Locus/CallPlus Pop Prepaid GSM

AndrewH · 04-12-2006, 09:46 PM

Hi all, right now I'm on Locus Oxygen prepaid plan, and so far I like the way it works. Currently getting charged 14cents/min though. So I go to Locus website and see some of the other plans have changed, the CallPlus POP service is a flat rate as low as 9cents per minute.

Has anyone else used this? And also, does anyone know what I will have to do to switch from the Locus Oxygen to the CallPlus Pop plan? will I need a new SIM or will my Oxygen sim work?

P.S. I really like my service with locus, the only thing it lacks is MMS, IMO

Brad729 · 04-13-2006, 08:31 PM

I used Oxygen and Locus in the past, but it's been a while. If you read all the fine print, there is a catch to the 9c/minute rate both with Locus and all their partner companies. With Locus, the first 5 minutes of each day is 15c/min. then it goes to 9c/min the rest of the day.

With POP the only catch is you have to spend $100 at a time to get the 9c/min rate. If you really use the phone a lot, I guess that's not bad, but when I started spending more than $50/month on prepaid was when I decided to go to a contract service, and been with Sprint ever since.

I'm not sure if you'll need a new SIM or not, but anytime I ever had to call them they were very helpful. Also, I don't think they use outsourcing, every time I ever called Oxygen or Locus I was talking to someone in Bronx, NY. It's nice to be able to understand the CS reps for once, everything is overseas now!

AndrewH · 04-14-2006, 03:42 PM

See I'm using oxygen right now, and weanted to switch to POP. I could not find any retailer for anything but oxygen, so i called POP, after talking with someone obviously from the east coast US, they informed me that I could not just switch from 02 to POP, but I didn't get any info on what to do if I just want to drop O2 all together and start over with POP. I was almost under the impression that POP is not being offered to new customers, only to exsisting customer (after changeing the POP plan drastically)

I did plan on buying 100$ (3 months) at a time, and I really use my phone for txt msging more than anything, so that would be a good plan for me.
If I can get started with POP, how do I go about it? I can't find any help for anyone except current POP customers.

Brad729 · 04-14-2006, 05:55 PM

I haven't actually called them but their FAQ makes it sound easy to get connected, did you already try this? Just call them and say you need a new SIM card.

http://www.callpluspop.com/html/faqs...14a3790815a099

roberts1953 · 04-18-2006, 11:03 AM

Think ecallplus as one company with several different plans. Here is a link that compares them. http://www.ecallplus.com/prepaid-cellular.html. This shows the different GSM plans and a couple CDMA plans. (If you see any links for TDMA plans just ignore them, as they are not allowing any new activations.

Pop stacks up to them pretty well, especially for high minute users. But if your usage is primarily for text then they are all pretty much the same. SMS=$.05 in and out, and $100 gets 90 days. If all you do is SMS you wont see a difference.

In order to switch services call and get a new SIM.

One thing to think about, get a discout and save.
www.cheapphonecards.com offers a 15% discout on Oxygen cards. If you use the discount code "refill5" that drops it another 5%. This is an immediate 20% discount, $100 card for $80 bringing your SMS cost to $.04 in and out and calls to $.11min. Plus once you spend $250 you get another %20 discount brining it to SMS $.03 and calls to $.09/min.

Since you are already spending $33.33/month have you considered a prepaid Tmobile sidekick plan. $1/day for Unlimited SMS (and Unlimited web) and voice calls at $.15/min. If all you do is SMS then you could use the same website and discount code for 8% off tmobile refill cards. $100 card for $92. Unlimited SMS for $27.60/month and no tax.

Another option is to use boost mobile. They have unlimited data for $.20/day. You could send SMS as data for $6-7/month, and calls are billed at $.20/min.

AndrewH · 04-18-2006, 02:27 PM

hey thanks for the help, thats alot of nice info. and I cant get T-Mobile in my area or i would look into that.

