robotech_master (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
robotech_master) wrote2010-11-14 04:11 pm
robotech_master) wrote2010-11-14 04:11 pm
Parents switch tracks to a TracFone
Just finished a visit with my parents. I managed to convince them to switch away from their long-expired AT&T cell phone contract to TracFone pay-as-you-go service. For $30, Dad got the same phone I did, and $100 for an 1100-minute/1 year time card. Mom picked up a cheaper phone for $10, and 120 minutes of service over 90 days for $20.
It should do a lot better for Dad than the $50 a month plan he was using with AT&T. He barely used 100 minutes of cell time last month. When you're not even using most of your rollovers, there's not a lot of point in paying that much. And it'll be nice for Mom to have a cell too for emergencies or times when short conversations would be convenient. Perhaps I can even teach her how to text message.
(I'm going to have to find a new Christmas present for her, though, as I'd planned to buy that $10 phone for her Christmas if she hadn't bought it herself.)
So after they bought the phones, I went in and did the footwork to port Dad's phone number over from AT&T and to set up a new one for Mom. Hopefully Mom's phone will start working within a couple of hours and she'll let me know what her new number is. Dad's may take another day or so for the porting to go through. Hopefully it will go without any hitches. TracFone may want him to go in and enter some codes into the phone once the port is complete; hopefully he can manage it.
Moving the contacts over from Dad's old phone was a little challenging. The phone would copy the numbers to the SIM card, but neither the old nor the new phone would even start at all with the "wrong" SIM card in it—not even to the point of allowing you to do the contact copy thing. I ended up having to wipe the contacts on my old Motorola RAZR2 (which will start up with the wrong SIM in it), copy the contacts from the old phone's SIM to that, then copy them from that to the new phone's SIM.
Even then it didn't quite copy them perfectly, appending some weird characters to the beginning of some of the contacts, but at least the names and numbers are there in some form—better than him having to punch them in again one at a time. Probably should have copied them to Mom's phone too while I was at it, but I forgot. Well, can do that next time I see them. Or maybe they can have Aaron do it when he's there next weekend. It's not too hard to figure out how for someone technically inclined.
I see Dad forgot the fridge magnet from his cell phone coupon booklet. Oh well, it's not like he'll really need it. If you're going a year at a time, it's best to keep the coupon booklet somewhere safe where you'll know where it is for next year.
I suppose Mom might put hers on the fridge, though, since she'll probably be buying minutes more often. (Even though they're exactly the same booklet…)
It should do a lot better for Dad than the $50 a month plan he was using with AT&T. He barely used 100 minutes of cell time last month. When you're not even using most of your rollovers, there's not a lot of point in paying that much. And it'll be nice for Mom to have a cell too for emergencies or times when short conversations would be convenient. Perhaps I can even teach her how to text message.
(I'm going to have to find a new Christmas present for her, though, as I'd planned to buy that $10 phone for her Christmas if she hadn't bought it herself.)
So after they bought the phones, I went in and did the footwork to port Dad's phone number over from AT&T and to set up a new one for Mom. Hopefully Mom's phone will start working within a couple of hours and she'll let me know what her new number is. Dad's may take another day or so for the porting to go through. Hopefully it will go without any hitches. TracFone may want him to go in and enter some codes into the phone once the port is complete; hopefully he can manage it.
Moving the contacts over from Dad's old phone was a little challenging. The phone would copy the numbers to the SIM card, but neither the old nor the new phone would even start at all with the "wrong" SIM card in it—not even to the point of allowing you to do the contact copy thing. I ended up having to wipe the contacts on my old Motorola RAZR2 (which will start up with the wrong SIM in it), copy the contacts from the old phone's SIM to that, then copy them from that to the new phone's SIM.
Even then it didn't quite copy them perfectly, appending some weird characters to the beginning of some of the contacts, but at least the names and numbers are there in some form—better than him having to punch them in again one at a time. Probably should have copied them to Mom's phone too while I was at it, but I forgot. Well, can do that next time I see them. Or maybe they can have Aaron do it when he's there next weekend. It's not too hard to figure out how for someone technically inclined.
I see Dad forgot the fridge magnet from his cell phone coupon booklet. Oh well, it's not like he'll really need it. If you're going a year at a time, it's best to keep the coupon booklet somewhere safe where you'll know where it is for next year.
I suppose Mom might put hers on the fridge, though, since she'll probably be buying minutes more often. (Even though they're exactly the same booklet…)