You helped me remember something I like about Italy/Europe. Here, you put a certain amount of money on your phone, and when it's gone, you recharge it. There aren't any plans or contracts. I hope the US gets wise to this before I get back (I hear some companies are sort of like that now.) I don't want to go back to a contract-based cell phone.

Hmmm...

Last deployment I dropped a phone and broke it and T-Mobile would replace it free of charge (I didn't pay for insurance, either) but I had to mail it in, and I didn't want to wait so I bought a new phone.

I don't know if it's still that way, but I have been really happy with T-Mobile. Cingular sucked donkey balls.

yeh they still have pay before you use plans around 10 cents a minute.

Me too. If my phone breaks or whatever, with T-Mobile I can just pull out the SIM card and purchase a new (unlocked) phone of my choice. You can find really cool unlocked phones online for great prices. It's how I got my sexy European phone to work with my American network.

Maybe you need a new service provider, MM.

I don't know when you got a break like that,But ain't it funny, sprint sucked big time for me but cingular works like a charm.

I have a friend that pretty much abused Cingular/AT&T's insurance services and got at least 2, or possibly 3, very expensive phones replaced after damaging them from his own stupidity.  (Hopefully his gain helps make up for TW's loses noted above).

I know that my son recently lost a phone we had gotten him, thankfully just a cheap little Firefly phone (even though he's a young adult, going to college, etc.)  The Firefly is a brain dead phone that parents can get for youngsters that will only let the phone call mom/dad/911 and about 10 other numbers that can be programmed into it.  No texting, no calling other numbers, etc.  Great for controlling call costs, and much safer if you have to be concerned that the person that gets the phone may lose it.

Anyway, after my son lost the phone we called Cingular/AT&T to find out about getting a replacement sim card after I bought another phone that he could use, or at least that someone in the family could use.  They wanted $30 for a replacement sim card, and suggested we would have to get it from a Cingular/AT&T store.  I wasn't happy at the expense of getting the replacement and would have cancelled the service for that phone but can't because it was tied to a two year commitment even though it wasn't the main number on our account.

I swear that the next time there's an escape period available to get out of the contract with no early termination fee, I'm jumping ship from Cingular/AT&T.  They can kiss my rump.  They drop calls too frequently, and though we did wind up getting the replacement sim card for my son's old line for free from the store (thankfully they were nicer to us than the customer service back at mothership), their customer service just seems to stink.

I really believe it's where you live how the cell service is, sprint dropped around one of ever three calls, Cingular on the other hand for me I get about one dropped call per hundred if that many. I could not get a steady signal from sprint at home period, but with cingular I almost always have at least two bars.

I had a small problem with the new AT&T Colleen also has cingular but for some reason her calls were not being logged as M2M they straighted it out as soon as I brought it to their attention, made up the bill by 40 something dollars, and added 1200 minutes to my phone use due to expire in one year from July.

You can do that here, it's just prohibitively expensive for those of us who do not HAVElandline phones and use our cell phone for ALL phone communications.

That just described Colleen and I, we both have cells no land line.

My display cost $45!  But then that company was and still is the rip off one!

Cell phone companies can be a nightmare! Two of my family members use T-Mobile, so far so good!

Reply By: Dr GuyPosted: Wednesday, August 01, 2007 My display cost $45! But then that company was and still is the rip off one!

45$ sheesh you got off cheap, how you do that.

Reply By: foreverserenityPosted: Thursday, August 02, 2007 Cell phone companies can be a nightmare! Two of my family members use T-Mobile, so far so good!

I have read and heard some real horror stories about cell companies, people getting huge credit hits because of them huge bills that were not theirs and the company would not fix and on and on.