Ask Slashdot: A Cheap US Cellphone Plan With an Unlocked Phone? 288
metrix007 writes "I am a recent immigrant to the U.S. I am used to going to countries and paying a small amount, say, $30, for a simcard and using it with my unlocked phone. I can't seem to do that in the U.S., where the only options seem to be to buy a phone and buy minutes as I need them such as with Tracfone, or a contract where I pay an amount per month to pay off a phone and a certain amount of minutes. I have a Google Nexus One, which is better than any phone offered on the basic plans from all the cell providers. Is there any way I can use it as a cell phone in the U.S. for about $30-$50/month? It seems a shame to waste it and have to pay for a lesser phone."
SimpleMobile (Score:5, Informative)
Simple Mobile. Enough said.
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Agree. Simple Mobile's whole business model is SIM card only, bring your own phone, pre-pay, no contracts. $40/month gets you unlimited talk, text and non-tetherable 3G data. For another $20/month you can get unlimited non-tetherable 4G data instead. (They have separate data-only limited plans that do allow tethering, but they're not necessarily the best value for plans of that type.) The quoted price is the price you actually pay, no taxes or mystery fees tacked on. Truly simple, no nonsense. http;//mysimp
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http://www.pagepluscellular.com/ [pagepluscellular.com] they use the Verizon network. No Sim cards (since they are CDMA ) but the same idea.
Very good reviews for going 3rd party (same price) for pageplus via: http://www.kittywireless.com/ [kittywireless.com]
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T-Mobile has some good planless options too - especially if you bring your own phone.
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I currently have the T-Mobile Prepay $30/month plan for my wife (1500 minutes or texts, very little data) and the other $30/month plan for myself (100 minutes with 5GB "4G" Data, unlimited texts). I usually go over by about 100 minutes which costs me $10. I'm next to a landline all day at work and still have a landline at home (for overseas calls) so I don't really need many mobile minutes.
Boost has the best deal I could find, with plans that go down to $35 for unlimited... but bring-your-own can be quite d
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I have the same plan, along with Vitelity paygo setup for using the internal SIP client. Works fairly well, though I wish the internal client had more and selectable codecs based on available bandwidth. I'm considering Bria with G729a, but from what I've read it's not up to snuff given the price.
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T-Mobile has some good planless options too - especially if you bring your own phone.
Right now T-Mobile has a $30/month plan that is unlimited text, 5GB of 3G/4G data (throttled to 2G above that), and 100 minutes of talk. I'm switching to it as soon as I work through the rest of my AT&T prepaid balance.
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50 bucks get you unlimited talk, text and web.
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Check the coverage first. If you venture outside of cities, T-Mobile's coverage is lacking.
*crickets chirping* (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:*crickets chirping*(must be dark out) (Score:3, Funny)
Or an indictment of that damn sun, rising and setting, creating this silly "day" that we have to put up with, lots of people being "asleep" when this was posted.
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Then I really don't want to know how you manage that feat. I have managed to go from excellent karma to terrible in one thread but I have never had a post deleted. Ever. I thought there was exactly one incident that resulted in an outright deletion here, due to the Co$ so even if your GNAA trolling/whatever is being deleted it would be notable.
To bad you are just an AC, otherwise I'd ask if managing to get a post deleted unlocks an achievement. I know an epic karma burn doesn't. :)
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I've been on Slashdot quite a while myself and only extremely rarely seen a deletion (the same one you allude to).
Seems the trolls have new lies to spread.
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Mod parent up.
Slashdot's entire raison d'etre was that post content belonged to the people who posted it and they would never delete a post - it might be moderated down to -1, but it will always be accessible if you want to view it.
The only case I can remember as noted where this was broken was in the face of continued legal attacks from scientology to the point where it simply made more sense to "break" the policy by changing (not deleting) the post in question with a string of anti-Co$ links.
If the AC has
t-mobile (Score:5, Informative)
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Straight Talk (Score:5, Informative)
T-Mobile's coverage is extremely limited, AND their 3G network is incompatible with most phones sold by them. The only non-TMo phones that work are the HSPA+ Galaxy Nexus and AT&T LTE devices running hacked radio firmware.
