Used mine this weekend-see the thread on another reasonto wear a helmet-golf.

[QUOTE=Litespeed I have been told that if you buy a Verizon cell phone you have to use their phone card, or Nextel etc. Is there any cell phone company that will give you minutes and then have them roll over so if you don't use them for 6 months you still have them?
I don't want to end up paying $30 a month for something I don't use.[/QUOTE]


Litespeed:
Yes, if you buy X prepay phone you must use thier prepay card/service.

Not all prepay systems accumulate minutes. One I know that does, and the one I use, is Virgin
mobile which uses the Sprint cell network. Virgin is a seperate company from Sprint, so Virgin says. The cheapest card one can buy
is 20 dollars. Renew it once every 90 days or sooner and as long as you didn't use up all the dollars the
dollars accumulate, pass over , to the next 90 period and so on. Works out to 25 cents a minute unless
you talk more than 10 minutes in a 24 hour period then the cost is 10 cents per minute after the first 10 *on that day)_..
911 calls are no charge.
911 is required to work even if the fone is unactivated, as per FCC regulations (that's in USA for you furners)
So far, to show you how often I use a phone. I bought my Virgin phone about 3months ago. It came with
10 dollars credit (after you activate it). I've got a 5 dollar balance yet.

I found my Virgin fone for 49 bux at Best Buy. It is the k9 Kyocera and works fine here. I suggest no matter who ya go with check the coverage map at Sprints web site (I forget if Virgin has a map). SPrints coverage is fine if your in or near major metro areas. You can also pick up a phone at Wal Mart,etc. A good idea to use a major retailer if ya have to return the phone. I returned my first one no questions asked (pretty much) cause the damn keyboard was malfunctioning.

One final note, of the prepay systems I investigated, and I investigated pretty much all available to me, I found Virgin's the most attractive. That is based on MINIMAL cell phone usaage looking for bottom dollar
cost per month and adequate coverage for me.

Also, might peruse my post above, but as far as I know, Sprint-Virgin is the only prepay plan fone one can
get that has cell PHONE based GPS locator in case you DO have to use 911. The other systems use tri location based on the location of the cell towers and attempt to radio locate the calling fone using less accurate
radio location methods. Of all the major cell providers in the USA I THINK only 2 offer cell phone based
GPS locators and as I said I am fairly sure Virgin is the only one with prepay that offer such.

I didn't mean for this to turn into an advert for Virgin.... lol.

OH, and trying to anticipate any questions here. NO, sadly one can not use the said fone for a personal
GPS device even though it has the neccessary chips,etc. The GPS built into these phones is strictly used for location during 911 calls or if you cho0se to activate it to let Virgin track your movements.. (why they would do that who knows)

There are devices that combine a handheld GPS and a cell phone. At least Benefon used to have a model or two... not sure if they're still on the market. These would have probably been GSM900/1800 phones, so they would not do much good phone-wise in the US. For many current models you can get a separate GPS module that uses Bluetooth to communicate with the phone. I imagine you would then have to carry a personal portable power station to keep that combination running for any length of time...

--J

I only had to use mine once for an emergency, I went out for a late afternoon, early evening ride. I knew my primary battery for my lights was probably not going to make it, so I grabbed my backup battery for the ride.
As it got dark, I had to swtich to the backup, which was obviously not charged.
I had no other light souce, had to call a buddy to come and walk me down, I was at 7800 ft elevation and 26 degrees, the trail had snow and large patches of ice that I could not see in the dark.
I was dressed to ride, not sit aound and wait in the dark, I was 3 miles and 1000 ft elevation up from the parking lot.

How do you test this without unneccesarily dialing 911?

Al

Well, you can't. If you have a unactivated cell phone far as I know the only way to test
its ability to dial out to 911 would be to do it.

I'm not recommending one do this, but if it is an unactivated phone there is no way for them to call you back in any event, to the best of my knowledge (TM standard disclaimer).

I must admit I sinned and tested such a phone once a couple years ago. Yep, it worked. It was a Tracphone and I smoke tested it prior to activating it just to see if the stories were true.

Bottom line is if the cell phone can function normally and access the network ANY phone, whether
activated and supported by carrier XY or Z MUST be granted access to 911. Period. THat is FCC law. USA only, I have no idea what rules apply in any other country.

One could see how the potential for abuse could occur and my only advise to those so inclined to
annoy 911 services is to consider that modern cell networks most likely have methods to identify
a particular device, even though it is not a callable device. And that such a device, given the fact
the cell companies upgraded their systems to use either GPS phone based tracking or/AND tower
based radio triangulation location tracking, could be hunted down...eventually.
Would ONE teensy test dial set off such an investigation? Doubt it, but I'm just typing out of my ass here.
Does it piss off 911 centers when people do it? Yes.
Repeatedly , I'd not try it.
Remember, there is a reason Osama and friends don't use cell phones anymore. HAH.

The same rules apply in Canada: all cell phones have access to 911 and * Numbers. All cell phone plans and landlines even have an additional fee of .50 per month to offset the cost of emergency operators costs, etc. Some provinces even apply another fee on top of the national one.

And yes, the telecom companies can isolate where you are down to within 20 meters. Soon, that service will eb available to all cell-phone companies across Canada to help assist emergency workers with the caller's exact location or to help police apprehend abusers.

I gave my old cell phones away. As I got a new plan the new phones were free. Now each of my parents carries a no access plan phone in the car.

There are others in this world who have sinned as you have. I apologized on the line and said it was a mistake. I admitted I was testing a phone.

My phone was invaluable when I crashed on Dec. 29th. If I had to walk anywhere, I probably would have gone into shock. I then was able to call my boss and call out of work before it was too late to do so.

There has been other occasions when the phone was needed. When the trailercycle broke down, when my son got too sleepy to ride his trailercycle, when I came across a one car accident off the main road, and when I broke a spoke and thrashed a BB at the same time!

Same law here in Finland. In case of an emergency you will be able to make the call without a SIM-card. The number is different, though.

--J

I ride alone on my commute so carrying a cellphone makes sense to me. I was hit by a car last summer so called my husband to take me to the ER. It was also useful to call my work to let them know I wasn't going to make it in the next few days (let them know sooner the better). Also, it had saved me from schlepping my bike home on a few occasions. I called my hubby concerning the mechanical breakdowns and he was able to talk me through it so I can get my bike back on the road.

About 6 months ago a car hit me during my morning ride. A passer-by called the ambulance and then my wife. Becasue it was a bad connection, she called me on my phone and I was able to tell her I was alive and she stopped worrying. It's definately wortth it and now they are so light it won't slow you down. After all the phone is for others to reach you.