I now have a cellular telephone
I’ve been feeing the urge to get a mobile phone for a while. While rare, I do leave my computer sometimes, and that leaves me pretty much impossible to get ahold of. So, enter New Phone, for the limited number of people that actually care about me when I’m not at the computer. I’m going to assume that it’ll also come in handy when I need to coordinate meeting up with people somewhere, since that has been a problem in the past.
But on to the good part: I got a Virgin Nokia 2125i, which set me back $40 at a virgin mobile mini-store at the mall. They have the barest minimum of features; it supports little more than phoning and texting. The 2125i was on special today (lucky me), and usually go for $50. I don’t have much experience with the phone yet, so I can’t really comment on how good or bad it is. I like it so far, but first impressions aren’t everything.
So far I am extremely satisfied with virgin mobile. Virgin only provides prepaid plans, as far as I know. What first drew me to them was their complete lack of service or activation fees. I walked in to the mall, and walked out with a phone. When I got home, I activated my phone online, and got a free $15 credit to my account as well. Virgin does support monthly and daily plans, but I chose not to go with them. My goal was to get a phone I could use minimally or not at all, and not have to worry about it being a money sink. I really didn’t want to have to worry about not using a service that I was paying for. With Virgin Mobile, I don’t have to worry. This is a huge advantage for me. I could walk away right now and only be down the cost of handset - which would still be there should I decide I want to start using it again. Virgin mobile is the only provider in my area that provides this. Every single other provider has some sort of monthly fee, even for pay as you go, to the tune of $5 a month, and an activation fee of around $30. Stop paying your monthly fee, and the account becomes inactive; meaning you have to pay to activate it again should you want to use the phone again.
The setup process wasn’t as smooth as I would have liked it, but the customer service more than made up for it. When you activate your phone online, you are only given a choice of three different numbers, which will have a 289 area code (or at least, all of mine were). The area code for my area is 905. They claim it will act like a local number, but I wasn’t particularly satisified. This could still be confusing and ambiguous for people trying to call me. Virgin does provide free phone number changes after activation is complete though, and I was assured that I would be able to get a local number eventually. So, after activation with the ugly number, I needed to “program the phone”. Unfortunately their website died half way through, which was unsettling, so I called tech support.
Virgin mobile has the best tech support I have ever encountered. After choosing my lanugage, I was forwarded to a Real Person right away. Literally; there was no hold time. What’s more, the person I spoke with was accent-free and friendly. The representitive walked me through the steps to program my phone, and I went on my way. Once I had determined that everything was working as expected, I called back again and got my number changed. The number itself was randomly generated, but the area code was what it should be for local numbers. I was very satisfied. The service was again immediate and friendly.
My experience thusfar has been extremely positive. We’ll see how it goes.
I’m not comfortable giving out my phone number on the public internet, so if you’re reading this and want to know what it is, check my facebook profile, or get in touch with me.
