Two more MVNO!? So many prepaid cellular deals

hrm. can't wait to get home and see what this 'StraightTalk' (by Tracfone) is about. Tracfone, from my previous research, used AT&T or Verizon depending on the area you register it with. StraightTalk seems to resell Verizon just like pageplus... at least in summerville... i thought i checked Tracfone back in the day and they offered GSM phones (Guess AT&T costed them less) weird! so many new "virtual" providers now with this $40-50 sweet spot. :) thing bout StraightTalk is it's $5 more but no limit on DATA!?!? omg! Wonder if I can activate a phone that I don't buy from them!?!$@#$

the other was "OMG! Simple Mobile" which uses T-mobile's fairly decent network and equipment. this is great because it's so simple to just throw a SIM card into a older GSM phone et voila! they also hit that $45 sweet spot with unlimited talk/text, but if you want data it's $50 and it only gets you 20MB a month. Page Plus does that for $39.95 on a larger network. sorry, fail. :)

So yeah, I'm very interested in looking into this 'StraightTalk' I wonder if plugging in a Verizon phone ESN into the website activation will work? :)

T-Mobile @Antarctica

I should of done this from the get-go. My mom mailed me my Nokia 6301 so I could use it on my return trip (hopefully over WiFi to avoid international roaming, or unlocked with a New Zealand SIM), but without my SIM. I got it today. So I can definitely text from my room now hah.

Nokia 6301 is a "T-Mobile @Home" phone or @Hotspot whatever the hell they call it now... It uses UMA over WiFi. I have dial-up on a desktop that feeds my wifi router (adhoc may work too but this is less trouble eh -- maybe I'll confirm that later). So basically, Nokia 6301 -> Linksys WRT54g -> Desktop -> Dialup -> Microwave link to satellite uplink -> Denver, CO. hah. Amazingly the GSM codec ALMOST works over dial-up. I called my voicemail and heard it fine but I think it has difficulties hearing me.. Obviously 56k dial-up is asynchronous, with like 50k down 33k up?

So yeah, I'm a bit excited. Just received my first text in Antarctica.. w00t.