"Jules Richardson" wrote in message
...

My wife and I both use pay-as-you-go cell phones, the only condition is
we have to pay at least $20 every 90 days but we can bank that airtime
if need be. Most of the time the phones are not even turned on, we use
them when *we* want to, so they aren't a means for other people to annoy
us. Works pretty good.

Yes, I used to have one before I moved to the US (no restriction on
minimum spend, either), but it wouldn't work on the US system (well, at
least not outside major cities). I was lazy about spending money on a new
phone (which would probably break reasonably quickly anyway, because they
all seem to be built to the worst possible quality) and as time went on I
just found less and less need to have one.

Our phones use one of the big national systems for coverage, so we've never
had trouble making calls anywhere except way out in the boonies. I did get
a camera phone for Christmas (which I'd hinted at) and it's come in handy on
many occasions, having the ability to take snapshots without carrying a
camera is kind of cool. The first phone was defective, they replaced it at
no cost to me and so far the second one is working fine. I also have no
interest in web access etc. on my phone, although it does do all that extra
nonsense. This phone has a 4 gigabyte memory chip, my first PC had a 20
megabyte hard drive, it's amazing....