Old T-Mobile branded Nokia 3390 for SASE?

Some of you may remember that my trip to visit Lisa was marred by my cellphone taking a brief plunge in the Gulf of Mexico.

It worked for a while, miraculously, but then it died. The phone just won't power on anymore; Howie took the cover off and sees that the switch inside is bad. The SIM card in it, however, is still good.

T-Mobile wants to charge us $79 for a replacement Nokia 3390, and that's only if we sign a 2-year contract with them. If we don't sign a contract, it's $129 for the phone!

I'm steamed. These wireless "services" can charge whatever exhorbitant fees they want, because their customers are under contract. Howie went through the typical escalation process at the customer service call center, but to no avail. If we'd been customers longer, they'd give us a break, they say. Grrrr.

We spoke to a local T-Mobile rep and he said we can transfer the SIM card into another Nokia 3390 as long as the phone is a T-Mobile GSM phone (they have a unique chipset in them for their network).

Here's the interesting bit...

Howie opened up his Samsung SGH-R225M phone and the SIM card was the same size. He put my phone's SIM card in it, and it worked. I dialed my number and it rang on his phone!

So...We're on the prowl for a T-Mobile GSM phone. We know my SIM works on the Nokia 3390 and the Samsung SGH-R225M. We suspect it will work in any T-Mobile GSM phone, but we've no way to test others.

Does anyone have one for SASE or a reasonable cost?

Aha...Just learned that my SIM will work on any T-Mobile GSM 1900 phone. It will also work on any GSM 1900 phone that's unlocked. The 1900 refers to the frequency, I gather. Interesting how you learn when in crisis, huh?

Crisis?? LOL..........Kim I remember when we only had pay phones.

"eyes"

Well...You know. We don't *need* our computers, either! ;)

Belive it or not, I don't have a cell phone. And it's because I don't believe we should have to buy into their contracts. While in England last year I found that everyone just bought a phone, went into the nearest convenience store and bought minutes for it. That's what I want and that's what I'm holding out for. I think it'll come to that at some point. I don't want to pay them a monthly service fee and I don't want to sign a contract for 1 or 2 years and be penalized if I change services. I now have a great long distance service on my regular phone line that I pay 2.5 cents per minute for and no monthly fee whatsoever. I just go into their site and add $50 or whatever. I want a mobile phone service that offers the same. Oh, if anyone's interested, it's https://www.onesuite.com/default.asp

We used the pre-paid plan by TracFone, but we found a deal with T-Mobile which only costs $25/each splitting the family plan 5 ways. We can call each others' cellphones for free, and we get free weekends. There's no roaming, as long as there's a T-Mobile tower where we are, and their coverage is pretty good.

There are a lot of pre-paid wireless plans coming out...TracFone, Virgin Mobile, etc. They're a great alternative for those who don't use a cellphone except for the occasional call.

stella, T-Mobile offers 'buy the minutes' plan. That's what DH and my SIL have.

Are these no-monthly-fee and no contract plans? I knew what I wanted would come along at some point. But how expensive are those minutes? Hmmm....

yes. you buy certain $$ cards. 10, 30, 50 and up. He gets extra credit almost everytime he buys minutes. Thirty dollars lasts him a couple of months unless he uses it a lot. And they do come with expiration times, you have to use all your minutes in a certain time. (a couple of months for $30, 2 weeks for $10) If we are broke, we just wait and buy minutes when we can, we keep the phone number and all. He got a new phone, $30 worth of minutes and a $20 rebate for $74 at T-mobile.

On my personal cellphone,I have a monthly contract.It works for us because we are in business for ourselves and it's a write off.

For Mother's Day,I went and bought a phone and use Prepaid minutes from Cingular for Mom. She won't use one nearly as much as I do,but I still wanted her to be able to get in touch with someone if she needs to.I can even buy minutes for it at the gas station if I want!

I noticed the other day at Wal-Mart that they had cell phone kits in blister packs that you just bought like a Walkman or something.Everything is included,no contracts or hassle.I think AT&T was on the label.

We are on Verison and they offer a pre-paid plan too,but the Cingular deal is cheaper for us to do because of how seldom Mom uses her phone.

I'm thinking of checking around for cheaper cell plone service now that you can take your number with you in the same area code. My service provider is US Cellular, and they don't have a license to service the 2 counties where I plan to move, even though it's the same area.

I don't want to have a land line at all when I move, unless I cannot get cable service for the computer. My choices then would be telephone line and slow modem, or satellite.