|
Grex > Agora56 > #63: the near future of networked homes? | |
|
| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 290 responses total. |
tod
|
|
response 155 of 290:
| 
Feb 3 17:37 UTC 2006 |
re #153
My understanding is that there is an expiration date due to inactivity.
|
mcnally
|
|
response 156 of 290:
|
Feb 3 17:57 UTC 2006 |
re #153: Many pre-paid rechargeable cellular plans are structured
to cheat you out of your minutes by expiring them aggressively if you
don't use the service. They want you to pay them lots of money, not
use the phone once every month for two minutes..
|
keesan
|
|
response 157 of 290:
|
Feb 3 18:15 UTC 2006 |
I am trying to look up 'rechargeable minutes' and 'cell phones' and I just
learned that some school has banned cell phones for kids (they need to go
through a metal detector and a body search every day) because they might use
them for bomb threats or drug dealing. And that most children now carry them
everywhere. The school is in D. C. and the hired security staff is no longer
authorized to confiscate the phones, meaning they have to have an (assistant)
principal at the front door. 30% of the children have cell phones and use
them to call their parents for taxi service. (I would that thought they would
live close enough to walk in such a big city, or have bus service).
I found www.wirelessguide.org/plan/prepaid.htm (prepaid, not rechargeable).
The minutes expire in 30 to 90 days. You can sometimes automatically recharge
via credit card, or pay by phone or online. Tracfone has cards valid up to
1 year. Verizon has 10 cents/minutes. Liberty Wireless lets you use then
pay. Verizon also costs $1/day on top of the per-minute charge, but you can
call free at night. Liberty seems to be $30/month including 300 minutes.
Virgin Mobile (associated somehow with Amazon.com) has no monthly charge, but
you need to pay at least $20 every 90 days, and use it at least once every
60 days or it expires. Long-distance is no extra charge. They let you
automatically charge to your credit card via the phone. 25 cents/minute first
ten minutes of any day, then 10 cents/minut. text messages received free,
sent for 10 cents each. Reviews indicate that coverage is spotty. 7-11 seems
to be cheapest for low usage - how is reception around Michigan?
ZD Net reviewd 7-11 Speak-Out prepaid phone service. No contract. $50 after
rebate for the Nokia phone. Cards must be used within 45 days and cost at
least $25. This comes to about $15/month. Virgin Mobile is half that.
Someone's blog mentions that they use their cell phone as a PDA, for email,
and to send watch and listen to music and movies. Now they want 1GB storage
and a USB port so they can read mpeg4 videos from a flashdrive. How big are
these LCDs.
|
tod
|
|
response 158 of 290:
|
Feb 3 18:17 UTC 2006 |
re #156
*The recharge of SpeakOut minutes is good for 1 year from date of purchase.
Here's what my 7-11 SpeakOut booklet says:
Your prepaid system will notify you to refill your account when:
-Your account balance is at or below $2
-Your account has 10 days left before it expires
-Your account balance is too low to pay for a call
-Your account does not have enough value to continue an existing call
(The notification is a text message. After every call I make, I get a text
message telling me how much the last call cost me and what my remaining
balance is. Also, I can always hit *777# and get sent a text message of the
remaining balance.)
Minutes carry forward when you buy more time. When your account expires, you
have 45 days to refill it before your phone number is cancelled. (That means
you have 55 days to recharge your phone before your phone # expires.)
* Again, the recharge of minutes is good for 1 year from date of purchase.
Another feature I like is someone can send you a text message
{your ph #}@mobile.mycingular.com
or via SMS from their phone to your phone #..and vice versa..you can send an
SMS text message to someone else's cell phone.
I only use the phone to receive/place the rare personal call.
|
tod
|
|
response 159 of 290:
|
Feb 3 18:25 UTC 2006 |
re #158
I rescind my last statement. SpeakOut minutes are only good for 120 days.
The main thing to remember though is that they don't charge you for "roaming".
Others (like AT&T Free2Go) will suck up your minutes if you go out of area.
