My New Toy!

Current Tune - Tu Bheekh Naa Dehgi Toh Main Shor Machaa Dunga - Narendra Chanchal

So tomorrow I am off to Austin, TX. I shall be back in town on late Friday night. Its going to be interesting week for us (D-day is on Thursday ).

As I was talking about cell phone roaming the other day, I knew that with going to TX my current cell phone wasn’t going to work. We have an old regional plan that will expire in September which only works in and around our states. It would have been abt. 60 cents per minute roaming if I took my phone along tomorrow.

I have been wanting to switch over to another carrier because I wanted a GSM phone that would work in India as well. Currently I have an LG VX6000 on CDMA technology. Previously when I was traveling, I was using the Nokia 6010 through T-Mobile’s prepaid service. With Papa’s job not in town, I gave him the phone recently to use temporarily because he doesn’t have a cell phone. So now I was in a dire need for a cell phone. :???:

I had been eyeing two carriers for the past two months, Cingular and T-Mobile. After much research, I found Cingular was better in all ways (am getting a discount thru my company, GSM phones, Bluetooth capabilities, and a great deal).

So I bought the Nokia 6230 for myself on Saturday. I wanted this phone ever since I had seen it on Amazon two months ago. Its got everything that I want at this time:

Bluetooth (If you don’t know much abt. Bluetooth let me know, maybe I will write a post )

Media Player

Radio

Camera

MMS (video)

Speakerphone

Small and compact

will work in India (can ask Nokia to unlock the phone for me and then in India am able to use a local carrier’s SIM)

and much much more….

I had bought the Nationwide Family Plan that gives us 1000 peak minutes, unlimited nights & weekends, and unlimited mobile-2-mobile minutes (originally the plan costs $80 per month, but my discount through my job got it down to $65 + 15% discount per month). With it being nationwide, I can be anywhere in the US, and the phone will work (which is what I need ). With this plan, I also got two phones, so the second phone I bought for Papa.

For him I got the Nokia 3120. I knew that Papa wouldn’t use the Bluetooth, the camera, etc… and he would want something real simple. This phone was perfect for him; compact, but sufficient. The best thing that will be useful to my parents will be the speaker phone feature — which is one of the reasons I chose this phone.

Because the salesperson couldn’t lower the prices on the phone, he said that he could give me some free accessories (up to $70). I wasn’t really interested in the accessories, other than the Bluetooth headset (which he wouldn’t count as an accessory ). After much talking and negotiation, I finally got him to take 10% off the already discounted Bluetooth headset. Plus he gave me two holsters (belt clips for each phone), a car charger (for Papa), and a standard microphone (for Papa) for FREE!

Now the last thing I wanted to make sure was when my old contract runs out that they can switch over my old cell phone number to this account. That also is a one day job which is great. So in September, I will buy Bhayia (he is also on the old contract currently) whatever phone he wants to get and add it to this deal. So both of us will be able to keep our current cell phone number once the old contract runs out. More recently when Neeraj comes, I will be able to add him to the account as well. So we will have four people on one account utilizing the 1000 peak minutes, unlimited nights/weekends, and unlimited mobile to mobile between us. FYI - mobile to mobile means when you call anyone who also has Cingular, its absolutely free.

Good deal eh?

Alvida. Jai Mata Di.