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Cellular Phone Forum / Providers / Verizon / April 2005Adding out-of-state family member to plan?
Hello - I'm thinking of adding my mother-in-law to my current family share plan. We live in Washington DC and she lives in Maine. I'd like to use an older VZW phone that I have lying around. Any thoughts on the best way to do this? Can I bring the older phone to a DC area store and get a Maine (207) area code? Or will she be she stuck with a DC (202) area code? Is there any advantage to using my current older equipment vs buying a new (cheapie) phone for her? I now have a $40/mo + $10 plan for my two family share phones. Not sure how I didn't end up paying $50 + $10, but I didn't. I assume that I'd need to sign a new contract and pay $50 + $10 + $10, no? Also, I once had Bell South cell service and they had some rule about making a certain percentage of calls from your home area. Does VZW have anything of the sort? I just want to make sure that if she, as far as VZW is concerned, is living in DC that making ~ 100% of the calls from Maine doesn't screw things up. THanks for the advice. Matt The only way you can add an out of town/state party to your FS plan is to assign a phone number in your home area. You cannot (for example) have one person with a Pittsburgh number another with a Omaha number and still another with a Chicago number. All phones on an FS plan must have the same home calling area. If you do this then calling the person who has the "odd" phone will necessitate the calling party makes a long distance call. Meaning if all of your phones have Chicago numbers and one of them is given to grandma in St. Louis any of grandma's friends in St. Louis (in order to reach her) will have to place a long distance call to Chicago to reach grandma even though she is in St. Louis. > Hello - > [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > Matt > The only way you can add an out of town/state party to your FS plan is to > assign a phone number in your home area. You cannot (for example) have one [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > have to place a long distance call to Chicago to reach grandma even though > she is in St. Louis. True enough, but there's an easy way around "grandma's friends" paying LD charges to talk to her. When the friends make a call to her, they simply hang up after two rings. Caller ID lets grandma know who called and she then calls them back immediately. I'd be a lot more concerned about the availibility and quality of Verizion's service in the particular area of Maine where that additional phone will be used! > > Hello - > > [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > > > Matt > The only way you can add an out of town/state party to your FS plan is to > assign a phone number in your home area. You cannot (for example) have one > person with a Pittsburgh number another with a Omaha number and still > another with a Chicago number. All phones on an FS plan must have the same > home calling area. It certainly isn't like that in the west. I have two numbers in the SF Bay area and one for Oregon all on the same shareplan. They even get the addresses right. Santa Cruz (where I live) has outrageous local taxes for almost everything including cell phone bills. So two lines have Santa Cruz numbers and taxes and one line has an Oregon number and taxes. Roger >> The only way you can add an out of town/state party to your FS plan >> is to assign a phone number in your home area. You cannot (for [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > Roger As far as I know roger, it's not like that in most places in the US. Heck, you guys ever hear of "College"? Have a kid in college, and he likes pizza, they will **Not** Let him order pizza with an out of state number! I can't believe that. My guess is you are getting the phone billing on the same statement but you are on a separate plan for the number in Oregon. If what you state is true though, don't ever try to change anything about your phone service because they'll yank that in a hurry. They are not supposed to have FS plans with numbers that are not located in the same calling area. > > The only way you can add an out of town/state party to your FS plan is to > > assign a phone number in your home area. You cannot (for example) have one [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > Roger >I can't believe that. My guess is you are getting the phone billing on the > same statement but you are on a separate plan for the number in Oregon. Nope. It lists all the numbers as using the same shared minutes and being on the same shareplan with the correct pricing for a shareplan. > what you state is true though, don't ever try to change anything about your > phone service because they'll yank that in a hurry. They are not supposed to > have FS plans with numbers that are not located in the same calling area. It never even occurred to me that there would be a "same area code" restriction. This was all setup over the phone. And after it initially got setup, I did call after the first bill to get the address for tax purposes for the Oregon number changed to Oregon. That means I talked to at least three different people over time. If you look at the page on the VZW website, all it says is: Family SharePlan Minimum of two lines required. Maximum of five lines. Only one line is the primary line. All lines must be activated on the same billing account and in the same market. Maybe Oregon and California are the same market? My plan is AC1 so things may also have been slightly different with that. Roger > >I can't believe that. My guess is you are getting the phone billing on the > > same statement but you are on a separate plan for the number in Oregon. [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > > Roger Your last sentence probably hits the answer on the head. When I tried to add my son to my "family", which is 973, I was told 570 is in a different market area. 973 is NY metro (actually NJ) whereas 570 is in PA market. LB I think it is tehnically feasible if all the home areas are in the same billing system region. I believe most of the west coast is in the same Airtouch region which is why SF/Oregon worked. Maine and DC are in the same Bell Atlantic Mobile region so I think this may work also. PA was part of the former Alltel system before the verizon merger and still is on a separete billing system, so I think that may be the cause of the NJ/PA problem. You can tell if you're in the same billing region as your home area by trying to dial *228. If you're on a separate billing system, *228 will not be able to identify you and won't be able to upgrade your PRL. So Maine / DC has a chance... -MVL >Hello - > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > >clip< Verizon has native service only in the lower four counties of the state (York, Cumberland, Sagadahoc, and Androscoggin). For the rest of the state VZW customer roam on US Cellular. If you have an America's Choice plan, it should not be a problem. There are still a lot of rural areas in the state with limited service for CDMA phones. If mother is located in one of the larger towns, service should be pretty good. jeb Thanks for the ideas. My MIL is in southern Maine, and I've used my current VZW phone there quite a bit, and the recepetion is fine. I'll bring the old phone to a store and ask about getting a different area code than my local one. Not the end of the world if they say no - the only folks who will be calling her will be family, and the rest of us all have verizon too. Just would be nice for the random occasion when she gives out her cell number to someone else. thanks Matt Oh, I forgot to add this to my last post: I initially asked about any sort of required minimum usage in your home area. Since no one responded to this, I assume that VZW doesn't apply this rule? thanks Matt There used to be a rule about this I believe it was 50% per month but I'm not sure it's being enforced anymore. Best to ask the VZW people. > Oh, I forgot to add this to my last post: > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > thanks > Matt As long as your mother-in-law and you are in a Verizon Wireless native area i.e.. not a roaming party, use the unlimited IN calling and calls are free. > Hello - > [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > Matt |
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