Plus, others will make your minutes expire sooner than 120 days if you buy
less time. Examples:
Verizon "Free-Up" $15 refill only good for 30 days or $30 for 60 days
TMobile "EasySpeak" $10 refill 30 days and $25 to 90 days
These guys will kill you on roaming charges.
There's a good Forum review at
http://forums.wirelessadvisor.com/southern-us-wireless-forum/2079-7-eleven-
spe
ak-out-wireless.html
|
keesan
|
|
response 160 of 290:
|
Feb 3 18:55 UTC 2006 |
Thanks for the info. I found also Net10, 60 days of 300 minutes $30, which
comes to $15/month if you don't use more than 5 min/day. 5 cents per text
message. No other fees. Your $25 for 120 days is certainly the cheapest
for very low usage, but twice the cost per minute. I don't know if Net10 lets
you use your own phone. Kiwanis has very cheap used phones. Net10 offers
$30 used (refurbished) Nokia phones with a choice of cover colors and 37 ring
tones. (So you can hear yours in a crowd?). No roaming charges for Net10.
|
tod
|
|
response 161 of 290:
|
Feb 3 18:59 UTC 2006 |
I have mine set to vibrate and ring in crowd situations. Work hours, its set
to only vibrate.
Boeing Surplus has a big box of used cell phones, too. They're maybe $3 each.
I think its much easier to just use the phone that comes with the plan though
because they use SIM chips and providers may charge you a setup fee if you
bring your own..plus batteries might not last as long on older phones, etc..
I have a boeing surplus phone in my wife's car with no service plan. Its
there if she needs to call 911.
|
mcnally
|
|
response 162 of 290:
|
Feb 3 19:25 UTC 2006 |
re #146:
> I think Vonage offers a little widget that plugs into your network
> and has an ordinary phone jack on it, so you can use whatever regular
> phones you own.
They do. Those devices are commonly called "ATAs" (for "Analog Telephone
Adapter.")
|
gull
|
|
response 163 of 290:
|
Feb 3 19:37 UTC 2006 |
SIM chips can be moved from handset to handset *if* the handset is
"unlocked." Most handsets that are sold with cellular phone service
are locked to one particular network, and another network's SIM card
won't work. eBay is a good source for unlocked phones.
|
tod
|
|
response 164 of 290:
|
Feb 3 19:57 UTC 2006 |
re #163
The first thing I did with this 7-11 SpeakOut was jam it up with crack
attempts. Then, I called customer service at Nokia and get the PUK #'s.
Yay me. ;)
|
keesan
|
|
response 165 of 290:
|
Feb 4 00:05 UTC 2006 |
Jim pointed out that you can get call-waiting, which is $6/month, and knocks
you off the computer when someone calls (unless you have a tone phone and dial
with *70 before the ISP number). However you don't get any signal that this
is happening ,and would need to watch the little black square in icewm that
indicates a connection. But sometimes it puts garbage on the screen instead
of knocking you off and you have to hangup the computer and answer the phone
before the caller gives up. .
|
drew
|
|
response 166 of 290:
|
Feb 4 06:44 UTC 2006 |
I handled that problem by running the modem with speaker continuously on. (AT
M2).
|
keesan
|
|
response 167 of 290:
|
Feb 4 13:38 UTC 2006 |
Another solution, for $8/month, would be voice mail with SBC, but people would
still need to wait 3 hours to be called back.
|
keesan
|
|
response 168 of 290:
|
Feb 5 03:04 UTC 2006 |
Net10 says you have to buy their phone, you can't move over the SIM.
Our friends have a cell phone already, they bought it 2 years ago used ($2?)
with cradle/charger) and once put some minutes on it with Verizon and used
it once or twice and lost interest. I think we can get them another
rechargeable lithium battery in some shell for another cell phone, for $1,
at Kiwanis, and charge it so they can use it for 911. He is on the computer
6-7 am and 4-6 pm and she is used to this. He forgot there was no problem.
