| Steven M. Scharf 2005-05-19, 11:51 am |
| Steven M. Scharf wrote:
> Russell wrote:
> Do they let you sign up if you're not in one of the states that they
> list? If so, when you're in an area that they don't cover, are you
> roaming, or are you okay as long as you're on the AT&T/Cingular TDMA
> network?
I'll answer my own question. The answer is that you can sign up for
Beyond Wireless, no matter where you live, using one of their area
codes. However you will be roaming for every call, at 4x the cost, so it
will be about 57 cents per minute on the cheapest card. I think that
they are using some other TDMA network other than AT&T, hence the
roaming when you are on AT&T.
You get 35 minutes when you sign up (no credit card needed). So you
actually can have an emergency phone for about 18 months, at no cost, as
long as you make one call every 60 days (2 months/4 minutes * 35
minutes). It's great for an emergency phone, but for an occasional use
phone, CallPlus is a better deal.
Beware that activating your own phone with Beyond Wireless isn't easy.
You call and call, just to get through, then they put you on hold, and
you get disconnected a few times. But I did activate, with a 352 area
code, with no problem.
Beyond Wireless will only activate Nokia TDMA phones. I asked about a
Motorola phone, and they didn't want to do it.
CallPlus will cost you $3.33/month minimum.
What amazes me is just how good the Cingular/AT&T TDMA network still is.
While GSM in the SF Bay Area has a lot of dead spots (including in urban
parts of Silicon Valley), I have experienced no such TDMA problems.
There are lots of TDMA phones available, probably most people have some
laying around, or know someone who changed to GSM (like my mother, who
now has terrible coverage on her GSM phone in Georgia!).
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