For many years now I've been content with the TracFone cell phone service
I've been using. Friends gave me this LG420 flip phone as they felt I should
have something in case I broke down or had an accident. It's one of those
prepaid deals, and at the rate I use it it comes to less than $7 a month, which
fits in my budget.
Well, it's been working okay until two weeks ago. Suddenly, I was getting
all sorts of "service unavailable" messages and a red X instead of signal
strength bars. So I called their tech support and spent over an hour trying to
get it to work. It eventually did, but an hour later it was broken again.
Here, TracFone uses T-Mobile as a carrier, which explains a lot.
So, I shopped around. I quickly discovered that the grocery and drug
stores no longer market cell phones, prepaid or otherwise. Neither does
Staples. Nor Fry's Electronics. Best Buy has some, but the plans start at
$25/month for unlimited talk and text plus data. I don't need that. Net10 is
a part of TracFone. ZTE phones are not avaiable thanks to Trumps' tarrif war,
and they had some really nice high-end flip phones.
I don't need to be surrounded by high tech. I'm happy with the warmth and
glow of vacuum tubes, and I prefer 1970s French bicycles to a Mercedes any day.
But I do like having the cell phone in case I have a problem away from home.
So, I will probably stay with the crippled TracFone and continue looking
around for something comparable that does NOT use T-Mobile as a carrier. The
ZTE phone that was thrown at me can at least make 911 calls if needed.
Chris
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro
- Hunter S. Thompson
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