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Cellular Phone Forum / Providers / Cingular / September 2007Seven-11 Speakout Wireless, The Prepaid Service few know about . . .
$1.25 a month 20 cents a minute 5 cent text messaging Minutes good for 365 days, anything less is a rip-off. $40 gets you in. Nokia 1600 (which is a sweet little simple phone). No need to "activate" the phone. Open the box and start making calls. Uses the "new" ATT network. No roaming and no roaming charges. It's a simple as that. Eat your heart out SMS. For me, it's the best. If you are talky, get a plan. > $1.25 a month > 20 cents a minute > 5 cent text messaging > Minutes good for 365 days, anything less is a rip-off. Mnutes are $0.25 each. Minimum airtime buy is $25, which over one year is only really $9 due to the $16 in fees ($1.25x12) which leaves you 36 actual available minutes for an effective minimum rate of $0.69/minute. Other prepaid providers are $0.10 or less. Anything more is a ripoff... ;-) T-Mobile prepaid is $140 the first year ($40 phone plus $100 for 1- year airtime card with 1000 minutes.) After that, all refills extend a year, with a minimum buy of $10. That's as low as $0.83/month after the first year with NO monthly maintenance fees. While contract AT&T coverage is supe ior to T-Mo's, T-Mo's prepaid coverage is superior to AT&T's prepaid, as T-Mo allows some roaming. > $40 gets you in. Nokia 1600 (which is a sweet little simple phone). $40 on T-Mo gets you a slightly better Nokia 6030. > No need to "activate" the phone. Open the box and start making calls. > Uses the "new" ATT network. No roaming and no roaming charges. > > It's a simple as that. > Eat your heart out SMS. For me, it's the best. If you are talky, get a plan. Actually SMS' favorite, PagePlus, trumps them both handily in coverage, and PagePlus is as cheap or cheaper than T-Mo for the first two years or so. But, hey, whatever works for you...  Signature"I don't need my cell phone to play video games or take pictures or double as a Walkie-Talkie; I just need it to work. Thanks for all the bells and whistles, but I could communicate better with ACTUAL bells and whistles." -Bill Maher 9/25/2003 > Mnutes are $0.25 each. Huh. I guess my phone is wrong when it tells me how much I was charged. It keeps saying .20, but I guess you know better than I do. Throws the rest of your calculations off. On a monthly basis, Speakout is a little cheaper than Page Plus. http://www.cellguru.net/prepaid_compare.htm I hardly ever use it, so it works for me. The months I don't use it, I don't pay the monthly fee. Plus, you left out the $5 activation Page Plus fee. Plus you don't seem to know that the Speakout phone come with $5 on it when purchased. That means, as I said, open the box, make a call. Also makes them a high theft target. I go to pretty remote parts of the state and I haven't had any trouble. In fact, the only people I've heard complaining are Sprint customers. > > Mnutes are $0.25 each. > > Huh. I guess my phone is wrong when it tells me how much I was > charged. It keeps saying .20, but I guess you know better than I do. Nope, you're right- I hadn't checked the SO brocures in awhile. > Throws the rest of your calculations off. Yep. Now you can get as few as 45 minutes a year on a $25 card, not 36. Sorry. > On a monthly basis, Speakout is a little cheaper than Page Plus. > http://www.cellguru.net/prepaid_compare.htm > I hardly ever use it, so it works for me. > The months I don't use it, I don't pay the monthly fee. Which is good. For your low usage, ARN (the American Roaming Network) might work out as well. You can't take incoming calls, but there are no fees (or prepaid card purchases, expirations, etc.) of any kind, just a very high per minute charge billed to your credit/debit card when you place a call. > Plus, you left out the $5 activation Page Plus fee. UM, I was comparing to T-Mo. I left the PagePlus math vague. > Plus you don't seem to know that the Speakout phone come with $5 on > it when purchased. Yes, I know, But the initial $5 doesn't last a year. 120 days, IIRC.) > That means, as I said, open the box, make a call. Also makes them > a high theft target. > > I go to pretty remote parts of the state and I haven't had any > trouble. You obviously don't live in Colorado. ;-) > In fact, the only people I've heard complaining are Sprint > customers. Ironically, Speakout also sells Spring based service as well (the phone with the "walkie-talkie" built-in uses Sprint instead of AT&T.) Again, whatver works for you. Each prepaid service has pluses and minuses. The ONLY thing Speakout has going for it is the yearly expiration, which is convenient. Unfortunately their national coverage and per minute rate are very weak. Signature"I don't need my cell phone to play video games or take pictures or double as a Walkie-Talkie; I just need it to work. Thanks for all the bells and whistles, but I could communicate better with ACTUAL bells and whistles." -Bill Maher 9/25/2003 >$1.25 a month >20 cents a minute [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >It's a simple as that. >Eat your heart out SMS. For me, it's the best. If you are