I have a family plan cell service with AT&T. This is for my wife, daughter, and mother. I personally don't have (and rarely use) a cell phone - hence my questioning. My daughters phone, a Samsung Propel, just gave up the ghost. She's still 5 months out from upgrade eligibility. Can we purchase a used (or new) phone and just place her sim card in it and expect it to work? Further, can we do that with an older iPhone? We have no data plan, but my daughter's phone does have unlimited messaging associated with it (that she pays for, if anyone's interested).

I am 99.9% sure that any pre-paid ATT phone should work. They sometimes go as low as $7 with free shipping

[slickdeals.net]

EDIT: this is just for 5 months until she can get a new subsidized phone



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/15/2010 07:24PM by space-time.

Quote
space-time
I am 99.9% sure that any pre-paid ATT phone should work. They sometimes go as low as $7 with free shipping

[slickdeals.net]

EDIT: this is just for 5 months until she can get a new subsidized phone

Yes, the Go Phones work right out of the box, you just need to put your original SIM in them (and discard the pre-paid SIM that comes with it).

When ordering you need to remove the $25 airtime card that they automatically add to the order.

I have several of the refurb 2330 and 2720 phones "in stock" at home in case something happens to one of the family phones. They're also cheap ways to get extra chargers and batteries if you own similar phones.

Yep, the beauty of GSM. You can use any carrier locked AT&T phone or an unlocked GSM phone (in most cases the latter works, but if you happen to get an unlocked T-Mobile 3G phone of some sort, it wouldn't work on AT&T's 3G).

Small tangent. GSM phones are so cheap, I went with T-Mobile's Even More Plus plan, which gives you a no contract plan with a cheaper monthly rate in lieu of phone subsidization. You could get a fairly sophisticated Nokia e63 for $130 unlocked almost every month of the past year. Not in the same league as an iPhone, top tier Android, or high end BlackBerry, but better than the average feature phone. A nice low end messaging, email, Skype, chat capable smartphone.


Nathan

thanks guys