Straight Talk provides MVNO service on both T-Mo or AT&T networks (you choose when you purchase the SIM).
$15 for initial SIM purchase, $45/month thereafter. Plan includes unlimited voice and texts (with no apparent "stealth limits") - the one disadvantage is that they claim "unlimited" data but it's really 2GB.
Personally I only use 500MB or so a month, so I'm going to them when my AT&T contract is up.
ST's BYOD plans are a fairly recent development, not many people are aware of them.
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Just FYI, T-Mobile doesn't let outside SMS/MMS messages thru for the MVNOs.
That is, using Straight Talk, you won't receive any text message sent to you from anyone who is not on T-Mobile or Straight Talk. They were blocking the 2-factor text messages that Bank of America sends when I had them.
I switched to an AT&T SIM and it works fine.
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+1 on StraightTalk. Just got my daughter and wife refurbed iPhones and signed them up. Coverage is great and the plan is month-to-month.
Typo correction on compatibility (Score:2)
Their network is incompatible with most phones NOT sold by them...
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I guess the second largest city in my state with 540,000 people is the "boondocks" as tmobile is utter crap here.
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If you are using Android, turn on Settings->Wireless and network->Mobile network settings->Data roaming.
Not sure why this is unchecked by default. T-Mobile is unusable even on Long Island without it.
Re:t-mobile (Score:4, Informative)
Because data roaming can be expensive? It's off by default so people don't go overseas and suddenly come home to a $2000 phone bill because their phone was happily checking their email inbox. (Roaming data rates are around 5 cents per kB. A SI kB, not a kiB! Or $50/MB)
A movie can easily cost you $12K or more.
That's why it's off by default - in case the phone accidentally goes into roaming mode (which can happen near the border), you won't run up a huge bill. Especially if T-mo is that bad and you end up roaming on another network - that other network can easily be one across the border with a particularly strong signal.
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Elitism: it takes many forms.
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Re:t-mobile (Score:4, Informative)
540k people city *is* the boondocks. Sorry. If your city doesn't crack a million it's not even in the top 50 cities
Is Boston then a boondocks city? It has 625,087 people as of 2011. How about San Francisco or San Jose? You are way off base that if a city doesnt crack a million its not in the top 50, only 9 cities actually crack a million, a city with 540k would be #33 [wikipedia.org]
Re:t-mobile (Score:4, Insightful)
I bet that he is referring to metro area, and you are looking at population inside city limits.
500,000 is smallish for a metro area, but big for a US city.
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Boondock Saints happens in Boston. So yeah, it is a boondocks city?
doesn't matter that much though, walk into a store in NYC and you're lucky to get signal.
but tmobile&others do offer prepaid sims, maybe it's just that the local mobile phone cell dealer shops in the question askers area were unwilling to sell one without directly asking as they could be making mo' money by selling a plan - or selling a phone.
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Now hold on a minute...as an actual resident of the boondocks, let me 'splain something. A city with 540K people isn't anything close to the boondocks. That's a thriving metropolis. Sure, there are even more thriving metropolia.
I live in a town that's about 40 square miles, with under 3,500 people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Pittsgrove_Township,_New_Jersey). That's in New Jersey, the most densely populated state in the USA. So this is really just an edge-case boondocks. Think about the middle of the
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Anyone with 1000 people is big enough to warrant good service. Anything larger than 5 people warrants minimum service.
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I can see two shiny 3G towers from my bedroom window. (Telstra and OpenNetwork (Optus/Vodafone etc))
If mobile carriers there don't think that a city with 500k population doesn't warrant a tower or two, then I'm afraid there's no hope for your telco industry.
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The US doesn't have much in the way of regulations mandating coverage, so coverage is provided pro capita, and fuck anyone living, working or passing through areas with low population density. The phone companies don't provide a service here, they want maximum income and growth - profitability isn't good enough.
