In several of the posts over the last couple of month people have recomended to carry a tracfone or pre payed phone cards.?

If our cell phones don't work, why would we want to carry around a tracfone. if cell phones don't work more than likely the land line system is also going to be down, so why pre payed cards??

Sounds like a catch 22 don't it.?

During the Hurricane Rita evacuation out of Houston; cellphone systems were overwhelmed very quickly. Our land line did work but then again the storm did not hit.During 9/11 land line systems were overwhelmed in certain parts of the country.

Maybe the old ham radio is the solution?

Text messaging will get through when a cell phone call will not; texts require much less bandwidth and numerous texts can transmit in the spaces between actual calls. So in an emergency try texting as long as there is some cell coverage. During a lot of disasters it is the volume of calls that cause your call to not go through so a smaller text message may squeak by.

what I am trying to learn is if the cell phone that I already have dose not work, what is the need or use of the tracfone and the pre pay cards????

The specific recommendation for TracPhone was because they are not dependent on one network. TracPhone uses by agreement a whole host of vendors....so if one network is down or overwhelmed these phones will look for another option rather than just being dead.

There is no certainty with cell phones but this multiple network ability is a nice feature.

Schwert:

Now that makes sence. It has been posted that the phone schould not be activated, Do you know if the phone will be charged when you want to use it, or do we have to carry a phone charger??

I have a TracPhone and think it is best to activate it and keep it charged. I am uncertain if carrying one unactivated is a good idea...it seems not to me. We have a low tech Nokia that seems to hold its charge for months (not used of course).

We buy 1 year activation with minutes. The minutes roll over each year and they offer double minutes etc all the time.

We use our phone about 1 minute weekly, so this is not a great deal cost wise, but I do think the multiple vendor coverage is a good thing.

Last fall we had a massive wind/rain storm where many parts of the city were without power for many days (we were without for 4.5 days). None of our neighbors had cell phone coverage at their house but we did. I have no idea who was the carrier that was up but it worked for us with no cares at all.

It seems to me that having a TracPhone activated and charged with the knowledge of how to use the stupid things is a better approach then buying the package and hoping you can activate it and learn it.

BTW, I hate cell phones.

We are ham radio operators with RACES affiliation to our local agencies.

The description above applies to any cellular provider (although Tracfone doesn't actually 'provide' network access; I think of them more as a reseller of network access).

For example, say you have a tri-band cell phone (CDMA / TDMA / Analog) and subscribe to Verizon Wireless. If you are in a Verizon coverage area, your phone will likely use CDMA. If you are roaming, maybe your phone will have access to a CDMA or TDMA network that Verizon has a roaming agreement with; otherwise the much older analog system is hopefully available and Verizon has a roaming agreement; otherwise your cell phone is just a paper-weight.

Tracfone has roaming agreements with different carriers, and "re-sells" access using different technologies in different markets.

For example, I have a Tracfone and live in Ruidoso, New Mexico. Verizon has a CDMA network in this area. Guess what type of Tracfone's the local Wal-Mart carries? Yep, CDMA phones that use the local Verizon network. If I travel, I'll have access to any CDMA / TDMA / Analog network that Tracfone has a roaming agreement with (but this would also be true if I was a Verizon Wireless subscriber).

My sister lives in Albuquerque where both Verizon (CDMA) and Cingular (GSM) have good coverage. I just got her a Tracfone.

In Albuquerque, Tracfone has a business agreement with Cingular which uses GSM technology. Guess what type of Tracfone you can get at WalMart in Albuquerque? Yep, a GSM technology phone that uses the Cingular network within the Albuquerque area (and anywhere else that Tracfone has a roaming agreement).

I much prefer the coverage that Verizon Wireless provides in New Mexico. So instead of going with a GSM Tracfone from WalMart in Albuquerque, I instead bought my sister a CDMA Tracfone from the WalMart in Ruidoso and activated it with an Albuquerque zip code. So my sister ended up with a CDMA Tracfone with an Albuqueruqe phone number using the Verizon Wireless network. Of course, if she roams, she'll have access to CDMA or TDMA or Analog networks that Tracfone has roaming agreements with (but Verizon would provide a similar service). She won't, however, have access to any GSM network such as provided by Cingular -- her phone does not support GSM.

There is no such thing as a cell phone that supports both GSM and CDMA technologies. So you are stuck deciding between providers that use different technologies. My point is to pick the provider you think has the best coverage. But be aware that Tracfone, and other pre-paid plans, are doing the same thing and provide different options in different markets.

Hope this is a little clear,

Justin

I intend to go back to tracfone when my lousy expensive verizon contract is over this fall. no more 2 year contracts for me. I much prefer the tracfone service because I don't use the cell phone much and I am wasting money on a contract phone with so many minutes I never use and just waste. yes you do have to keep them charged up, the only phones that don't need to be charged regularly belong to Jack Bauer and they must be a government secret.

