US Pre pay sims, Costs and roaming?
 

Ok say i want to buy either a cingular or tmobile sim card for america, how much do they cost for just hte sim pack and how does US roaming work (say i want to start off in Boston and also spend some time in New york? i really dont understand about raoming charges, ie you go outside your area, can anyone help?

Can't speak for Cingular...

T-Mobile is good. I have it. 10 cents a minute if you top up with the higher value cards. If you put $100 in it, you get 1 year of validity and any future cards you put in, of any value, are extend your time for a year. (They call it Gold Rewards.) For infrequent users this is wonderful.

If you can live with CDMA, PagePlus is worth a look too. Broader coverage area, slightly higher per-minute rate. Roaming is 99 cents a minute though.

T-Mobile's roaming is at normal rates, except in Canada where it's 40 cents.

Tmobile is probably cheaper but definitiley easier to get than cingular. There is really no roaming per say in the US on any mobile plan or prepaid. As long as you are in the US, and you are calling anywhere in the US, the call costs are the same. So, you can have a prapaid sim with a California, Boston, etc. number, call anywhere with in the US it, and use it from any where in the US at the same cost. Bottom line...your minutes are nationwide. Both Cingular and Tmobile also give you 1 year expiration once you topup with $100. International calls are cheaper on cingular though. Tmobile is $0.10 cents/SMS sent. (international or US).

It also cheaper to get the sims on ebay. You can get tmobile sims with about 150 minutes for about $10 shipped(See link below). You can also change the areacode to one of your choice by calling tmobile Cust. Service. In most cases there is no need for it, due to the reasons above.

http://search.ebay.com/search/search...sim&category0=

ok thanks guys, the info is brilliant! but i don't understand how much the sim packs are?

i don't like cdma, I have an unlocked moto slvr that is my travel phone so will be using that!

one more question, What other options are there as well as tmobile and cingular, i understand boost requires special firmware in there phones?

Nextel/BoostMobile in the US uses an old digital standard called iden that they will eventually phase out in favor of CDMA technology used by Sprint who they merged with(rumor of 2010). Handsets may be locked, but you can buy a kit with a phone and an iden sim card inexpensively on the web or from a department store when you visit. Also has a useful PTT feature at a flat rate per day.
Good chart of prepaid options in the Northeast US:
http://www.cellguru.net/prepaid_compare.htm
Agree with others a TMobile or Cingular prepaid GSM sim off ebay may be your best bet so long as your handset covers the 800/1900 Mhz bands used in North America.

excellent, maybe will get either a tmobile or boost sim, i am going to go to the us when gwb sod's off! (i really don't like him!)

I got my T-Mobile SIM off a guy on eBay. It came with a Los Angeles, California (+1 323) number, which was okay with me - I will not be in any particular place in the US regularly, except for parts of North Dakota that T-Mobile does not natively serve. There is no long distance charge for inbound or outbound US calling anyway.

I paid about $5 (plus an exhorbitant $8 for shipping, which is okay - I knew I was paying it) and got about $20 in calling time. I've since added a $100 card so now I'm good until early February of 2008. (My original time expired in early February but I topped up before that happened.) Now even including my playing I have about $121 in credit (you get a bonus when you are in the Gold Rewards program).

Cingular has better coverage, but with the roaming areas included, T-Mobile is not that much worse. I think it's going to work out very well for me.

I have a PagePlus phone just in case, though. Verizon has the best coverage footprint of any network (when you include the roaming partners) and that's the network PagePlus uses. As mentioned above, boring CDMA, though.

My plan is to use PagePlus when I must and T-Mobile when I can.

ok, tmobile, cingular and boost are the one's to look at, when i get there.....mmmm again early 09 i will be off to the US (Bob help you all!)

I compiled a list of all US GSM prepaid SIMs here: http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=824482

I try to keep it as up to date as possible :-)

Something to remember about Tracfone (yeah, it's not true GSM) is that you can get 120 minutes when you register if someone "recommends" you. You can find someone to do this on eBay (for one cent, usually). It makes it an OK offer for someone who's just visiting for a short time and doesn't have a US-capable phone (as they are available at the likes of Wal-Mart for $20).

However, I still generally recommend T-Mobile, with the suggestion that the user go to Gold Rewards status immediately. You can get a $100 topup on cheapphonecards.com for around $90-95 (enter the coupon code "cheap" unless you have a better one). Of course, they also sell topups for Cingular and the others. One thing non-US users often forget is that in many jurisdictions you have to pay sales tax on a topup (usually 5-10 percent), which you generally do not have to pay online, so there can be additional savings in topping up this way.

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)