Compare that to Europe, where most countries have regulations demanding a certain amount of geographical coverage. In countries both more and less densely populated than the US, and countries with
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You're saying there are only 35 cities in the US? That's so incorrect it's moronic. By your accounting, a hundred years ago there were only five cities in the US [census.gov], few if any state capitols are in a city, many states have no cities at all, and 92.5% of Americans live in the boonies. Yes, I did the math with figures from wikipedia. [wikipedia.org]
Perhaps your definition of "city" is a bit... retarded? Mods, he's not trolling, he's learning-disabled. "Overrated" would have been more fair. Be nice to the kids on the short bus!
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The largest city in my state, Washington, is Seattle - at roughly 550,000 residents. T-Mobile actually has good coverage there (which makes sense, given their history).
On a side note, I've felt like Seattle has gone downhill ever since they started pretending they were a big city... roughly 20-25 years ago.
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Re:t-mobile (Score:4, Insightful)
No kidding... My wife just got T-Mobile last weekend for her unlocked cell phone. As we live in the boondocks of midtown west Manhattan, it's pretty much useless... There's no signal in our apartment or many other places around.
In fact, the guy at the T-Mobile store in the boondocks, across 14th Street from Union Square didn't get a signal in the store after we paid for it. I joked about what a great sign that was, but he said it was probably because it wasn't fully activated yet. Turns out it was probably just bad service from them.
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I also live in the "boondocks" - the Washington D.C. metro area.
I have almost no cell phone signal at either home or work.
However, it works pretty well for me even so because I can use T-mobile's calling over wi-fi to
get a pretty good voice service on my phone. (There's no additional charge for this.)
I'm using a plan, which may be discontinued now, which gives me a ~$10 lower charge/month because I
provided my own phone. So, overall it works reasonably well for me most of the time.
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Sprint is the no-go here; too bad, I really like the way the set up their plans...
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I had T-mobile for a while in LA, and the coverage was terrible. It was disappointing because the plan was good, the rates were good, they allowed tethering, and had good customer service. I just had no signal a large fraction of the time. I even asked if I could use an iPhone if I had an unlocked one, and tech support said that while some things wouldn't work, they'd support as much as they could and could walk me through a lot of things.
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That depends in where you are, of course.
My experience in Colorado is that I get full HSPA+ in most parts f Denver, but in any city in the mountains, I get 2G at most.
I have had great reception in Boston, New York, Portland, etc.
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Apparently a big part of this whole situation, is where you are. Where I am, the idea that T-Mobile provides anything less than excellent service, is laughable. But yes, if I leave the city and get away from the interstates, the situation does indeed change quickly.
Although your turning phone off/on making a difference, suggests you also have hardware problems. Are you sure you even know whether or not T-Mobile service works? If your machine is dying and needs its NIC hardware occasionally reset, then
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AT&T has or at least had coverage problems in some areas. Before AT&T was bought by Cingular, and then re-named back to AT&T, there actually was the AT&T Wireless company. They used a radio protocol dubbed "TDMA"... that's just Time-Division Multiple Access, same scheme used by GSM 2G. But not compatible. The real name of their protocol was DAMPS: Digital Advanced Mobile Phone Service. AMPS was the US analog phone system; DAMPS was supposed to the upgrade.
Anyway, AT&T used DAMPS, and whe
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In Germany, Deutsche Telekom was one of the first to market with a mobile service, which they named T-Mobile, so they have excellent coverage and commensurate high prices. In America, they tried to get their foot in the door by buying out a small carrier named VoiceStream in the late nineties, well after the current major players were established.
Verizon Wireless is the one with the best coverage and highest prices in the US; they were formed after a series of mergers in the mid-nineties. (They used to just
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Last I checked, the only phone in the US that has full 3G support for both AT&T and T-Mobile is the Google Galaxy Nexus. Not surprisingly, this is also the only phone really being sold as unlocked by default ($350 on the Google Play store). If you get a GSM phone through AT&T, it's pretty certain to now support T-Mobile's AWS bands (1700MHz and 2100MHz).
Re:t-mobile (Score:4, Informative)
That is correct ... T-Mo currently does voice and 2G at 1900MHz (they don't have an 850MHz slot), and 1700/2100MHz for 3G/HSPA/etc.
