How to set up a backup spare phone?

[jivenene]

I have a Galaxy S3 on GoPhone (well not yet, but in a month or 2), and it will be my only phone, as I have no home phone.

I need to have a backup phone ready in case my S3 gets lost or dies because I have kids and a job. I have an old HTC GSM phone that takes SIM cards, a T-Mobile SDA. Will this work to make/receive calls? Would I be able to go down to the ATT store and pop in a GoPhone SIM and make it work? Or does the device need to be in the GoPhone database?

I need to be prepared for this scenario and cannot wait 5-10 days to get a replacement phone.

Any other suggestions?

thanks!

 

[Rukbat]

Not only can you do it with such a new phone, I did it with a Motorola V551 (made in about 2002) last week when my Note had to go in for repair. AT&T just gave me a SIM card, pushed a few buttons on their pad and the phone was on the air with my phone number.

A TMobile phone won't take an AT&T SIM (unless you can convince TMobile to give you the unlock code), but you can go month-to-month on T-Mobile until your other phone is working again.

 

[jivenene]

Not only can you do it with such a new phone, I did it with a Motorola V551 (made in about 2002) last week when my Note had to go in for repair. AT&T just gave me a SIM card, pushed a few buttons on their pad and the phone was on the air with my phone number.

A TMobile phone won't take an AT&T SIM (unless you can convince TMobile to give you the unlock code), but you can go month-to-month on T-Mobile until your other phone is working again.

Great tip, thanks!

Forgot that they won't let you use a T-Mobile phone! I might buy a spare ATT basic phone off ebay just in case.

Because you don't realize how dependent you are on your phone, until you run it through the washing machine (did that with my old EVO 4G!), then suddenly it's like, how do I get in contact with anyone?!??!?!

 

[ardyer]

I can almost guarantee tmobile will give you the unlock code if you call them. So long as the phone has been paid for, tmobile's pretty good about unlocking it.

 

[jivenene]

I can almost guarantee tmobile will give you the unlock code if you call them. So long as the phone has been paid for, tmobile's pretty good about unlocking it.

Good, my EVO 3D is giving up the ghost. I am getting these errors:

"Radio Resource Shortage"
"General Error"

Damn custom ROM! I guess I need to dump 2 hours into this thing and get it working for another month until I can switch to GoPhone.