Need help - niece going to USA for 2 months

tumbleweed261

I hope she has a lovely time, if there's anything else you/her mum/she wants to know about camp feel free to PM/ask on here - she's in for the time of her life!

gulife

redux wrote: »

But 50 pence a minute is still quite a bit more than local SIM card rates from 10 cents

Hence me also recommending tracfone.

redux

gulife wrote: »

Hence me also recommending tracfone.

which costs 25 or 33 cents a minute, when others are 10 to 20 cents

and tracfone is restricted to use only with their own phones

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/usa.html

The brands on T-mobile will be better with a triband phone, as Cingular uses 850 MHz that won't be on there.

Use a calling card with a local access number. Tuyo has it's own, and the credit can also be used via landlines

rash.m2k

try MobiVOX - google for it. It's like skype. You buy a local simcard and then call a local number and then you can call all number in your phone book for how much the local call costs you.

gulife

redux wrote: »

which costs 25 or 33 cents a minute, when others are 10 to 20 cents

and tracfone is restricted to use only with their own phones

http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/usa.html

I have no idea where you are getting your information from. Its wrong. Tracfone works on a minutes and service offer (like most, if not all, other phones in the states), or, on a pay monthly top up system, where you get value minutes (not a contract).

If you don't want the value service, you simply buy top ups, and it depends on the amount of minutes and service you buy in blocks, which determines your call costs. Usually it is 0.5 credits per minute in your local area, so, for $9.99, you get 60 minutes, which, is roughly, $0.17 a minute.

Further, tracfone links off of Sprint, which has a huge network in the states.

You can also use their 'International Long Distance' service to call a 1-800 number that you can use to call international numbers, for the same price as a local call.

But yes, the phones are linked to tracfone, however, they are cheap phones, and most people will want to just use them in the usa. You can call any us cell and send/receive texts to any us cell with it too.

redux

gulife, perhaps you might revisit the OP - read the query about taking a phone and using a different SIM card. But you insist buying a phone is better, and then post incorrect tariff information

I believe that Sprint is a CDMA network; it certainly is not GSM. There are some compatibility issues between GSM and CDMA that mean text messages sent from here may well not arrive there.

At least this service is cheaper than your first suggestion of 10 times the best tariffs available.

gulife wrote: »

I have no idea where you are getting your information from. Its wrong.

I don't think so

https://www.tracfone.com/add_buy_airtime.jsp?task=buyairtime&buying_airtime=yes&fromPopup=yes

30 Minutes & ................. 9.99
45 Days of Service

which is 33 cents a minute, while their Value Plans are 20c/min

Perhaps you spent $49.99 on the card to double all future top-ups, but you didn't mention it. This might explain your error about units that are used at the rate of 1 per minute, not 0.5 as you thought.

gulife

redux wrote: »

gulife, perhaps you might revisit the OP - read the query about taking a phone and using a different SIM card. But you insist buying a phone is better, and then post incorrect tariff information

I believe that Sprint is a CDMA network; it certainly is not GSM. There are some compatibility issues between GSM and CDMA that mean text messages sent from here may well not arrive there.

At least this service is cheaper than your first suggestion of 10 times the best tariffs available.



I don't think so

https://www.tracfone.com/add_buy_airtime.jsp?task=buyairtime&buying_airtime=yes&fromPopup=yes

30 Minutes & ................. 9.99
45 Days of Service

which is 33 cents a minute, while their Value Plans are 20c/min

Perhaps you spent $49.99 on the card to double all future top-ups, but you didn't mention it. This might explain your error about units that are used at the rate of 1 per minute, not 0.5 as you thought.

Firstly, to buy a sim card in the states, is the same price as buying the chepeast tracfone handset - that comes with a sim - no different. Secondly, you cannot text international on Tracfone - i never said you could. I only said you could call international at discount rates. Third, the rates are in credits! 0.5 credits per minute, which, at $9.99 with 30 credits, works out at $0.17 a minute. Have you ever used a tracfone? No. Didn't think so, so don't tell me what you don't know.

diamonds

gulife wrote: »

Firstly, to buy a sim card in the states, is the same price as buying the chepeast tracfone handset - that comes with a sim - no different.

thats not exactly true if tracefone runs on CDMA then no sim exists, CDMA phones are hardprogrammed to work on a specific network & 9/10 cannot be unlocked from said network, I used CMDA in Australia on Orange ( name franchised ) and when they migrated all customers to 3 ( Hutchison Telecom AU owned both brands ) I could not even get the phone programmed on any CDMA network even Telstra CDMA which provided roaming for Orange before they shut down CDMA. 8 months later my $100 Nokia 2112 became a torch as this was the only feature of the mobile that still worked ( Orange barred all handsets at network closure and this crippled even the menu of the mobile ), in true non money saving style I paid $100 for a rechargable torch ! ( which I will use till the day batteries are no longer available for this mobile - considering it cost me a bomb ! )

mind you 18 cent calls a minute were aplenty to UK mobiles when it did work
suppose it done good for 8 months

redux

gulife wrote: »

Third, the rates are in credits! 0.5 credits per minute, which, at $9.99 with 30 credits, works out at $0.17 a minute. Have you ever used a tracfone? No. Didn't think so, so don't tell me what you don't know.

I doubt that people here will care for your arrogant attitude that you know better than anyone else, or better than what Tracfone itself says

I originally said that your 50 pence a minute T-mobile roaming suggestion was up to 10 times too expensive, and you've been arguing and making things up ever since.

At the bottom of the rates page on the Tracfone website it says very clearly indeed that calls are charged at one unit per minute



http://www.tracfone.com/rates.jsp?task=rates

And on the top-up link I posted before, and which you have quoted, it is completely unambiguous that 30 minutes of calls costs $9.99. Above that, 120 minutes cost $29.99, 25 cents/min

Surely it would be a paradox if the so-called Value Plans rate of 20 cents was actually more expensive than this product, which is what you are claiming?

Instead of slagging me off for producing incorrect information without provenance, why don't you bother to actually read the Tracfone website and wonder why it is at odds with your claims about their rates? Perhaps you should write to them to correct it.

gulife

redux wrote: »

Instead of slagging me off for producing incorrect information without provenance, why don't you bother to actually read the Tracfone website and wonder why it is at odds with your claims about their rates? Perhaps you should write to them to correct it.

I couldn't care less mate. I use tracfone on a quarterly basis, and always get charged 0.5 unites per minute for my local calls, and, for my international long distance access.

Just stating the facts.