Hello, folks,

I'd like to add my vote to T-mobile prepaid. You can find a good deal on eBay (for SIM card).
As Motel75 mentions, you can purchase a discounted airtime topup online, too.
I sometimes do not get good signal strength when my cellphone is located inside the building, but overall, I am satisfied with its coverage.
The SIM cards I bought had California area code, but it was very easy to change it to your local area code by contacting customer service. Representatives are very helpful.

BTW, I would NOT recommend Tracfone although its prepaid starter packages are sold at many supermarkets.
As Motel75 mentions, it is not true GSM; it looks like the firmware is locked to Tracfone even though it uses SIM card.
I put SIM unlocking code and saw that restriction is "off" on the screen, but it still did not accept other company's SIM card.
In addition, I don't recommend Tracfone due to my personal bad experience.
I used to be a customer of Tracfone simply because it was easy to purchase its package.
However, on one day, my airtime credit was suddenly "dropped" (nearly ~900 minutes' worth) without any usage (actually within 1hr!) and my term was still valid (i.e. the credit was not "expired"). Ouch!
After talking with several representatives at their customer service (well, I waited for more than an 1hr to reach a human being), they just confirmed that my credit disappeared without any explanation.
They could locate when I made last purchase of my airtime, but they could not tell me why it suddenly disappeared.

Well, I learned a hard lesson from this, but fortunately, found this PrepaidGSM website while I was looking for a prepaid US carrier.
Maybe I should thank Tracfone for increasing my knowledge...

ok looks like tmobile is the one for me! thanks for the help guys!

out of interest how much is a new tmobile pack (bought from a tmobile shop)?

also a lot of ebay sellers who sell tmobile sim packs will not ship outside of the us!

It's often less fuss just to buy the T-Mobile SIM together with a phone for $30 at Wal-Mart than to pester a TMO store into selling you a SIM by itself (which usually costs around the same). However, SIMs are available on eBay from about 6-15 dollars depending on airtime, etc. Be sure to get one that is already activated. (Some eBay sellers offer SIMs that can't be used to start an account but can be used as replacements for lost SIMs.)

One more thing, I would not recommend Tracfone, either. If, however, you strongly desire a Tracfone, be sure to do the recommend-a-friend thing, because both you and the recommender get 120 minutes airtime (which is why people sell this on eBay for 1 cent). This was the only reason I mentioned them in my earlier post. Otherwise, T-Mobile is IMHO definitely the way to go UNLESS you'll be somewhere their coverage is not that great, which you can check on www.t-mobile.com.

On the US ebay.com there are some sellers that will sell T-mobile USA prepaid sim cards internationally but shipping charges are higher (saw US$4.95 to US vs. US$8.85 to UK) plus any customs charges and duties are payable upon delivery. Also the sim will expire with 1-2 months of purchase on most cards that are shipped with a live phone number unless you add airtime (which will extend it up to a year as some others have mentioned). Suggest purchase shortly before travel.

Activating service at a T-Mobile store will cost about $50 with a sim card.

Details on T-Mobile USA sim card purchase and activation:

http://wiki.howardforums.com/index.php/Activation

ok ta for all that just one more question (i promise!), how much does a new cingular pre pay sim cost? (brand new)