That may be changing, though. They're supposedly planning to phase out 2G entirely, move 3G/HSPA to the 1900MHz band (and ... 2100MHz? There's not enough bandwidth at 1900MHz for a full 3G data connection), and then start up LTE at 1700MHz. This follows their deal with AT&T... after the merger failed to pass regulators, AT&T was required to pay T-Mobile a huge pile of cash. Much of that's being paid in AWS spectrum formerly owned by AT&T. Presumably, T-Mobile's getting enough to launch a viable LTE service at 1700MHz... I have not seen any fine detail on this yet.
T-Mobile (Score:2)
T-Mobile have a Value series of plans specifically for people who own their phone already that have a discount on the monthly rate. It's actually the plan I'm on right now. Also I'm 99% sure both T-Mobile and AT&T offer the ability to buy pay-as-you-go SIMs that include data.
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ting (Score:2)
You cant take your nexus to them but they and republic wireless are about the best bets fro cheap reliable phone service.
Downgrade. (Score:2)
They don't advertise it via the Web, but T Mobile appears to be the vendor of choice among people who want minimum commitment mobile phones. Devices start at $20, unlimited SMS is $15 month to month.
http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/monthly-4g-plans [t-mobile.com]
We downgraded from smartphones to unlimited text + pay to talk, and haven't looked back. I already carry a 4G wifi and a laptop at all times, so the ~$100 a month for a fragile device (hardware and software) with 4 hours of battery life and probable spyware just
Straighttalk or T-Mobile. (Score:5, Informative)
Those are pretty much your only options on the GSM front. T-Mob has a 30 USD/month plan for 100 minutes and unlimited text/data, but all of their other plans are more expensive than straighttalk for smartphones (probably featurephones as well).
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T-Mobile also has pre-paid only plans. No contract, and you only pay when you run out of minutes. Using this my cell bill averages around $200 a year for voice only. But YMMV for your usage and requirements.
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I'm definitely considering making the switch myself, but i'm currently on T-Mobile's "Value" plan, paying $65 a month for 500 minutes of talk, unlimited text, and "unlimited" data. I'll have to take a closer look at exactly how many minutes of talk i use to see if it's worth switching to the 100 minutes a month pla
PlatinumTel = $10 every three months (Score:2)
My new favorite plan is PlatinumTel. I just bought an Android handset for $60 and signed up for a plan that only requires a minimum of $10 every three months. Texts are 2 cents, voice is 5 cents, and data is 10 cents/MB. However, it's an Android phone, so anyplace that has wireless is free. (e.g., it's a great phone for the wife and kids)
My personal phone is currently an Android handset on a $25/month unlimited data + 300 minutes Virgin Mobile plan, but I'm pretty sure that plan's not available for new
T-mobile (Score:2)
T-mobile prepaid plans can cost as little as $10/year. Once you have bought $100 worth of minutes, the top-up period increases to 1 year with the smallest amount being $10. No, there is no data, but if you're on a budget you can always find free wi-fi somewhere.
AT&T Sim Card (Score:2)
I did a quick search on the AT&T site and came across this.
http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/devices/att/3g-sim-white.html#fbid=cJveSn40ZqE [att.com]
You can buy the SIM, enter the IMEI of your phone and then choose what plan you want. Seems like you'd be able to do this in stores, too, but I have no idea.
There's also this support page (http://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=KB113269&cv=820&_requestid=334233#fbid=Vd1k_ywKiST) for getting a SIM card for a phone you already own.
T-Mobile Monthly4G Prepaid (Score:2)
Your Google Nexus One is T-Mobile compatible for high speed data access, so check out the Monthly4G [t-mobile.com] offering.
They offer unlimited talk, text, and web for $50/mo, and a plan with 100 minutes of talk, unlimited text and web for $30/mo with additional minutes for $0.10/min.