Today we stopped at Kiwanis to get a ride with him and Jim went to get a modem
and he asked me 'what am I waiting for?'. 'Jim'. We tried to set him up to
browse without images and turn them on only as needed, and cache them for 24
hours, but he likes to see the latest stock charts and can't remember how to
load images so now we are back to the slow method again. We made him a script
'e' to go directly to email, but one to go directly to a login page sent Opera
into an endless loop (99.9% cpu usage). He has four bookmarks and is happy.
We told him to tell all his friends to write him at his webmail instead of
grex but also made him a 'g' script to ssh to grex, where Jim set him up to
go straight into Pine email. Now we are all set to make another such computer
for anyone else who wants to go on the internet in 30MB or less.
|
keesan
|
|
response 169 of 290:
|
Feb 8 20:49 UTC 2006 |
Jim charged for two days the Motorola cell phone from our friends that they
had not used for 2 years. The battery reads 3.3V now. How does he test
whether it is working? Where would he look for an ON or POWER button, or how
else can you test it short of phoning 911? The LCD screen has nothing on it.
|
tod
|
|
response 170 of 290:
|
Feb 8 20:53 UTC 2006 |
He should be able to turn it on and get a message from the local provider's
network.
|
keesan
|
|
response 171 of 290:
|
Feb 8 20:55 UTC 2006 |
HOW does he turn it on and who is 'the local provider'?
|
tod
|
|
response 172 of 290:
|
Feb 8 22:06 UTC 2006 |
dial a #
the voice message should tell you who the local cell provider is
|
keesan
|
|
response 173 of 290:
|
Feb 9 02:18 UTC 2006 |
How do we dial a number without turning it on first?
If it is sitting in the cradle it is lighted and has some writing on the
screen, but when removed from the cradle it is blank. Does this mean the
battery has too little current?
|
bru
|
|
response 174 of 290:
|
Feb 9 03:43 UTC 2006 |
push the red button and hold it down for 10 seconds, it should turn on. You
wouldn't know anyone who has a used bike for sale cheap.
|
keesan
|
|
response 175 of 290:
|
Feb 9 16:07 UTC 2006 |
Kiwanis has used bikes for $10. Reuse Center has used bikes for negotiable
prices, probably $10. If you promise to keep the bike indoors when you are
not using it, Jim could tune up whatever you bought if you biked it to us,
which is easy to do from Kiwanis. Look for something with the newer style
of brakes that does not say Murray or Huffy or Sears on it. Aluminum wheels
are also better quality, lighter and don't rust. Jim might be willing to meet
you at Kiwanis some time. We gave away our extra bikes already.
|
ball
|
|
response 176 of 290:
|
Feb 24 09:20 UTC 2006 |
Tracfone (and probably other prepaid mobile phone companies)
use phones with custom firmware that prevents their use with
a different provider and prevents people from using phones
from other service providers.
Keesan: let me know if you need a Tracfone.
|
keesan
|
|
response 177 of 290:
|
Feb 24 15:54 UTC 2006 |
Thanks, but our friends appear to have given up on the idea of a cell phone.
They tried one 2 years ago and left it recharging since then.
|
ball
|
|
response 178 of 290:
|
Feb 27 01:45 UTC 2006 |
I should post a rant to the electronics conference about
equipment designed with defective charge circuits that can
cook a battery.
A wireless LAN should be a feature of my next home. I will
even install one here if I am able to arrange broadband
service. DSL would probably be least expensive, but as
mentioned in the telephone wiring item I'm struggling to get
a phone jack installed. :-/
|
keesan
|
|
response 179 of 290:
|
Mar 6 21:42 UTC 2006 |
Jim asks, if you have DSL and a network, does the main computer need to be
left on all the time in order to use the DSL on another computer? If so, I
presume you don't need monitor or keyboard, and maybe you can run it from RAM
and have the hard drive powered down. How much power would a server like this
use? He is thinking about using one wireless PCMCIA network card to share
a neighbor's DSL, then cabling a couple of other computers to that one. We
have a desktop PCMCIA slot for the card.
|