Cellphone Rental in US ?

Hi All

Anyone point me in the direction of a reputable company to short term rent a cellphone in the USA (Seattle). My wife is flying out for part of a lengthy work trip and thought it might pay to rent one rather than her spend fortunes roaming with Voda.

Cheers

Mark [:D]

[Nottingham Nick]

Rather than rent, she may be better off buying a cheap pay as you go phone from somewhere like Walmart.

We use TracFone, but there are others out there.

TracFone home page.

The initial phone costs are minimal, but you would have to look at call charges to get the best deal.


Nick

[mcmbenjamin]

Well WalMart and about everywhere has prepaids for sale. WalMart has TracFone, Verizon, AT&T, Boost and some others that are basically the same (use the same network).

I would use Verizon prepaid as the coverage rocks and they own the network unlike other providers

Cheers Guys

A trip to Walmart it is ..... Many Thanks


Mark [:D]

Originally posted by Nottingham Nick
Rather than rent, she may be better off buying a cheap pay as you go phone from somewhere like Walmart.

We use TracFone, but there are others out there.

TracFone home page.

The initial phone costs are minimal, but you would have to look at call charges to get the best deal.


Nick

Another vote for Tracfone which works very well. Don't forget if you're calling it from the UK the credits on the phone go down. In other words calling a Tracfone is not free for the person with the phone.

A cheaper option is Skype which is free computer to computer. Again handsets are available in stores for arpund $20 - $40.

[preiffer]

Or use Virgin Mobile's prepaid service. Just pick up a phone at any Best Buy/Circuit City/etc. $0.20/min International calls in/out of the UK. [y]

[mcmbenjamin]

TracFone and Boost have a certain 'ghetto-niche' branding. Sprint is getting better but I would not be caught dead with a Sprint, TracFone, or Boost phone.

Go with Virgin Mobile (be it they use Sprint's network) or Verizon.

Just bought a tracfone from Publix yesterday.

Phone $14.99

400 minute / 1 year service card $49.99 but **Double minutes**

Phone activated within 10 mins

International dialing activated within 1 hour

After taking cost off phone of which is negligable, calls work out around 3p per minute to the UK. Compare that to my Orange company phone which is around £1 per min.

Only small fly in the ointment is that you cannot call UK mobiles

David