Also, if you are willing to spend a little money to get a more advanced phone later on, I'd recommend picking up either a Samsung Galaxy Nexus [google.com] ($349) or the Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G [t-mobile.com] ($300). Both options do not require a contract and are co
T-Mobile (Score:2)
I believe this is the correct link: http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/monthly-4g-plans [t-mobile.com]
TruPhone (Score:2)
I'm in the same boat, and solved this problem (Score:5, Informative)
Go to the T-Mobile web-store and buy a SIM activation kit for $1. When you receive it, follow the activation instructions on the web and when it asks you to choose your plan, select "Monthly 4G $30"
* Unlimited internet*
* Unlimited Text
* 100 minutes talktime
It's basically a prepay deal where the available balance will drop by $30 a month, so you just need to top-up once a month, and make sure you have enough credit to cover any calls you make over the 100 minutes No ongoing contracts.
Deal is web-only.
*Unlimited internet means up to 5GB at HSPDA+ speeds.
Small Carrier (Score:2)
Boost [boostmobile.com] (They seem to cater to people with bad credit)
Cricket [mycricket.com]($55 unlimited everything but data is throttled after 2.5GB.)
Consumer Cellular [consumercellular.com](Great if you just make phone calls, data costs an arm and a leg)
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SIMPLE Mobile [mysimplemobile.com]
Pure Talk [puretalkusa.com] Not much in the way of data.
Pay as you go $25 for 250 minutes (Score:2)
Stuff that matters? (Score:3)
Sorry, but is this really a Ask Slashdot-worthy story? Better placed to ask on any of a dozen different travel forums, or to raise it in mobile phone forums (of which I hear the kids these days have quite a few).
A quick LMGTFY link to help wrap up the conversation [lmgtfy.com]
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Sorry, but is this really a Ask Slashdot-worthy story?
Nope. Ask Slashdot traditionally is about interesting questions that are not easily answered by searching or reading company websites. These stories are examples of good postings:
http://ask.slashdot.org/story/12/08/15/0425230/ask-slashdot-worth-going-for-a-graduate-degree-in-the-middle-of-your-career [slashdot.org]
http://ask.slashdot.org/story/12/08/09/1549240/ask-slashdot-how-many-of-you-actually-use-math [slashdot.org]
This story is little better than posting the question "ne1 no where i can buy diablo iii cheap?" What metrix007 is ask
Frequency bands (Score:5, Informative)
I'm surprised to see that nobody has mentioned frequency bands yet. It sounds like your phone is a European model. The problem is that different parts of the world use different frequencies for mobile phone service, and now even different technologies, too.
From what I understand, pretty much all of Europe uses the GSM on the same frequency bands, so you can shuffle around SIM cards all day. But in the US, the frequencies are different from Europe. Even more of a problem is that GSM isn't dominant here. And now 3G and 4G are coming.
So sure, you could stick in a SIM card, but can your phone even talk on the right frequencies? If it is a "quad band" [thetravelinsider.info] phone, you may be in luck.
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Pentaband would be the best. I'm not sure if the Nexus phones are equipped as such or not. I know Nokia makes some that are.
If it doesn't get 3G on AT&T it should on T-Mobile, should it not?
Re:Frequency bands (Score:4, Informative)
Many high-end international smartphones support AT&T's frequency bands.
However - almost no devices support T-Mobiles 1700 MHz AWS band used for 3G service. The only ones I am aware of:
Devices sold by T-Mobile USA
HSPA+ Galaxy Nexus
AT&T LTE devices that have had hacked radios installed. (Effectively, flashing T-Mobile firmware on an AT&T device that had identical hardware - examples are the AT&T Skyrocket and AT&T Galaxy Note.)
However, plenty of international devices support AT&T's bands:
Samsung Galaxy S2 (GT-I9100)
Samsung Galaxy Note (GT-N7000)
Samsung Galaxy S3 (GT-I9300)
Probably plenty of others - I just happen to be most familiar with Samsungs.
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Thanks for that information, I misunderstood the bands that T-Mobile used.
To add to your list of international devices that work with AT&T, the Nokia N9 will as well (from personal experience last month).
