Bob

Problem with Virgin, there's huge chunks of the country where it doesn't exist, pretty much the whole of New England for one

Bob

Could go to independant phone store to unlock it, and also search the web, it's pretty easy process of inputting a series of numbers, just depends on your mobile phone

Bob

Another thought, well as off Jan,
Orange and Vodaphone offered really good holiday travel/Business plans to the States....advantage of it, calls only rounded up to 15 seconds rather than up to a minute and there's no minimum usage, your roaming so you know where you stand, and if it's a contract phone, it really isn't more expensive than roaming on a native phone.

Well I think that's my 2c worth *l*

scrubbedexpat099

I was about to chuck mine as we moved into the foothills and no service, but a few weeks ago things picked up, not sure why but now it is fine.

But if you look at any of the coverage maps of Colorado the most you will get is about 10% of the land mass no matter who you go for.

My phone does not have a SIM, there are some that do, but it seems a minority.

Pulaski

So you waffle on some about "GSM coverage", "tri-band phones", "protocols", and "standards", whereas I gave a link to the map showing coverage of one of America's largest cell phone companies, and some experience of using a phone connected to their network, and YOU have the gall to tell ME that "the OP wanted non-technical, easy to understand advice" .... well they really got that from you!


Er, if you'd read my earlier post, Tracfone uses the Alltel network so my phone works just fine anywhere that Alltel phones do.

fatbrit

Sad...

Pulaski

Do you have anything useful to add to this thread or are you going to stand in the corner like a sulky three-year-old sucking your thumb?

Perhaps you could share with us why you think a phone connected to the nation wide Alltel network isn't going to work nationwide? What do you know that Alltel doesn't???

fatbrit

I'll just allow you to keep demonstrating your fine qualities yourself.

Pulaski

I thought that we were all trying to help the OP? If you have something useful to add why not share it?

If I'm wrong I'd also like to know about it, but it seems to me that my phone will (should?) work anywhere that an Alltel phone will, no?

fatbrit

Surprisingly enough, I agree with you -- her best bet is probably the TracFone service, which uses the Alltel network. However, as I have no experience of it in D.C., I pointed out she should check local coverage. My cursory glance at TracFone's coverage map seemed to suggest that she will be paying roaming charges in some of the neighbouring states, which doubles the cost. Also, roaming service is usually rather dire in terms of quality.

I summarized the advice I thought was good in the thread for one reason only – she replied personally to my original reply. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have bothered.

My personal experience with Alltel is I could never get a signal when driving through Kingman, AZ. Not a big deal, I suppose -- unless you live there! Nowhere did I say anything about Alltel’s coverage (except recommend she check for her local coverage), but was rather trying to point out that it wouldn’t be the same as the network in Europe and she should be aware of this. Have you got shares in this company or something? Or just unable to accept anything that deviates, however small, from your narrow view of the world? I’m sorry you have difficulty with grasping the ideas of technology (your first reply to http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=249234 clearly demonstrates that you have no idea), but I will try not to hold it against you.

Which brings me around to my less-than-pleasant reply to your post. In this world there are people who do and people who just gripe to pull others down. Although, I read much admirable advice in your plentiful posts, I have noticed you have a tendency to nitpick in a humourless way at some relatively unimportant details from other contributors’ worthy posts. It’s possibly some sort of attention seeking mechanism, OCD perhaps, whatever. But when you do it to my posts, IT PISSES ME OFF.

sdee

To put you all out of your misery.. I can confirm that I went for a T-mobile pay-as-you go phone, which seemed to be the easiest option at the time. It does seem fairly expensive yes... but I'm trying to cut down.
Thanks for the advice... most of which I had to get a dictionary out to understand! (You'd never believe I have a Masters, would you...)
S