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Do not want data plan, just voice and SMS

D

dlwiii

Lurker
About 2 years ago I finally decided to stop paying a carrier $80+ per month for my and my wife to have cell phones. We each hardly ever talk on them, but we do text each other often.

I dropped Sprint and my Treo, and got each of us simple prepay phones from Target and Best Buy. Then I signed each us up for $10 a month unlimited text, and put about $100 each into the phones' accounts. Now I just add cash whenever we run low, which is pretty rare. My phone bill is around $200 a year now.

I like this alot! We can throw away our phones and easily replace them if we want, have no contract, and pay about $20 a month for all the service that we need.

Yet we each also have ipod touches, and love them as well. Our house has WiFi, as do most places we go, so we do have pretty good portable internet devices without having to shell out $60+ per month to AT&T.

I would like to combine my two devices though. It does not look to be an option with AT&T, but I am wondering if it would be possible to get an Android phone, and then just get basic voice and SMS service from a carrier. I do not WANT to use GPS or 3G. I find the devices still very useful without these services.

Is this possible? Why should the carrier care what phone I have? I just want voice and SMS service and that's it.
 
T-Mobile has a prepaid option that is $15 per month. It's unlimited SMS and $0.10/minute of voice.
 
The problem with this idea is that the phone you'll probably want is going to cost A LOT. They are much cheaper when you buy them with a contract (where I live the phones cost nothing instead of about $600 if you sign a 50$ three years contract).

Using the plan Swizz posted, it's going to cost about $1140 for three years with no contract. With a three years contract, it's going to cost $1800, but you're going to have a much better plan.

The best option would probably be to buy a used older device and use the plan Swizz posted. ;)

Oh, I don't have a data plan myself by the way. What I did was buy the device with a cheaper contract ($25/month, unlimited texts and an hour of call time, free on weekends and after 7pm). I didn't have to pay the whole 600$, but I didn't have it for free either (I had to pick a plan which cost $50 or more for that). They sold it to me for $200.
 
Thank you both for your replies. DaSchmarotzer - is your plan T-Mobile as well?

I am fine with staying a generation or two behind the technology :)

If I buy a used older device, must it be compatible with the T-Mobile network? Or do they use SIM cards?

And the big question is whether T-Mobile's prepaid plan is agnostic as to what exact phone I have. That is the key here.
 
I'm assuming you'll be going with an Android device if you switch over to T-Mobile. As a result, you'll be hard pressed to find a GSM Android phone that isn't going to work on T-Mobile. All you need to make sure of, is that it accepts SIM cards.

T-Mobile does not give a flying ish what phone you are using. You don't even need to bring the phone in when activating the account. There is a point where they need to enter the IMEI for the phone, but this can be circumvented if they enter all 2s. After that, it's whatever; you can switch your SIM card to different phones every 20 minutes with no ill effect.
 
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