talky, get a plan. Aren't most other prepaids 10 cents a minute? >> $1.25 a month >> 20 cents a minute [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > Aren't most other prepaids 10 cents a minute? Depends. Usually varies between 7 and 33 cents a minute depending on how many minutes you buy at the same time. And if you don't use those minutes in a certain amount of time, usually 90 days, you lose them, so they can cost much more than that. I find losing minutes intolerable. It's one thing to pay a flat rate and not use what is available, but it is quite another to pay in advance for a measured service, then lose what you paid in at their whim. >>> $1.25 a month >>> 20 cents a minute [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] >minutes in a certain amount of time, usually 90 days, you lose them, so >they can cost much more than that. So it can be much less than your 20 (or 25 cents a minute), no one in their right mind should willingly pay more for the Seven thingie you're hustling. >I find losing minutes intolerable. It's one thing to pay a flat rate and >not use what is available, but it is quite another to pay in advance for >a measured service, then lose what you paid in at their whim. >> Depends. Usually varies between 7 and 33 cents a minute depending on how >> many minutes you buy at the same time. And if you don't use those [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > their right mind should willingly pay more for the Seven thingie > you're hustling. There are two advantages of the 7-11 SpeakOut plan. First, it's got a very low monthly minimum, though it's only slightly less than the best prepaid service ($2.08 versus $2.50). Second, the airtime you purchase is good for 365 days. Other than that, it's got a lot of negatives. High roaming rates, high in-network rates, high monthly fee, poorer coverage than other services, and no web presence). Also, you _must_ purchase the phone at a 7-11, no web sales. This is fine in areas of the country that have 7-11, but there are some major metropolitan ares without 7-11 stores, i.e. Atlanta. High roaming rates, high > in-network rates, high monthly fee, poorer coverage than other services, > and no web presence). Also, you _must_ purchase the phone at a 7-11, no > web sales. This is fine in areas of the country that have 7-11, but > there are some major metropolitan ares without 7-11 stores, i.e. Atlanta. No roaming rates. Can't roam. But when I was in the middle of a national forest, my SO cingular service was working and costing me .20 and my buddy's Page Plus was costing him .59 a minute. I guess Verizon decided that putting a tower out there wasn't needed since another company had done it and their customers could roam on theirs. If you drive through any town that has a 7-eleven, you can buy a phone and you need never step foot again in the store. It can all be habdled either by the phone or by 800 number. Is Page Plus they still selling those used phones in the tiny Georgia towns? > High roaming rates, high >> in-network rates, high monthly fee, poorer coverage than other [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > No roaming rates. Can't roam. You most certainly can roam on 7-11 SpeakOut, and I have done it. Go back and read the terms at "http://www.7-eleven.com/products/docs/sfw054111_mch_bro_06_E.pdf" "Extended Coverage Area is charged 39¢ per minute of service and may be subject to additional charges." Also look at the maps, and you can see the vast areas that are "Extended Coverage." At least you're okay in most metro areas. But venture out to where a small regional carrier provides service and it's a different story. PagePlus also charges 59¢ for roaming, but you'll do a _lot_ less roaming because you only get charged for roaming off of Verizon's Extended Network (which included most smaller CDMA networks). Only once have I ever been in a place where roaming was charged (you know you're roaming when you have to enter the phone number twice). One other way to get charged for roaming is if you have an 1900 MHz only handset in areas where Verizon is only at 800 MHz, because you'll be roaming onto Sprint. However there are almost none of these handsets on the market that work on PagePlus (Sprint used to sell some, but I don't think they have them anymore, and Sprint handsets don't work on PagePlus). >> High roaming rates, high >>> in-network rates, high monthly fee, poorer coverage than other [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > on PagePlus (Sprint used to sell some, but I don't think they have them > anymore, and Sprint handsets don't work on PagePlus). I wouldn't use Sprint. Around here, only suckers use Sprint. Coverage is awful. This is a Cingular NG, so I wasn't going to mention Sprint. You are the first and only person I've ever heard that can roam on Speakout GSM. You better tell the guy that runs the prepaid page about this, because he says there isn't any. Many people have reported the same. I just made a call the other day and the rate was $0.15 a minute. Don't know why. But if I pay $25 for a card and only pay 3 cents more for minutes that last a year rather than 4 months, I will