Re:Frequency bands (Score:4, Informative)
The Google Nexus One sold in Europe is UMTS 900/AWS/2100 and GSM 850/900/1800/1900. It'll work fine on T-Mobile USA.
check out this prepaid comparison chart (Score:5, Informative)
Straight Talk (Score:2)
A SIM car for an unlocked phone costs $15. Unlimited talk, text and web costs $45 per month.
I dumped AT&T and T-Mobile a few months ago and haven't looked back. This is cheaper and the same networks.
Avoid T-Mobile compatible phones for this service. Straight Talk is an MVNO [wikipedia.org] and T-Mobile is a bunch of dicks. They won't let outside SMS messages thru. AT&T doesn't do that to MVNOs and SMS/MMS works fine.
I currently have a Google Samsung Galaxy Nexus and a HTC Glacier (MyTouch 4G) using this plan.
If you
Re:Straight Talk (Score:4, Informative)
Avoid T-Mobile compatible phones for this service. Straight Talk is an MVNO [wikipedia.org] and T-Mobile is a bunch of dicks. They won't let outside SMS messages thru. AT&T doesn't do that to MVNOs and SMS/MMS works fine.
While you are correct about Straight Talk being a better overall value for a primary phone (and T-Mobile being a bunch of dicks), it is patently false that T-Mobile does not allow SMS from other carriers. They most certainly allow SMS/MMS to and from all major carriers foreign and domestic. They DO block non-mobile SMS short codes for obvious billing reasons (prepaid users racking up huge charges with 3rd parties that they don't have the funds to cover).
The main reason NOT to get T-Mobile for any service in my opinion is because they censor their internet access unless you give them your (valid, verifiable) ID/SSN. That is a complete joke, their WebGuard blocks many perfectly acceptable sites that they deem "unacceptable to minors", whatever that means. Avoid them like the plague if you care about freedom, but their SMS/MMS system actually does work fine.
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No, I am not incorrect. However, I might have been unclear. Let me try again.
When using an MVNO like Straight Talk that resells using T-Mobile's network, T-Mobile *does not allow non-network text messages thru*.
If you have standard T-Mobile service from TMO themselves, they do allow those messages.
Using T-Mobile I can get text messages from Google, my bank, and friends on other networks like AT&T, Sprint and Verizon.
Using a Straight Talk account with a T-Mobile SIM I can only receive text messages from
HowardForums: Your Mobile Phone Community & Re (Score:4, Informative)
This really is a topic for mobile phone specific forum. My favourite is HowardForums. Here is a link to the US pre-payed/MVNO forums: http://www.howardforums.com/forumdisplay.php/325-US-Prepaid-MVNO-Discussion [howardforums.com]
There are lots of people there who know what's up with pre-paid and low-cost options.
Works for me (Score:2)
I now pay 40% less for the same service I had before on this phone, given that there is no iPhone Tax this way. You can get the SIM card at you local WallyWorld, or online.
I plan to
Probably don't have a lot of choice (Score:2)
If you want to use your existing phone, you probably don't have a lot of choice. I assume it's a GSM phone which means you're either going to use AT&T or T-Mobile. If you want to use data and want 3G speeds, then you need to know what frequency bands your phone supports. T-Mobile and AT&T use different frequencies for 3G, and I don't believe the Nexus One supported both. So it's either a T-Mobile compatible phone or an AT&T compatible phone. Either way, you can probably use it for either ca
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Every time I think cell service options in Canada are awful, I look up the American situation, it makes me feel slightly better.
I'm amazed every time I look at this industry.
Canada's service options are terrible for traveler (Score:2)
In the US I can walk into a store, and buy a contract free phone for under $40 and use it immediately. When I visited Canada, such an option did not appear to exist. And unfortunately my US cell phone didn't seem to work at all in Vancouver. I suppose if I got a more expensive US carrier I could have at least did some roaming, but $25/mo for unlimited data is pretty hard to pass up, even if the data is a little slow.
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The best deal I can find in Canada is Koodo, and even they suck.
It's $20 a month for 50 minutes / 50 outgoing texts, and I owe them the balance on the phone price when I leave them.
I I lived in a different city, I could get Wind for unlimited text / talk / data for $29.
