Re:Only Covers Contract Service Providers (Score 1)

I was also disappointed that they didn't cover pre-pays. I have a couple of unlocked GSM phones that I use on Cingular. We don't use more than 50 mins a month so when the contract is up I'm going to a pre-paid option. In Europe, everyone buys a phone and then buys a sim card from any one of many dealers. You may have several sims that are used for various purposes. Maybe one sim is cheaper for local calls, another is good for traveling and a third one is a backup in case of bad reception with the others. Sims are cheap and 'top -up' (adding minutes) is easy. Example: I arrived in Venice on a Sunday during August. Many shops were closed but I had no problem buying a sim for $15 with $10 worth of credit on it. Slipped it into my phone and I was in business. Try that in the U.S. The U.S. business model for cell phones is simply to lock you into a contract to get more cash from you than they would under the EU model. My Cingular bill is about $75/month. Even with a U.S. style prepaid account I should be able to drop my cost to about $20/month. Now that unlocking is legal, I'm waiting for some smart company to offer a free unlock and cheap sims to owners of GSM phones (Cingular, Tmobile). It is already possible to buy a sim only account on Oxygen http://www.ecallplus.com/cellular/Oxygen-GSM-Kit.h tml for $25 with 50 minutes on the sim.