS & maps
US Topo Maps Free (with a small ad) is excellent and works on my 2009 Android 2.2.3 phone except it runs out of memory and crashes on some of th more detailed maps (topographic). It also has street maps, cycle maps, contour maps, Bing and Google aerial maps, a satellite photo of night lights (bright areas where cities are) and much more some of which requires the pro edition. Free Maps did not work on the Android 4.1 phone but did on the older ones. It loads street maps quickly if you type in the zip code. Still trying to activate Freedompop phone. They identified it as a later model and the instructions do not work nor does the code. It should do a reset and lose all my settings and probably all my apps and possibly my custom ROM - we will see. If it resets to factory settings (android 2.1?) I can try to root it so as to stop all those Google apps from trying to run all the time (Voicemail, 78MB of Play Store that insists on updating before use, Amazon MP3, Sprint activation...).
Lost all my apps but not the ROM. The donor's son recently informed me that he had changed the MSL from Sprint to 000000 so it could be used with Freedompop. To change it back I need (1) Windows (2) 23MB download Samsung phone USB driver (expands on installation) (3) DFS CDMA tool (5 MB) (4) Microsoft .NET framework 4.0 (30 MB download, expands a lot) (5) put the phone into diagnostic mode - two different ways (a) *983*87274# or (b) ##8778# choose MODEM for both options (6) plug in phone, start DFS, wait 20 sec for countdon on free 'demo' (7) click on Port (it will find it) and Diagnostic Interface, (8) in SPC box type in 000000 (the MSL in this case) (9) click on Programming and SPC edit (10) in the white box STR enter the new MSL which Freedompop gave me to reset with. (11) click Write, Reboot, start DFS again and see if it is Unlocked Then try resetting the phone again with the correct (original) MSL, and do PRL and PRI updates, and any other updates it will agree to, and reinstall the FP app and try to phone. (Texting will not work for 24-48 hours). Or try data with wifi turned off. Then if that does not work, flash it with a stock ROM after which I can hopefully get it to work with Freedompop and then change the ROM and root it and stop Amazon MP3, Google Messaging and Voicemail and Search and Gmail etc. from running all the time and wasting memory, and reinstall my apps. I wanted to root it anyway and you can only root the original ROM, I read. (After trying several programs to root 2.3.4 on another phone). The friend steered me to one 'stock' ROM that is rooted already. If anyone other than Bellstar and Todd is still reading this item, I would appreciate help with rooting phones.
Dunno how to do that one. Good luck
The computer (two programs) cannot communicate with the phone.
Re. #19: I vaguely remember that I was supposed to "root" my
LG Optimus in order to get Cyanogenmod on it for my
daughter. That turned out to be non-trivial. I now have
a GSM smartphone that I could try but I have yet to even
check whether that one is supported.
Make sure to have the latest SSL
For your Android rooting purposes look up ODIN.
freedompop says the rooted rom wont work and to flash original rom. it is 2.1 so i will try a newer stock rooted ram first. got bitpim working on sanyo with usb modem driver for scp 3810 so can copy photos to an xp pc. in the process got lots of malware. i hate windows. but can now use ringplus if i want and take usable photos the phone. no transfer of mp3s. choose 31000 or 3200. other sprint bitpim phones need special cables not microusb. good thimg i do not NEED a cell phone. is this still summer agora aka bellstar blog?
It's Globally Warm and Summer is Eternal.
staples office supply has marked down net10 lg l35g android 2.3 phone 800mhz 4gb sd card from $50 to $10. Not sure if this involves a rebate from net10, which requires $50/mo plan to use it as a cell phone. MSRP $90.
I got four Kroger Coolpad phones in Dec for $10 plus tax each. The two neighbor kids (ages 8 and 10) are enjoying Coolpads. Without service. You can make wifi phone calls with GrooveIP or FreedomPop software. I also got a Sprint Android phone working with FreedomPop - 500MB free data per month, and 200 min of talk that is VOIP and barely understandable even with LTE speeds. I have been testing and selling cell phones for Kiwanis. Anything that can be used to phone with will sell for $5 (or more) even with no charger or no battery or bad charge port. Donations accepted. Someone bought a phone for the tetris game, someone else for the ringtones. He offered to let me keep the phone and just send the ringtones but I was unable to do that. Ringplus has the cheapest voice plans. $18 for unlimited talk and about 400MB data, $8 for 300 min and 100MB. Freedompop gives 1GB/month free data with an LTE hotspot and 500MB with a 3G hotspot. Must be Sprint (not Virgin Mobile or Boost Mobile) phone.
My personal smartphone failed and was eventually
recycled. I replaced it with a Samsung Entro flip phone that
was $8 brand new and has decent audio quality. I kept it on
my old smartphone plan so US$ 25/month +ehft gets me 300
minutes of talk and unlimited text messages. Theoretically I
have unlimited data too but on a 1.8" screen with a dire Web
browser, I don't really count that.
My work smartphone failed and was replaced with an Apple
iPhone 4s. It has some quirks and lacks some of the
applications I found most useful on Android but it's
tolerable for email, maps and the occasional voice call.
You can get a used smartphone from ebay to use with your unlimited data. Or change to a cheaper plan if you don't want or use data. It might be worth paying to terminate a $25/month contract, in order to save $17/month. Three of my friends now use Ringplus (instead of CREDO at $70/month, or Tracfone at 10 cents/min). The CREDO user was paying for about 1GB/month of data and uses less than 1MB/month.
I'm not in a contract. The $25/month plan is pre-paid. If I bought a new smartphone that would probably jump to $35 /month. I did look at Tracfone but if I use more than 3 Gbytes in a month then Virgin Mobile is cheaper, even at the increased $35/month rate. I haven't seen Ringplus.
I thought you implied you were not using the data because of the small screen. For $8/month with Ringplus you can get 300 min plus 100MB on any Sprint phone. $24/month gets you unlimited talk and text, and 1GB data. http://ringplus. net They make money by selling advertising space on the rings. You hear 5-20 sec commercials but the callee does not. Three of my friends use it now and say all the ads are musical so when the music stops they know someone answered and put the phone back on their ear.
I'm not currently using data on my personal mobile phone because it's a flip phone with an unusable Web browser and a tiny screen. If I buy a new smartphone, then I'll need a data plan for it.
So why pay $25/month for a data plan right now? If you get a Sprint android phone you can have 500MB/month free data from Freedompop. The VOIP voice part does not work too well - garbled.
Because I get unlimited text messages, which would be 15c each on the $20/month PayLo plan. I had also hoped I'd get to transfer the plan a new smartphone when I got one but that seems unlikely now.
You have several choices: