Here is my situation. My cell phone is for me. It’s not a noose or bell that I’ve tied around my neck so others can lead me where they want or find me. I turn it on when I need to make a call or when I’m meeting someone. Otherwise it’s off. I use about 20 - 30 minutes of talk time a month. It hasn’t been worth it for me to get an actual wireless plan. Instead I’ve had a Tracfone for several years. It’s been working fine.
However, my phone is outdated. It’s big and clunky. It’s analog and has no voice mail. Tracfone has newer phones, although they aren’t as fancy as the ones offered by Virgin Mobile. Tracfone seems to be more expensive per minute than VM and it’s renewal cycle is every 60 days versus 90 for VM. It looks like VM is a clear winner.
There is a catch though. It seems that VM uses Sprint’s network and only Sprint’s network. In other words, if you are not in range of Sprint’s network you have no service. They don’t hand the call to another carrier and call it roaming. Can anyone verify this?
I’m in Sprint’s coverage area about 90% of the time. The problem is that the other 10% of the time might be when I really need a cell phone. This might be a fatal strike against VM.
So, what is everyone’s thoughts? I’m going to get a new phone. The question is, who do I buy it from? Is there perhaps a prepaid or minimal plan that I’m overlooking? From what I can tell, AT&T and Verizon do not have prepaid plans for my area.
I have to disagree here. I’ve had cell service for over two years for around $8/month. That seems like a great deal to me considering the cheapest “plan” I can find is $25+/month. It doesn’t matter if the cost per minute is much less if I’m not using the minutes.
I guess what I’m hoping for is a confirmation of VM having no service in areas not covered by Sprint’s PCS network (ie. most of my home state of Wisconsin). I’m also curious if there are any other services out there that I’m missing. Our local Walmart has prepaid wireless cards for other services, but they aren’t available in my area from what I can tell. That doesn’t seem to be very good use of self space.
I have a VM phone and so far I like it. I’ve had it since March or so. I have only used it for about 6 bucks out of the 10 I first got, but I have now used it in Conneticut, Boston area, Tennessee and Alabama as well as here in the DC area all without problem. I can not say how it will work in your area though. I’m also not sure if they will work outside of Sprint’s area.
According to this site, VM really only does serve the Sprint area, and nothing else.
I had a tracfone for about two years and it worked okay for me. I would really try to find someone in your area with VM though, because in my town Sprint service is horrible (so says my best friend, anyway).
I have a VM phone (and I’ve used Tracfone) and my VM phone will go into roaming mode occassionally. This is important to know, because you can get “dinged” pretty heavily if you make a call while roaming, nor does my phone come with option to disable roaming (but other VM phones do).
As far as the overall service goes, I’d say that they are about equal, though VM is cheaper.
Huh?,
I have been with VM since the beginning (on my second phone now, the first one died) and I have NEVER seen or heard of a VM phone “roaming”, as far as I know they either work or they don’t (this has been my experience and I work on the road 8 or 10 months a year). In response to the OP, VM is “PCS only” and it uses the Sprint network so go to Sprint and look at the PCS (red) coverage for your area (that’s what I did).
Well, my phone’s the Kyocera “Party Animal” and it does have roaming (even has the little “R” on the LCD display). I know this, because I live 2.4 miles from the nearest Sprint tower (the range for a cell tower is 2.5 miles) and inside my house, with the phone in my pocket, I can get the phone to drop into roaming mode (as signified by the annoying “Beep”) if I move just right. A buddy of mine has a VM phone (don’t know the name or model) and he has a setting in his phone menu to block roaming. I threw out the manual for my phone a while back but it did mention something about roaming in it (and what the charges would be).
A. Calls are 25 cents a minute for the first ten minutes each day. Every minute after that is only 10 cents. No monthly bills, no long distance fees, and no roaming charges. 25/10.
I think that “annoying beep” is telling you that you have a text message.
One thing I forgot to say is that these Kyocera phones are specially programmed for VM and they have features that don’t work with VM service, there might be something “off” with your phone.
If you put 100 into the account, you pay .15 per minute and the funds last for 1 year. That works out to about $8.50/month and 55 mins/month. If you put less than 100, you pay .25 per minute and the funds last for 90 days.
Nope. No text messages. I know it’s the phone going into roaming because it’ll happen every time I shift positions and the “R” on the display shows up. Additionally, the “No Roaming charges” portion you quoted is the same crap we used to tell customers when I worked for Sprint PCS. What it really means is that you won’t be charged for roaming if you’re using your phone in someplace outside of your home area, but your phone is “logged into” a Sprint PCS tower. Cell phones are designed to grab the strongest signal, regardless of who owns the tower. So you can be in your home area, but be slightly closer to a tower owned by somebody else, and you’ll be “roaming” if your phone grabs their signal instead of your providers signal. That’s what happens to me all the time. I shift around, and the phone grabs the Verizon tower signal instead of the SPCS signal.
I get that when I’m entering into a “Low Signal/No Service” area to warn me that I might drop calls. And then I found out how to disable that warning and all’s good. Man, that was obnoxious.
I bought my phone at Best Buy for $100. It’s the AudioVox 8500. They had a “slider” there for $150, and another (no slides, no flip) for like $60 bucks. $80? I don’t remember. The Best Buy Guy told me that I wouldn’t have roaming.
“You mean like, there won’t be any roaming charges?”
“No, I mean VM doesn’t have roaming. Your phone just won’t work.” So, yeah, it either works or it doesn’t. And it works most of the time. Where I’m at, the Sprint Network has the most coverage so VM was a good decision for me. I would suggest you talk to your local Best Buy wireless dealer. They’re pretty helpful and not at all pushy.
