I may be one of the few who read this board who didn't have a cell phone. I travel quite a bit, but being retired, I didn't have a business reason for carrying one when at home. I used cell phones, and even the old radio phones the phone compay offered back in the 1970's that you carried in a briefcase so I know the convenience. It's just that I couldn't see the fixed monthly charges that every carrier wanted for current cellular service.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed a post on the Las Vegas Advisor bulletin board regarding a new offering from, of all people, VIRGIN! Yes the same people who sell you records, and even airline seats a few years ago. For about 6 months now,they have offered a prepaid-fee service primarily intended for children, but is very appealing to me as a traveler. Here's the deal:

You pay a one time fee of $65 and get a modern digital Kyocera pocket phone loaded with $10 worth of calling credit. Your service is on the Sprint PCS network, so you get the same treatment as any other Sprint customer and service mostly nationwide. You cannot roam to any other carrier's area, though (not a big problem).

Your calls cost 25c a minute, and after 10 minutes of use each day, the charge drops to 10c a minute. There is no minimum usage or monthly charge. You sign no contract and never have to give the phone back. There is NO activation fee, initially, or if you let your service expire and then want back in.

You can receive email on your phone's small screen using the address "myphonenumber@vmobl.com".
You can send short text messages, or even reply or send email, but pecking out a message on the 12 key pad is a real pain. Most users seem to use the teen-talk that has developed for this use... SUP WAN2TLK ILUVU and so on. NENULES would probably work for chippers.

You can ask for a local number in any area that Sprint serves... Las Vegas for example. You will probably pick one in the are where people are most likely to want to call you as a local call. All your outgoing long distance calls are FREE in the US; you pay only the airtime.

Your number stays your number as long as you load at least $20 of new credit into your phone every 60 days but minutes never expire. If you go 90 days between 'recharges' you lose your number, but not your phone. Your phone is always good for '911' calls even if you never add any minutes to it, so it's a nice emergency tool.

I have tried the phone for about a week and, outside of the quirky sound of modern digital phones with limited bandwidth, it works fine. I will be evaluating use of the phone with a data-cable to allow use of a laptop computer when traveling but don't expect too much in the way of speed. I'll report the results in a month or two.

Check the link below to see the offer. Phones are sold on the web, or you can buy the phones, minutes, and accessories at local dealers, like Circle-K, and Sam Goody. Read the FAQ section on the Virgin site to see all the features, limitations, and bargains available. Try to ignore all the 'cool talk' on the site that's aimed at the intended kids' market.