My family has three Tracfones. I was at Crown King last weekend with the Boy Scouts. I was the only one from Phoneix that had a signal. I only had one bar but I'm sure I could have sent a text message if needed. The other guys had nice phones but no signal. The signal strength varies a lot. Sometimes it goes into roaming/long distance mode while at home. The usage rate is the same for local or roaming.

To expand on this a bit - if you live in an area with EVDO digital wireless service - EVDO runs through a separate radio & delivery system from the CDMA voice system. CDMA is a circuit switched system. That is, each call requires a separate fixed circuit. Generally speaking, any network has a certain fixed number of circuits that have been installed to handle a peak number of calls (called busy hour call attempts). If an emergency drives the number of calls above the available number of circuits, the network jams.

EVDO is a separate RF system that feeds a separate IP network which avoids the circuit switching part of the network. There are usually fewer users, and the backhaul network is bigger. When you send a message on an IP system, it can sit in a queue to be transmitted when the network becomes available, even if only for a few seconds.

The practical upshot is that your odds of getting a msg out on an EVDO network are probably better than making a voice call in a jammed system.

I have a Tracfone as well, the cheapest most basic model. It gets a signal at my place of work, and most of my co-workers fancy phones do not. I rarely use a cell phone and got it primarily in case my truck breaks down. It serves its purpose well.

Cool thanks for the additional info.

"It has been posted that the phone schould not be activated..."

An unactivated phone isn't good for much. I think the cheapest cards ($20) are good for 3 months (correct me if I'm wrong, please). Just write on the card when it is due to expire, and do some "practicing" just before it runs out.

If they truly are good for three months, that would give you a year of security for $80. How much would you be willing to pay if you needed it and didn't have it? $80?

Sue

Well, an unactivated phone is good for dialing 911. In fact any cell phone (even if "locked" or deactivated) can dial 911 as long as you are in an area where you can get signal.

Justin

It's not necessarily true that if your cell phones "don't work" that "more than likely" the landline system is also useless. Your cell phone may "not work" because your battery is dead, you are someplace without cellular coverage, you are inside a building that does not get a decent cellular signal, the local cellular tower is overloaded with callers, the local tower is physically damaged or without electricity, etc. In all of these situations, the landline system may be working just fine. If that landline access is a payphone then a calling card (whether prepaid or not) will let you talk for a long time without worrying about having a pocketfull of coins. Or if you want to conserve your cell phone battery for critical calls, like during a long power outage, then you can use the calling card with a payphone when a payphone is available. Again, if you need to call long-distance on a payphone and talk for a while or make multiple calls, then you're out of luck unless you have a lot of coins handy.

What qualifies as an emergency for someone isn't necessarily a 911 emergency. Got two flat tires on the car and only one in the trunk?

Around here, the local tow company will charge you over $100 to get your car home.

Wouldn't you rather "Hey, Honey, could you grab that extra rim that's in the garage and take it down to Ernie's Tire Shop and have them put a XXXXXX tire on it, then bring it up to the old fishing hole?"

Try the 911 dispatcher with a request like THAT!

Sue

In all honesty, I'd rather say, "Hey, Honey, I have two flat tires and need you out here pronto to change them. The 911 dispatcher has offered to walk you through the steps."

Now that would be awesome...

I have a Virgin phone. They buy service and re-sell it. My phone system is different from tracphone in that for $15 every 90 days (with their automated payment system), I get 18-cent-a-minute calls that roll over as long as I pay that fifteen bucks every 90 days. Right now I've got over 80 dollars in calling capacity, so I'll have to start making some calls. :-> I don't have a long distance carrier on my landline and use the Virgin phone for long distance. So far, I'm ahead of the game, but that'll vary on individual use. (I realize there are cheaper long distance services, but the Virgin phone is for emergencies, so I factor that cost into long distance at 18 cents. Long distance is free.)

My wife has a Cingular phone, so we have different carriers. Sometimes I get a signal and she doesn't, so I like having different carriers.

My expectation in my area is an earthquake. I expect landlines and cellphones not to provide a dial tone for a long time after the big one for a number of reasons discussed in this thread. An acquaintance of mine lived in Manhattan during a big power outtage there, and he said people were using cellphones to light their way into darkened building looking for payphones - they still worked even when home phones and cell phones didn't give a dial tone.

Bring your own quarters, and call someone out of town so they have a working phone to answer. I have tried to use a pre-paid card at payphones that won't dial an 800 number because the owner of the phone won't get paid enough. shrug - be prepared with quarters and pre-paid cards. There's no one answer.

Cell carriers like to respond to disasters in a big way and be the first to get their service back up and brag about it, so I suspect cells would come back before landlines if the landlines are destroyed. (COW - cells on wheels.) My expectation, though, is that demand will far exceed dial-tone-ability, so who knows when useable service will reappear.

I think there is no one answer, so having back up systems seems like a good idea. A cellphone from a different carrier, pre-paid cards, quarters, and get a ham radio license. Sit back and contemplate the current status of New Orleans. My expectation is that if we have a huge earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area, we'll be like New Orleans in terms of recovery.