What moblie service to get, part 2

Matthew S. Hamrick mhamrick at cryptonomicon.net
Sat Mar 10 20:10:55 CET 2007


Just as a data-point, what I'm doing in the US is I have a "family  
plan" with T-mobile with 700 or so minutes, free nights and weekends,  
unlimited data, and unlimited free T-mobile to T-mobile. I use a Sony- 
Ericsson T610 as my daily driver though I carry a Samsung T509 when I  
need EDGE. I have two SIMs attached to the same bill. One I use in my  
T610 and that's the number that most people have for me. The other  
SIM I use for experimentation with the Telit based "frankenphone"  
I've been working on. In theory, the software I've been writing will  
be added to the myPhone stack, and later maybe to the OpenMoKo  
project if it makes sense.

But the bottom line is, I use a boat-load of minutes each month, but  
700 non-night and weekend minutes is generally enough. It doesn't  
cost too much to get in on a family plan, and the free T-mob to T-mob  
calling allows me to test my dialer software and frankenphone  
hardware without eroding my 700 monthly minutes. I think I'm paying  
something like $54/month or so.

You probably can't go wrong with either Cingular or T-Mob, their  
plans and prices are more or less similar. Cingular seems to have  
noticeably better tech-support and T-Mobile's 411 service is  
absolutely, positively useless. T-Mob tech support is hit or miss;  
it's a 50-50 chance of getting someone who knows what you're talking  
about and then another 50-50 chance to find someone who cares enough  
to volunteer options. So, I've just accepted that on average, I'm  
going to go through two or three support reps before getting someone  
who knows what's going on.

-Cheers
-Matt H.

On Mar 9, 2007, at 5:53 PM, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:

> Jonathon Suggs writes:
>> You can "dial" up, it will be really slow and probably unreliable.  I
>> think 9.6k is as fast as you can go.  Not to mention that when you
>> "dialing in" you will be using your cell phone minutes.  A data plan
>> allows you to use GPRS, which is a newer (still pretty old though)  
>> and
>> faster connection up to 56k.  The down side is that you will probably
>> have to sign a contract.  You will then either get an unlimited plan
>> (~$20-40/month) or a pay as you go plan (~.15/kb).
>>
>> Let me know if you want more details.  And anyone else feel free to
>> correct any mis-information.
>
> I'd like as many details as I can get, please.
>
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