a general tracfone question

[ProudGrandma]

A friend of  mine heard that you can buy a tracfone from a different zipcode as long as you claim that zipcode as the place that you will be using the phone the most....even if it's not where you live.  Does anybody here know if that is true.  My friend said people do that when they live in rural areas and the phone options for that area are poor...but in a bigger city, they would have more options.  Can anybody see why doing that would be a problem?  If you bought a phone in location A and then moved to location B, your phone wouldn't stop working, right?  Just because you moved.   I travel with my phone now all over the place....and , like many phones, there are places it works better than others.  

 

Truly what is the real reason for the certain phones for certain zipcodes anyway?  

 

thanks.

 

 

 

 

[Um_2_4]

On my tablet, so can't type a long answer, but basically it has to do with what service you can get in your area and which phones work best there. Like dh uses his phone mostly during the day at work, 40 miles away. Tracfone uses different types of towers there versus near our home.

You can read more here:

http://www.preprepaid.com/whichtracfonecarrier.php

[Desert Strawberry]

you can register the phone anywhere you want, no matter where you purchase it. we lived rurally and had to choose a major city ( we were between three), but we also could have used a different area entirely. it's not uncommon for transplants to register their phones in their home cities so that their families can use a local number to reach them. 

[ProudGrandma]

so just to double check...we live in a rural area...the next biggest cities are 2 1/2 to 3 hours away....and I could pick one of those to be my city.  Would I have to change my phone number? Or can I keep it? 

 

thanks...this might open up some good options for me.

[Lanny]

Possibly they use both types of Cellular Networks, CDMA and GSM, depending upon the area?   There are still CDMA providers in the USA, and CDMA is best if one lives in an area where the signal is weak, because you can communicate with a very weak signal via CDMA. GSM requires a very strong signal.  GSM phones have a Removable SIM card in them. CDMA phones need to be configured by the cellular provider. If you want to be able to change providers easily, with an Unlocked GSM phone, you just take out the old SIM card and insert the new SIM card, assuming the phone has the GSM bands the new provider is using.

[ProudGrandma]

my current phone has a removable SIM card...so that makes it a GSM phone, right?  Does that also tell me what carrier I use? or not.

 

[Lanny]

my current phone has a removable SIM card...so that makes it a GSM phone, right?  Does that also tell me what carrier I use? or not.

 

Yes. You have a GSM phone.   If you look in the "Settings", "About Phone", or something like that, among those menu choices, it probably shows what Network you are on.  If not, if you turn the phone off and remove the battery and take the SIM card out, it probably shows which Provider you are with.

 

The company you pay for your service is your provider. In our case, it is Virgin Mobile Colombia. 

 

We went to a non-plan-plan with Virgin Mobile Colombia (we save huge amounts of $, compared to when we had phones from Movistar and they sent us Invoices each month)   and they run on the Movistar cellular network, which is #1 or #2 in size here in Colombia.  When I go to the Google Play Store, using this Mobile Workstation, when I want to install an App, they show my phone is on Telefonica Moviles Colombia, which is Movistar.

 

If we had an issue with Virgin Mobile, all of our phones are Unlocked, so we would just need to put in a SIM for another provider, Claro or Movistar or Tigo, or one of the other virtual operators, like Virgin Mobile Colombia, who do not have their own network. 

 

OT: We delayed switching from CDMA to GSM, but we would NEVER go back to CDMA phones and in our case, I believe CDMA service was ended here in Colombia, years ago, and that all cellular service here is GSM now, as it is almost everywhere in the world.  Again, as I wrote earlier, if one lives where the signal is very weak, CDMA can communicate with weak signals. To me, that is the *only* advantage to CDMA.

[Lanny]

I googled "tracfone +bring your own phone" (without the quote marks) and I do believe they run on both GSM and CDMA networks... You have a GSM phone and that would just require that you remove your old SIM and insert a new SIM. Note on this URL that you can have them "Port" your phone number, from your old provider to them.  https://get.tracfone.com/bring-your-own-phone/

 

I'd never heard of Virgin Mobile Colombia, until the end of January 2016, when my wife went to the superstore to buy a new phone. The phones they sell are Unlocked and Unbranded when the leave the factory and have a one year manufacturers warranty here. She bought a mid-range Motorola.  When she came home and told me she bought a SIM for Virgin Mobile Colombia, I was puzzled, but it was  a good choice, for her to change providers.

 

The next week, she took me to the store and I bought a less expensive, mid-range Motorola. When we were with the Virgin Mobile Colombia person, and he was setting up my phone, I had him "Port" my old phone number, from my old provider, to Virgin Mobile Colombia. Here, that took a long time, I think 2 days. I think in the USA it only takes a few minutes. Until the "Porting" completed, I had a Virgin Mobile Colombia phone number, so I could make/receive calls.

 

One thing I like about our non-plan-plan with Virgin Mobile Colombia, is that if we wanted to, we could change our non-plan-plan, every 30 days.  Or, for example, if our ISP in our house should go down (DD is a Distance Learner and our priority Internet user), if we needed to, we could pay and get additional Data and use a phone as a WiFi Hot Spot, to get through that temporary issue with our ISP.  The flexibility might come in handy...

 

I like that tracfone has "Unlimited Carryover". That's cool.  I use very little of my allowance, so that carryover would be nice. In our case, it is use it or lose it.

 

ETA: The reason I am using the 2014 Samsung, and not the mid-range Motorola, is because one morning DIL dropped her phone and having survived previous drops, that time, the phone was destroyed. She uses her phone for work, constantly. My wife was about to give her her Motorola phone, which was more expensive than mine, so I gave her my Motorola phone. That was probably during April 2016.  So, the old Samsung, which my wife had bought from her Niece, and had been used by a boy who was 4 or 5 years old, is my current phone. It is almost identical to your Samsung, but yours is a month or 2 newer and has a better camera (I think on the front) and it has 4G or LTE as I recall.  Those are truly excellent low-end phones. Awesome.

 

Based on what our neighbor (Electronic Engineer with 20 years working for a cellular provider)  told me, during January 2016, we only considered Motorola, Lenovo and Samsung phones, which makes the choice, when you walk into the store and see all of the different brands and models, much easier. Now, I'm the only one not on a Motorola or Lenovo, so if and when the Samsung dies, I will probably go to Motorola or Lenovo, because they are a little easier to use than a Samsung.  

Edited April 23, 2017 by Lanny

[justasque]

I want to add that you don't need to buy your phone from your service provider.  I have had two iPhones on Tracfone, one GSM and one CDMA.  I bought one used on Amazon, and one new from Apple.  (I don't think TracFone even sells iPhones.)  If you have a phone you like, you can see if it will work with TracFone's BYOP program.  And generally you can keep your phone number when you change providers; it's been a smooth transfer for me when I've done it.  

 

I have found when calling TracFone that the customer service people were surprisingly helpful.  "Surprisingly" meaning compared to practically anyone I've ever spoken to at Verizon, either in person or online or on the phone.  

[Dmmetler]

One thing on Tracfone-they use both Verizon and AT&T towers. DD bought one from HSN, and it came locked to the wrong set of towers for our region, and kept telling her she needed a Verizon plan when she tried to connect. Tracfone tech support was able to get it on AT&T, so it was a minor hassle, but if you buy it in the "wrong" zip code, you may find the phone is locked to the wrong set of towers to be able to set it up easily.

 

I did get some amusement on trouble shooting on it-the tech had me put DD's phone on the line so she could hear the error message. If the phone could have just called tech support on my cell phone, it wouldn't have needed me at all!