I’ve moved into my new apartment, and instead of a land phone, I want to get a cell phone there. Central Kentucky is where I’m located.
Keeping in mind that I’ve never had a phone of any sort, never really used one until I was 14 years old, and know absolutely NOTHING about how to go about getting one hooked up (right now I use my college’s phone system which each student gets), can anybody tell me where to begin?
Do I call the regular phone company for a cell phone? Or do I go to the store? I see cell phones for sale in places like Wal-Mart, so is that where I go to get one? And how do I get it set up?
I want something as cheap as possible that will simply allow me to be reached if I need to be, not something to chat on for hours and hours (I use the Internet for that).
First, ask other students, or people who use cell phones around your school, which cell network works best in the area.
Then, go to the local store for that network.
(Cingular or Verizon stores, e.g., are all over the place around here.)
They can tell you about the different plans, costs, and supply the phone.
Maybe a pay by the minute plan will work. On those type of plans you pay for your minutes in advance and can be obtained in many places. Not intended for the flibbertygibbit they may be more economical for one who wants only to make occasional contact.
I have a lot of cell phones and accounts because of family stuff and work so I can tell you a bit about what it’s like here. There are two major types of plans (1) airtime packages and (2) pay as you go.
The most common is (1). You go to a cell phone store, such as Spring, AT&T, and Verizon. emm’s idea of checking around with people is a great idea. But, for this kind of account, you can typically get a free phone in exchange for agreeing to stay on as a customer for 1 or 2 years. You have to buy an “airtime” package. These tend to run about $40 a month for about 450 minutes of airtime. WHen you’re on it, you’re using airtime minutes whether you made the call or just answered the phone. It typically doesn’t matter if it’s a long-distance call or a local call (although International calls cost a lot more). For this kind of plan, most cell phone companies run a credit check on you while you’re in the store.
The (2) pay as you go option means that you make no committment, have either no monthly charge or a very small one, and then you simply pay per minute. As mentioned, this is cheaper only if you use the phone very little. If you use it a good bit, it’s better to buy an airtime account. No credit check required. In fact, one of the reasons the pay-as-you-go-method is to make customers out of people with poor credit histories.
Oh, and yes, you can get cell phones, and get signed up for accounts, in RadioShack, Wal-Mart, BestBuy and all kinds of places. They are just acting as agents for the cell phone companies.
In the UK the cheap option is called “Pay as you go”. (This may well be the same as Flying Cursor’s “Pay per minute”.)
I use this. I pay 20 Pounds for a certain amount of communications time. This lasts me three or four months. If it’s three months, I could get an equally good deal on a contract - it it’s more, then I’m doing better.
One thing to be aware of is that coverage is not guaranteed, or consistent. For example, Work Colleagues who live in Crowthorne have to go into the garden to use their “cellphone” (we call them “mobiles” here). Same for people I know in Wendover (Buckinghamshire). And in Cornwall & Devon there are great tracts of country (by our standards) where you just never get a signal.
So invite a few friends on different networks over to your place so they can check the signal. They shouldn’t even have to make a call - most mobiles/cellphones these days will indicate signal strength.
But if you are counting the pennies, then “Pay as you Go” is the method to use. Not all networks in the UK do this, - you’ll need to check what the situation is in the U.S. - so you need to have done your homework before you go to the shops. But when you are in the shop, the cheapest model will do you. You don’t need Bluetooth or games downloads or integral shiatsu massaging. All phones will do calls and texting - any these days even the cheapest models will have integral date & time, calendar functions and some kind of game. No more wristwatch, unless you enjoy having a strap on your wrist!
I have a traditional cell phone plan where I pay a set amount per month for a set amount of minutes, and if I use more minutes than my allowance I get billed a whole lot more, and roaming is extra too. Mine costs $29.99 plus tax for 300 anytime minutes per month, and I get 1000 night and weekend minutes a month free. Usually that’s fine, except if we’re on vacation and my husband calls his mother and talks for a long time, since our local area is only about 30 miles around town.
My blind friend has one of the phones where you buy a card and pay for a certain number of airtime minutes. We had to call from his landline to set it up when he first got it, and they give you this whole long string of numbers to key into the phone to activate it. Since then when he needs more minutes I just take the phone home and go to their website and then I have the numbers on the screen in front of me to key in, and it’s a lot easier. You have to either buy new cards and activate them every 60 days, or buy a year plan. If you don’t reactivate the account every 60 days (without the year plan), then your service is disconnected and you have to get a new phone number. There’s a display on the screen that shows when your airtime expires, but of course my blind friend couldn’t read that so his expired once - that was a royal pain to get reactivated! So now he gets the year card. He wanted this particular one (which starts with a T - I don’t know if we should mention specific companies here) because he heard Paul Harvey advertise it.
There’s about a bajillion different choices out there and it’s real easy to get confused. Just don’t let the sales reps talk you into something with options you’ll never use, even though they get higher commisions for selling those plans.
My phone has the capability to access the Internet, but why? My phone is for phone calls, my camera is for pictures, and my computer is for the Internet. I don’t want something that you need a manual the size of the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary to use!
Given your status a a money strapped student, I strongly suggest avoiding the major providers, as they almost all require plans that mean monthly charges and they have no patience for late payments, and you can’t just quit using it an stop being billed. You have to pay out the contract, sometimes even if the phone is no longer working!!
I suggest getting something along the line of a Trackphone - you buy the phone for about $20 and it comes with some minutes included in the purchase. I use mine a lot, so it made sense for me to go with the “Double Minutes” opeion, which cost about $50 up front, but doubles the value of any more minutes I buy for it for the life of the phone, which is a very good deal for me in my circumstances (kids to check on, band members to keep track of at gig time, etc.). I doubt that you would be using yours that much, but hey… you may find our you have phone whoa and become a jabberer,
What I like most about the Trackphone (others do offer this too) is there is NO contract - If I can’t afford to add minutes one month, it’s no big deal.
You can search by zip code and find user comments about cell phone reception in a given area. I did not find the zip for Berea, KY, because I’m too lazy to look it up, but I keyed in the zip for [an area college which must not be named] because it was easy to find, and the website returned several pages of comments.
Just scanning through the results, it looks like AT&T and Nexel had the best overall reception, but every provider had problems somewhere, especially as callers get outside of Berea.
I use Pay-as-you-go, as my phone usage is strictly need-to-call-or-be-called basis. If I exceed £5 ($10) of usage in a month I’ve been excessively garrulous.
You might want to get a handset that is not tied to one network - some are. That way you can get different simcards from different providers without having to buy another handset, if you are unhappy with the charges. Providers have a habit of changing the terms and charges without notice.
The simcard is the microchip inside the phone that stores all your personal data. You can remove it (it’s designed for users to remove) and move it to another phone when you need to change your handset. Many Pay-as-you-go options here in the UK offer just a simcard, and you choose your own handset to suit your needs. Like Charlene, I already have a digital camera so I don’t want one in my phone - though they do have their uses.
Oh - once I had my handset and simcard, it took a few hours to charge the phone’s battery, then I dialled a number (given with the simcard) to register the phone number as active, and within 24 hours at most, but more like 10 minutes in actual fact, I got a message from the provider that my phone was ready for use.