One question though, i check CheapPhoneCards.Com and they only sell $10 cards for oxygen; what would happen if I purchased, lets say, 5 of these at a time? would they all be activated at one time? I'm not sure, since the last time I purcahsed aitrime, they didnt even send me a pin, it was automatically added in a couple minutes.

roberts1953 · 04-19-2006, 12:02 AM

When I have ordered from cheapphonecards they sent me an email with a PIN to add to my account. The minutes weren't added to my account until I activated the PIN. Just like I was adding a refill card. So, whenever you add a new PIN your old minutes will roll over and add to your new minutes with the new expiration.
One other option to consider. Net10 offers $.10/min voice and $.05 SMS in and out. Plus they only require a minimum of $15/month. You can buy larger cards with longer expirations at the same rate. They have a combined coverage of cingular, tmobile and others. The only downside with Net10 is that even though it is GSM it uses a special firmware in the phone that can't be unlocked. Meaning, you are forced to buy a Net10 phone and SIM in order to use their service. But the phones are reasonable.

AndrewH · 04-19-2006, 10:54 AM

yeah, i bought a v171 on net10 and emailed them about unlocking the phone, and curious why they wouldnt just let me stick a net10 sim in an gsm phone. I really felt all us who bought the v171 from net10 that were expecting more could've had a class action lawsuite against them when they flat out told me it wasnt a real v171. I couldn't stand to have a crappy, small screened, extremly slow phone, if I could only choose between 3 CRAPPY backgrounds, and could download nothing but the worst monophonic ringers (via sms)

roberts1953 · 04-19-2006, 11:31 PM

Here's the deal with both Net10 and Tracfone. They are both owned by the same parent company based in Latin America. They both offer similar prepaid service. Tracfone offers GSM and CDMA (and some TDMA) phones. Net10 offers only GSM phones. Don't worry about unlocking either CDMA or TDMA phones because for the most part it is pointless. GSM is a different story. For a typical unlocked GSM phone you can unlock it and put in any SIM and it will work as long as it runs on the same frequencies as your service provider.
But Tracfone GSM and Net10 (GSM) are different then all other GSM phones. They have a special firmware in them that only allows the use of their SIM. Tracfone SIM only in a Tracfone phone and Net10 SIM only in a Net10 phone. You cannot put either of these SIMs in any other "unlocked" phones and get them to work. Nor can you put any other Non trac or Net10 Sim into a Trac/Net10 phone and get it to work.
This firmware cannot be unlocked at all!
This is good and bad. Bad because you can't switch out phones to any GSM phone you want. Good because the firmware holds the "minutes remaining" timer for the account inside the phone itself. This allows you roam on just about any GSM carrier in the US. (Think cingular postpaid coverage).

barterpc · 06-11-2007, 09:50 AM

Well roberts1953 you're almost right. Although you can't use NET10 SIMs in other phones you can use standard 2G and 3G sims in NET10 phones. I verified this with a friends cingular phone. Which is what's really annoying me. Because while my friends Cingular Orange SIM worked in my C139. As for the NET10 SIM I couldn't get it to work on either his L7 or my used Razor. This is on-top of earlier attempts to sync my SIM with my address data. You can read the data from NET10 SIMs in most cases, but not write to or modify it.

This to me is a big let down. I would love to use my old razor with the Net10 sim so I could take advantage of features such as bluetooth and uploading ringtones (and other stuff) via my USB port. I can sort of understand the phone thing. But if I am planning on staying with you anyway why not let me bring my own phone to the mix. It would definitely ease the minds of everyone. I stay on NET10 service happy with the service and the use of my bluetooth headset.

Pitty NET10 / Tracfone doesn't see it this way. This is probably the one major sticking point. NET10 has an excellent track record of saving the customer money for great cell service, but at what cost. Customer service sucks in addition to the fact attention to customer trends and satisfaction is seemingly non-existent.

handyman39 · 02-08-2008, 06:24 PM

Responding to net10 phone unlocking. I love 10 cents a minute, but the service sucks and adding airtime from a prepaid card does not even have the option to add on the menu! Which means that from your phone, now out of minutes, you can't even call net10! I transferred service from one net10 phone to another when the first phone was missing, and when found tried to activate the old phone with a new number. After two days of being told that there were no lines available in my area, I tried to contact them via e-mail. Three days after the fact, I received a mail that they had gotten my complaint. No solution. I tried to charge up my minutes and had to reprogram the phone! The SIM card from the new phone is rejected by the old phone. Any ideas besides finding another company?