Adding 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

---

› See More: Adding out-of-state family member to plan?

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.

<matt1544@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1114447356.928234.315270@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> 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
>

"Gary Fead" <gwfead@cox.net> wrote in message
news:4Pebe.22767$Xg.11232@okepread02...
> 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.

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!

> <matt1544@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1114447356.928234.315270@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> > 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
> >
>
>

On 25 Apr 2005 09:42:36 -0700, matt1544@gmail.com wrote:

>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.
>
>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

"Gary Fead" <gwfead@cox.net> wrote in message news:4Pebe.22767$Xg.11232@okepread02...
> 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

Roger Binns wrote:
> "Gary Fead" <gwfead@cox.net> wrote in message
> news:4Pebe.22767$Xg.11232@okepread02...
>> 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

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.

"Roger Binns" <rogerb@rogerbinns.com> wrote in message
news:evs0k2-5g.ln1@home.rogerbinns.com...
>
> "Gary Fead" <gwfead@cox.net> wrote in message
news:4Pebe.22767$Xg.11232@okepread02...
> > 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
>
>

"Gary Fead" <gwfead@cox.net> wrote in message news:C_obe.22779$Xg.4655@okepread02...
>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

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