Re: Prepaid cell and docking station

wrote in alt.cellular

> I'm looking for a docking station and prepaid cell phone to dock.
> Tracfone doesn't sell phones compatible with Dockntalk or Merge. I
> understand that used phones on the internet may have an unpaid balance
> on them or may be uncompatible with a local cell service.

A cellphone for a CDMA carrier will quite possibly have an unpaid balance.
These phones are generally locked to one carrier, and tied in through the
internal electronics on the phone.
GSM phones, on the other hand, may be locked to one carrier, but they use
sim cards for the carrier information. The sim cards can be moved from
phone to phone. So, a GSM phone purchased from EBAy can be used whether or
not the previous owner owes money or not.
CDMA carriers are Sprint and Verizon. GSM are Cingular and T-mobile, in the
U.S.

> What do I do?

Simply decide who you want to have as a carrier, T-mobile or Cingular.
And to do that you will need to check their phones for coverage where you
are going to use the phone, and then if both provide good coverage,
compare prices.
Then go on Ebay and find the lowest cost phone from that carrier that will
work with your docking station. I would recommend a Nokia. And I would
also consider how you are going to keep the phone charged, Bluetooth uses
lots of power but may be the best bet because you can charge the phone
while using bluetooth. But it can loose the connection. A USB cable may or
may not charge the phone, and often times the usb and power connection are
in the same plug, so you can only do one at a time.

> This is for an alarm system that ordinarily makes a single 1-minute
> call per day. Land line service for this alarm has climbed to $25 per
> month and it's probably going to continue climbing
>
>



--
Dick #1349
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
~Benjamin Franklin

Home Page: dickcr.iwarp.com
email: dickcr@comcast.net

Dick C wrote:
> wrote in alt.cellular
>
>> I'm looking for a docking station and prepaid cell phone to dock.
>> Tracfone doesn't sell phones compatible with Dockntalk or Merge. I
>> understand that used phones on the internet may have an unpaid balance
>> on them or may be uncompatible with a local cell service.
>
> A cellphone for a CDMA carrier will quite possibly have an unpaid balance.
> These phones are generally locked to one carrier, and tied in through the
> internal electronics on the phone.

Possibly, but you can buy a refurbished or new CDMA phone from Wal-Mart,
Target, or from PagePlus. Any Verizon phone will work on PagePlus.

If he's looking for a low cost solution, PagePlus, or T-Mobile (with a
$100 card) is the best choice, Cingular will be very expensive for what
he wants to do. The issue with T-Mobile is that many areas don't have
T-Mobile coverage...including my house which is in a very urban part of
Silicon Valley (they've been trying to put in a tower for six years, but
some NIMBY people have successfully quashed it).