old phone reuse?????

There HAS to be a way to reuse on old cellular phone! I want a
temporary, 2nd service, or an additional phone on existing service, to
use on a two month road trip. My current service is a Nokia 3360 with AT&T.
I have two perfectly good phones: a 2nd Nokia 3360 that was used with
AT&T service, and a Qualcom QCP-2700 that was used with Sprint PCS service.
But -naturally- AT&T says the only way to 'add a line' is to switch to
Cingular, get two new phones (leaving me with 5 total), and sign up for
a new 1 or 2 year service agreement. (absurd)

Is there any legal way to use on of my existing -useless- phones for a
short term? Or is buying a pay-as-you-go plan (probably with another new
phone) the only possibility?
Thanks.

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cew wrote:

> There HAS to be a way to reuse on old cellular phone!

I've no idea how this works in the USA. In Europe you just buy a
new SIM card (prepaid or subscription), put it in the phone and
you're on. Phone numbers are linked to the SIM card, not the phopne.
Are in the US system phone numbers linked to the phone itself?

--
ir. J.C.A. Wevers // Physics and science fiction site:
[email protected] // http://www.xs4all.nl/~johanw/index.html
PGP/GPG public keys at http://www.xs4all.nl/~johanw/pgpkeys.html

Johan Wevers wrote:

>cew wrote:
>
>
>
>>There HAS to be a way to reuse on old cellular phone!
>>
>>
>
>I've no idea how this works in the USA. In Europe you just buy a
>new SIM card (prepaid or subscription), put it in the phone and
>you're on. Phone numbers are linked to the SIM card, not the phopne.
>Are in the US system phone numbers linked to the phone itself?
>
>
>
Far as I know, but could be wrong.

cew wrote:
> Johan Wevers wrote:
>
>> cew wrote:
>>
>>> There HAS to be a way to reuse on old cellular phone!
>>
>> I've no idea how this works in the USA. In Europe you just buy a
>> new SIM card (prepaid or subscription), put it in the phone and
>> you're on. Phone numbers are linked to the SIM card, not the
>> phopne. Are in the US system phone numbers linked to the phone
>> itself?
>>
> Far as I know, but could be wrong.

It depends on the system. The US uses a variety of different systems, not
all use GSM as in Europe. Only GSM phones use SIM cards, the other
networks (CDMA, TDMA, AMPS) don't.

Ivor