PowerTel ($24/month for 100 min) now VoiceStream
Written: Mar 14 '01 (Updated Nov 13 '01)
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Pros: great prices on plans & phones, 1st incoming min FREE, flexible plan switching
Cons: no sharing of min between phones, no insurance for lost/stolen phones, quality
The Bottom Line: Its the best value for money we could find in Atlanta. Sharing of min would be the best new feature they could add.
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| galant95s's Full Review: Powertel Mobile Phone Service in Atlanta |
Major Update:
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PowerTel was 'merged' with VoiceStream but it was more like a takeover.
* 1st incoming free min is gone
* unlimited weekends are gone @ $25/month
* weekends have been reduced from 8pm Fri - 6am Mon
to midnight Fri - midnight Sunday (by over 10 hours)
* $25/month now only has 60 anytime + 60 weekend min compared with 100 anytime + 500 weekend min/month with powertel
Luckily powertel customers have been grandfathered in but if we ever travel out of state and need to switch to a free roaming plan for 1-2 weeks, we will not be able to switch back to our original plans
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We have had PowerTel for 2 years now and have been satisfied with the prices and service.
The price is $20 for 100 local min but i'm adding in all taxes & surcharges which bring the total to over $23.
We love:
* 1st incoming min FREE
* decent rates for low end users ($0.25/min) without contract (month to month)
* cheap phones ($50 for basic Nokia or Mitsubishi PCS)
* quick switching between plans from local to FREE roaming when we are going to be out of town (within 1-2 days)
* 50% bonus min or 1000 extra weekend min for signing a 1 year contract
* $50 phone credit for new accounts
We dislike:
* no insurance for lost/stolen phones
* no sharing of min between phones
* no multiple phones allowed for a single number
* $20 activation fee
* the service quality has dropped significantly during evening rush hour (4:30 - 6:30pm) - you often can't even get to the person's vmail
Overall we could not find a better deal in Atlanta for low end users (we get 100 min/month).
Our intial cost was almost $25 for the phone & activation (you still pay tax on a $50 phone).
Update:
We got a $100 off coupon for upgrading our Mitsubishi phone as a 'loyalty bonus'!
We got a new compact Nokia - the one without a visible antenna (MSRP about $100) for less than $10.
The downside is that you have to sign a 1 year contract but we also got 50% bonus min (total now is 150 local anytime min/month).
We have also been downloading a *.pdf version of our detailed bills from the www.powertel.com site that saves us $3/phone/month for detailed billing.
This download only seems to work in Netscape and not in IE 5 for some unknown reason.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 24
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Epinions.com ID:
galant95s
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Location: Atlanta, GA
Reviews written: 51
Trusted by: 2 members
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