gladly pay that premium. Also, I have never given the company any of my personal info. I go down the the corner, pay $25 (plus sales tax) in cash and recharge my phone. They don't know who I am and they have never asked. > $1.25 a month > 20 cents a minute [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > Eat your heart out SMS. For me, it's the best. If you are talky, get > a plan. LOL, I won't eat my heart out, because I have a SpeakOut phone and service. I got it mainly for comparison purposes in terms of AT&T coverage versus Verizon coverage as it's too expensive to use except as strictly an emergency phone. I got the Motorola V180, which they no longer offer. They have cut back significantly on the SpeakOut program, they used to offer a bunch of handsets. There's an in-between being "talky" and an emergency-only phone. Many parents want a phone for their kids where the kids can call for rides home, contact their parents in places like amusement parks and shopping malls, etc. This is more than four minutes/month, but well under the need for a postpaid plan. I've averaged around 30 minutes per month on the PagePlus phones, or about $3.60/month in airtime. It's true that if you almost never make any calls, SpeakOut is $2.08/month versus $2.50/month for PagePlus. However keep that 42¢ in perspective. With PagePlus, the remaining $2 (after the $0.50 monthly fee) will buy you 17-37 minutes (depending on the amount of minutes you bought). On SpeakOut, the remaining $0.83 (after the $1.25 monthly fee) will buy you 4 minutes. $2.50/month on SpeakOut buys you six minutes. So if you make more than four minutes of calls per month, PagePlus is the better deal. If you make four or fewer minutes of calls per month, then SpeakOut is cheaper, and if cost is the only metric you care about then indeed it's a better deal. It's true that it's very nice that the minutes last 365 days, but the only prepaid services with this feature are SpeakOut, and T-Mobile (if you buy $100 worth of airtime all at once). 120 days on a $10 card, which PagePlus offers, is actually one of the better expiration times, some others are as low as 30 days on their least expensive refill, i.e. $15 for Net10, and Net10 doesn't even sell their least expensive refill on their web site (you can buy it in stores or on eBay). I don't remember how much airtime you get with the SpeakOut handset. With PagePlus, the activation kit gets you 100 minutes. The problems with SpeakOut are the following: 1) High monthly fee ($1.25). 2) High per minute cost (20¢ per minute on-network, 39¢ or more off-network). 3) Even worse than PagePlus in terms of a web presence for purchasing airtime (no web presence at all other than a scan of their brochure and some marketing material). 4) High roaming charges outside the AT&T service area (at least 39¢/minute, possibly more, according to their brochure (see "http://www.7-eleven.com/products/docs/sfw054111_mch_bro_06_E.pdf")). 5) Coverage is much worse than PagePlus outside of metro areas (similar to the AT&T versus Verizon coverage difference). By the way, SpeakOut also sells a Sprint based service as well, but it may be Nextel because they are touting "Press and Talk." Nextel service is very poor, and there is almost no roaming available on other iDEN networks. But it's not clear if it's Nextel based or CDMA 1900 MHz based). For those that are interested, the SpeakOut SIM will work in an unlocked or Cingular locked GSM handset. However they won't sell you just a SIM, you have to get the phone as well. In Canada, the Canadian version of SpeakOut seem to be the cheapest prepaid, because Canada doesn't have the wide selection of low cost prepaid carriers. I recently advised someone in Canada looking for four emergency phones to use SpeakOut, since it would only cost then CAD$10/month total for four phones. [Copied to alt.cellular.attws. Cingular is no longer in operation, and alt.cellular.attws is the proper venue for discussions regarding wireless service from AT&T] > Depends. Usually varies between 7 and 33 cents a minute depending on how > many minutes you buy at the same time. I noticed the other day that Wal-Mart has raised the price of the $100 T-Mobile card to something over $98. SignatureIf you really believe carbon dioxide causes global warming, you should stop exhaling. >> Depends. Usually varies between 7 and 33 cents a minute depending on how >> many minutes you buy at the same time. > > I noticed the other day that Wal-Mart has raised the price of the $100 > T-Mobile card to something over $98. See, I would never buy a $100 card. First is my innate distrust in all things cellular. With my luck, I would buy a card and tomorrow they change the "agreement" we have and turn it into a deal killer. Second is that I only spend about $3 a month now at the "high" rate I am paying including the "high" monthly rate I am paying. >>> Depends. Usually varies between 7 and 33 cents a minute depending on >>> how many minutes you buy at the same time. [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > that I only spend about $3 a month now at the "high" rate I am paying > including the "high" monthly rate I am