I'm heading out of town for work. I have an ATT phone but won't have coverage where I'm going. Sprint and Verizon both work there. Has anyone used tracfone or any of those pay as you go phones? Tracfone has an option to bring a phone to their service and I have access to an older ATT phone. I'm wondering if that phone would still be using ATT coverage or does tracfone have their own towers.

Tracfone uses ATT towers, I believe.

I've used them in the past. Currently I have a no contract phone with Straight Talk, from Walmart. They can run on either Verizon or ATT towers. I think their plan is simpler than the Tracfone plan I had formerly.

quote:

Originally posted by arfmel:
Tracfone uses ATT towers, I believe.

Tracfone resells airtime on all four of the major networks -- AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobie, and Verizon. If you're bringing your own phone it needs to be compatible with the network of your choice and you'll need to buy a TracFone SIM (not expensive, ten or fifteen bucks).

Or you can go to a Walmart SuperCenter and buy Total Wireless service by the month. It rides on the Verizon network, bring your own phone.

For either of the above, if you don't have a suitable phone, you can get one fairly cheaply at Walmart.

Total Wireless, by the way, is one of the reselling companies that is owned by TracFone.

Boost Mobile uses the Sprint network. I would look into them first. There are frequently deals where you can get a new phone for free or less than $100 with activation of a line.

Like V-Tail suggested, go to Walmart and they will set you with a plan using Verizon. I did this for my wife a couple of years ago. Easy peazy.

Jim

Yep, I'd just buy a burner.

I bought a refurb "burner" Android Smart Phone on Amazon for 5 bucks, service through tracfone. I have a real droid from Verizon. I use the burner at work. Only difference I see is the Tracfone is 3G and my real phone is 4G. Easy to forward calls to the Tracfone if needed.

I would suggest you go to straight talk.com, buy a refurbished phone that works on Verizon networks. Then buy three monthly cards and that should do it probably about as cheap as you'll get.

Are you sure you need a new cell service? The reason I ask is that all the major carriers have exchange agreements with one another.

When I moved to Alaska, I had T-mobile for personal and Verizon for my business phone. Neither company was in Alaska at the time, but the phones both worked.

The only issues were:

If your phone craters, there is no activation signal to activate a new one. My business phone got a trip through the washer and dryer, and I had to mail the replacement to our IT in an area with a Verizon carrier signal to activate it.

You have to look-up the actual 10 digit number for voicemail as your 3 or 4 digit shortcut programmed into your phone won't work.

When I traveled to a remote area (i.e. Arctic Circle) where service was provided by a small Alaska company my phones didn't work since neither carrier had an exchange agreement with the little Alaska company.

---

Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
Are you sure you need a new cell service? The reason I ask is that all the major carriers have exchange agreements with one another.

CDMA and GSM companies have roaming agreements on each others networks. But you can't roam with a GSM phone on a CDMA network.

The place where OP is going might be one of those areas where Alltel served that Verizon wasn't forced to divest itself of. As serving small markets was one of Alltel's strategy. Alltel used CDMA technology. A good example of this is in Spray Oregon, where CDMA phones could get coverage, but GSM phones were out of luck.

Another example is Central Texas like Brady. Virtually no CDMA signals outside of the towns, and even those are roaming for Verizon coverage (which means no data). But GSM phones like AT&T can get half descent coverage, with data.

I have a TracFone, it is a cheap back up. Mine is on the Verizon network.

It does what it's supposed to do and that's make and receive calls. It's a smartphone but the cheap phone I have the processor is slow so using the interwiz with it is mind-numbingly slow.

I don't care. As I wanted a phone, as a backup. Cheap and with certain TracFone smartphone, they double or triple your minutes. So I got the cheapest one I believe it was $75.00 for the phone, with 60 minute card gave me 180 minutes of air time. I get a 20 minute card here and there to keep it active. As the time runs out, like in 3 mouths on the card.

ARman

Not sure about your needs or how long your going but if you will have access to wifi you can use an app called WhatsApp and you can call and text for free to others who have the app

Used a TracPhone to get a temporary cell phone, and it worked great and was very affordable.

No idea how they did it, but here in the sticks the phone calls came through clearer than our Verizons.