T-Mob (Score:2)
T-Mobile Prepay (Score:2)
$100 + sales tax gets you 1000 minutes good for a year. Any subsequent refills, even if smaller $ amounts are good for a year and extend current balance as well. Text msgs are 10c each way (used to be 5). So if you don't text a crazy amount and instead call people, its a pretty good deal. You would have to be a very heavy user of minutes ot justify a monthly plan and it sounds like you are not.
Safelink Wireless (Score:2)
https://www.safelinkwireless.com/Safelink/ [safelinkwireless.com]
You can't get any cheaper then free, if you are eligible of course. Do NOT know if the phone is unlocked, but unlike Assurance Wireless http://www.assurancewireless.com/Public/Welcome.aspx [assurancewireless.com] the phone uses a sim card, so you can buy a better phone then the cheap one they give ya.
But hey, it's free, I use it. Why the hell should I pay any money monthly for the extra bullshit I don't use?
Try Prepaid (Score:3)
There is a very useful table of prepaid plans [howardforums.com] over at Howard Forums. Since you have a GSM phone, you'll want one of the carriers that uses AT&T's or T-Mobile's network.
I'm pretty happy with T-Mobile's $30 monthly prepaid plan [t-mobile.com], since I rarely need many talk minutes and I'm willing to live with 2G data speeds until they refarm their 1900 MHz spectrum to support 3G [tmonews.com] later this year.
AT&T or T-Mobile (Score:3)
In the US, there are two major "flavors" of cellphone technology: GSM (also used in Europe) and CDMA (also used in some parts of Asia). There are four major carriers: Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile. There are also some (very good) regional carriers and a whole bunch of companies who re-sell from the big 4.
CDMA providers (in the US, Verizon and Sprint are the two big ones) don't have removable SIM cards, and they're not particularly friendly or helpful about unlocking existing phones. Verizon has, by far, the best coverage for the more rural parts of the US. So, if you're going to be out in the sticks, you might be stuck buying a shitty Verizon phone.
GSM providers WILL sell you a SIM, just like you're looking for, but they don't talk about it, and they don't offer any sort of commission to their store employees for it, so they won't offer it unless you ask. You walk in and buy a pre-paid SIM card, just like in Europe. The data prices suck if you don't get a data package (AT&T charges $2/MEGAbyte without a plan (or $2048/GB), but you can get $2/day unlimited data or pay $25 for a 1GB block of data), but you can get "Unlimited daily" plans for a few dollars per day. AT&T has better coverage than T-Mobile, but both are usually adequate in bigger cities. Neither's quite as good as Verizon in rural areas, but I've had better luck with AT&T than with T-Mobile.
Re:Let me google this for you (Score:4, Informative)
"T-Mobile or AT&T would be happy to sell no commitment service on your existing GSM phone."
At full price. He asked for "CHEAP". and nothing AT&T is cheap.
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I just bought one of their SIM cards with their $45 unli everything plan and popped it into my Nokia N9 when I was back in the States for a few weeks recently.
Process was straightforward enough to set it up. I had decent coverage (AT&T, YMMV), unlimited everything was nice to have. Unsure what experience the previous poster had with their 3G speeds. I found it to be quite speedy. Able to watch YouTube, etc. as fast or faster than my connection at home in the Philippines.
Overall, if I were living in the
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I'm using them right now with a Galaxy Nexus. So far so good. It's been great being free of a contract. I had some issues porting my number over due to the zipcode not matching the area code of the phone number I was porting. Their customer service was extremely helpful in getting it resolved. Once they made the needed changes everything was up and running within an hour.
More on Straight Talk (Score:2)
The great thing about Straight Talk is that is uses the AT&T network. Because most unlocked phones are built to use AT&T frequencies for 3G, you'll generally get faster data speeds than T-Mobile -- if your phone is built to use the AT&T frequencies. This would generally be an argument against using Simple Mobile.
It's $45 a month for unlimited everything.
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You can also buy a T-mobile SIM. If you have say a Nexus One (at least the early ones) that could only do HSPA on T-mobile that might be the better deal.
Re: (Score:2)