paying. Actually, with T-Mobile you want to buy a $100 card _before_ they change the terms regarding future airtime purchases. One things that the carriers have been pretty good about is honoring terms from older plans. With postpaid plans they could just tell you that the terms have changed after the contract is over, but they usually don't. With T-Mobile, they never say that the $100 airtime purchase and "Gold Status" has an expiration date for future airtime lasting a year. They're obligated to give you the 1 year expiration as long as they're in business. > Actually, with T-Mobile you want to buy a $100 card _before_ they change > the terms regarding future airtime purchases. One things that the [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > expiration date for future airtime lasting a year. They're obligated to > give you the 1 year expiration as long as they're in business. For those 100 minutes. The next 100 they sell you could come with different conditions. SignatureIf you really believe carbon dioxide causes global warming, you should stop exhaling. >> Actually, with T-Mobile you want to buy a $100 card _before_ they change >> the terms regarding future airtime purchases. One things that the [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > For those 100 minutes. The next 100 they sell you could come with different > conditions. No, what they say is that achieving "gold status," by buying the $100 card, means that all future airtime cards, of any value, are good for a year. They could, if they wanted to, end the whole gold program for new prepaid users. However I think that the gold program is a very clever piece of marketing, and enhances customer loyalty. For every user spending very little amount per month, there are probably many that are spending a considerable amount of money. T-Mobile's attitude is different than the other carriers on prepaid. The other carriers make their prepaid plans very unattractive in terms of cost because they're fearful that their postpaid customers will change to prepaid if they offer prepaid that is too good of a deal. T-Mobile seems to believe that they have more to gain by pricing their prepaid fairly. > I noticed the other day that Wal-Mart has raised the price of the $100 > T-Mobile card to something over $98. Oh well- it was fun while it lasted. I noticed today that T-Mo is giving a free $25 card with all prepaid phones purchased from their website again. Phones start a $39, but the Nokia bluetooth-enabled 6103 is available for $59- a pretty good deal for a bluetooth camera phone. -- "I don't need my cell phone to play video games or take pictures or double as a Walkie-Talkie; I just need it to work. Thanks for all the bells and whistles, but I could communicate better with ACTUAL bells and whistles." -Bill Maher 9/25/2003 >> I noticed the other day that Wal-Mart has raised the price of the $100 >> T-Mobile card to something over $98. [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > Phones start a $39, but the Nokia bluetooth-enabled 6103 is available > for $59- a pretty good deal for a bluetooth camera phone. Cool. When I looked the other night, the cheapest BT phone wally world had was a $99 Samsung. SignatureIf you really believe carbon dioxide causes global warming, you should stop exhaling. > > Phones start a $39, but the Nokia bluetooth-enabled 6103 is available > > for $59- a pretty good deal for a bluetooth camera phone. > > Cool. When I looked the other night, the cheapest BT phone wally world > had was a $99 Samsung. Just to clarify, that $59 6103 with "free" $25 card is on T-Mo's website only... Signature"I don't need my cell phone to play video games or take pictures or double as a Walkie-Talkie; I just need it to work. Thanks for all the bells and whistles, but I could communicate better with ACTUAL bells and whistles." -Bill Maher 9/25/2003 >> > Phones start a $39, but the Nokia bluetooth-enabled 6103 is > available [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > Just to clarify, that $59 6103 with "free" $25 card is on T-Mo's > website only... Thanks. I caught that, my point was only about the $40 savings. SignatureIf you really believe carbon dioxide causes global warming, you should stop exhaling. > > Just to clarify, that $59 6103 with "free" $25 card is on T-Mo's > > website only... > > Thanks. I caught that, my point was only about the $40 savings. I figured you probably did, but the clarification was also to help anyone who might be "eavesdropping" on our conversation. My only other advice would be to move quickly if you're interested. T-Mo pulls the "free $25 card promo" out from under us without warning. Then it comes back in a few weeks, but that 6103 dropped to $59 from $99 awhile ago, and AFAIK, it's discontinued, so who knows if it'll be around the next time they give the $25 cards away. Cheers! Signature"I don't need my cell phone to play video games or take pictures or double as a Walkie-Talkie; I just need it to work. Thanks for all the bells and whistles, but I could communicate better with ACTUAL bells and whistles." -Bill Maher 9/25/2003 |
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