[Alan Smithiee]

if I have this in the wrong forum please feel free to move it.

we're looking for a low cost cell phone option for emergencies, our carrier got real snotty when I refused to provide personal information (SSN etc) as well as trying to charge me for services I didn't want.

just something basic, maybe 10-30 minutes a month that I don't have to pay more than I do for my landline and DSL for.

I've heard nothing but bad about the ones you buy at gas stations (one station manager even told me NOT to buy it)

any sugestions? we've had home invasions and a serial killer in the area of late and our LL's are getting worse instead of better.

[Bruz]

Cell phones in the Non-firearm Weapons Forum? I have heard cell phones are causing deaths when used while driving, but this is getting ridiculas! :what:

Sorry, no helpfull input...

[hso]

Why not non-firearms? Perhaps StraTat?

Go with the prepaid Cricket types.

[Combat-wombat]

I guess it could be on-topic if he means a cell phone like this (http://www.safetyproductsunlimited.com/cell_phone_stun_gun.html)

Or it could go in a normal firearms forum if he meant this (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/phone001205.html)

[Snaps]

I'll give this a shot. Verizon offers a prepay service which I don't think they need a SSN. You just buy time either over the phone CC, or at a store. The Southern version I think is Cingular. Even radio shack used to carry one called Trackphone

[pytron]

Old cell phones--one's who no longer have a contract--can still be used to dial 911. Nice to keep in the car or around your house, just in case.

-Pytron

[ambidextrous1]

Snaps is right, I have Verizon prepay and didn't have to supply a SSN. I pay $30 every two months and make sure I use up all (or most) of my time in each accounting period; this reduces the landline bill. Unused time is carried forward.

Verizon has one feature that I find amazing. If you dial my cell phone, using 1 plus 10 digits, and I am anywhere in the continental United States, my phone will ring. I don't know about Alaska and Hawaii.

They're still larger than Dick Tracy's wrist watch, but aside from that they're VERY remarkable devices.:cool:

[DigMe]

Pytron is right. Keep an old cell phone on you or in your car and check it for charge every few days. That's what I do with my old Nokia. If you dial 911 on any old cell phone without service it WILL go through and the cell phone companies are required by law to allow it to go through.

brad cook

[Alan Smithiee]

well, to make it firearm related my CCW instructor strongly recomended that we have a cell phone for when SHTF, home invasions when they cut the phone lines, and when I was in harness they always said the most dangerous person was the guy with the radio. hows that?

and do those cell phone guns come in .357? (snick)

Verizon and most other providers don't supply to our area. (or don't know if they do or not) but we now have a old phone that a friend gave us. so that should give us 911 at least, thanks for that tip.

[makdaddy03]

Mine will not work while out in the boonies.:D

[Gray_Fallen]

I use Trac-Fone
www.tracfone.com

$60 for a phone and $16 for a new card every three months. No SSN, no nada.
Good service - works even out here in the sticks where I live.

A cell phone is an essential part of an urban escape & evasion kit (http://www.philelmore.com/martial/evade.htm)

[Alan Smithiee]

we've been looking at trac phone.. and they say there good for our area... have to swing by Rad shack and see take a look (although the web site says 60 days for a new card).. thanks

darn, missed the $24.00 offer by one day

[ambidextrous1]

Very interesting! I thought I had about the least expensive service available. I'm boing to look into Trac phone and see if they have all the features of Verizon. Verizon's performance is very good, but i'll give up a bit for a better price. Thanks for sharing!:cool:

[Weimadog]

I have a tracfone and I am very pleased. It is about $100 a year for activation, and I can buy minutes of usagefor about 20 cents per minute. Yes, that is an expensive per minute charge, but for somebody who does not use a phone much, it is a good deal. It comes out to about $15 per month for me, which is fine. There are no suprise hidden charges.

I did not have to give personal information to activate it, as it is prepaid. They asked a name, and phone number, but you could give just any name, like one which belongs to a pet.

The Motorola V120T that tracfone offers has a battery which will last all day, for a few days. It is both a digital and analog phone. The phone cost me $80, and you can buy them at KMart.

Just a bit of advice. If you are in a dangerous situation, deal with it,
then use the cell phone. The cell phone could prove to be a distraction when you should be paying attention to the threat.

Weimadog

[Sir Galahad]

Cutting phone lines is easier said than done. In many locales, they are virtually indistinguishable from power lines to a layman. Lights go out and you hear a scream, look for the crispy critter on your roof. Break out the Shop-Vac. Cutting phone and power lines is good for the movies, but most criminals do not possess the technical know-how to safely do that. That's why they're criminals and not working for the phone company or electric company as linemen.

[Don Gwinn]

It's on topic. Communications are powerful weapons, if only indirectly. As much as we malign 911, it DOES represent the ability to call in lots of armed men!

[JShirley]

"Or friends."

:D

Especially if you have something like Nextel, with its Direct Connect "Walky-talkie" feature. You can instantly hit a single designated user with radio comms.

When I carried a Nextel unit, I preferred their ruggedized versions. They stood up better to abuse (dropping, especially), and could be used, in a pinch, as an effective bludgeon.

John

[Alan Smithiee]

a guy I used to serve with had all the phone service in his area taken out with a 30'06, guy shot the lines down, then went into the area and cleaned out houses, they did catch him 3 days later (still had some of the swag in his trunkl). around here all you have to do is wait untill it rains, or for a farmer to swing to close and take out the ground boxes (or what ever there called), or wait for the phone company to fix the lines AGAIN. or........

and as a friend pointed out, cell phones are handy to call in the clans on Poachers too. (we have been having problems with truck hunters and people popping cattle from there pickups)

[Sir Galahad]

Check the Darwin Awards web site. There's a couple winners who were shooting insulators off phone poles and got fried by the falling wire. Guy with the '06 got lucky he picked the phone line.

[Alan Smithiee]

would have been better if Darwin had been awake. thinking WAY back.. I seem to recall some guys getting it that way when I was a kid. they didn't like the fact that power lines had been run near there land or some such (we are talking WAY back in the 60's now)