One word: Rollover Sorry couldn't help myself, seen one too many of that commercial. I am not even sure if there is a rollover plan for a prepaid cellphone service. Maybe check with your current provider and see if they will work something out with you. Much easier to do with a local service provider than with one of the huge national chains.
Another lesson here is that redundancy is a good thing everywehre. A car charger, a solar panel charger, back-up batteries etc all seem to be good options when employed as a layered system. And I recall that energizer also has a battery powered emergency cell phone charger as well.
Good list, great discussion; "Please sir, may I have some more?"

IIRC the company putting out those rollover minutes isn't a reliable one.
know anyone already on Verizon (friend/family) that could add you on for $9.99/month?

Tracfone has a deal where you can get a year of service for $124 or so. Even if the minutes or service is expired you can call 911. I personally have a Tracfone as my cell. my old one (old lg from tracfone) currently lives in my glove-box as a back-up. it is in a little bag with the car charger.

I know 124 + the 10-30 dollars for the phone seems high, but it will work on pretty much any network, in my experience. I usually have better coverage than all of my coworkers with us cellular and a local company. My Motorola 376g runs on the at and t network here. my old lg, 3018? was on the us cellular network. The great thing about tracfone is that if there is cellular service available, it works. That is what it seems, i have been told that it is a secondary to any regular cell phone, so in an emergency, with overloaded circuits, prepaid might not be the best.

Tracfone uses either CDMA (older models) or GSM (new models with a SIM) - the same handset can't do both there's nothing special about it.

In the "you couldn't make this stuff up dept."
My wife works for a government agency and frequently is out on-site in remote areas.
So for safety they have a policy of phoning in, to report, before leaving the last site.

They were recently told that they must not use SMS anymore because it is too expensive (apparently the government can't negotiate some sort of discount with the cell providers to get free minutes - well it's not like they are a big customer or anything!)

So now they must call in and wait while a receptionist answers - so we save 10c on the SMS but now waste the time of two employees, sounds like government as usual.

Next problem. They are in a remote area with little or no cell coverage, although SMS usually works - this was pointed out to managers.

The solution came through today - they are looking at fitting the trucks with satellite phones!!!


I'm pretty sure this is how the stealth bomber came about. "General we have had complaints that our fighters are interfering with Mrs Smith's garage door opener, the solutions are to buy her a new one from HomeDepot or develop a new $billion aircraft that doesn't reflect radio waves".

Tracphone minutes roll over as long as you keep the service paid. In other words, you buy a card for X minutes and X days, the minutes and months are added to your service. If you run out of either you have to add more, but the numbers just add, the minutes don't ever reset to 0. (I'm probably not describing it well.)

I use trac for my personal cell because I use very few minutes, and that makes it cheap for me.

Then you will be happy to know that there is a big push in the telecommunications industry to standardize on the mini-USB for power. All new GSM phone models are supposed to have them next year (that's AT&T and T-Mobile in the US). Hopefully, Verizon and Sprint will follow suit.

Here's a few more ideas for you:

• The Energizer DUO USB Battery Charger[/usb] ...x]Solar Charger that has a USB power output jack.
• The Sanyo USB 2-Position Charge also charges from a USB port, and includes two AA batteries for the same price as the Everyready charge alone. It also looks easier to pack and works faster. But no AC option (you can supply your own).
• The Eton FR150 Emergency Radio + Flashlight + Cell Phone Carger is an AM/FM/NOAA radio and flashlight that can be charged via a USB port, a built-in solar panel, or built-in hand cranked generator. It also has a power-out jack, and you get a free tip (obviously select the mini-USB style used for the Razor or Blackberry phones) to charge your cell or USB devices.
• The PowerFilm Solar USB + AA Charger will charge two AA/AAA batteries or a USB device.

Cheers!

Actually they decided on microUSB. IMHO thats because everything else such as cameras, GPS, etc use miniUSB so by standardizing on microUSB they can still sell some adapters. The microusb standard has already been adopted a year or two ago and all the new phones are coming that way.
So now I have to carry a mini and micro cable rather than just the miniUSB that worked with our old phones.

FWIW, at least according to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroUSB#Mini_and_micro
everything ought to be migrating towards Micro now.

That mini/micro section only mentions cell phones (mobile devices). The term mobile devices is confusing since gps, cameras, etc are mobile, but the USB official mobile devices term refers to cell phones.