-GE> What carrier are you with? We don't have multiple phones on
-GE> the same
-GE> number here, yet. It should be available by the end of the
-GE> year.
Cellular One Boston, aka, Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems.
-GE> However, for most users, it's more convenient to have
-GE> different numbers
-GE> on their phones so they can call cell-to-cell. When I have
Yup, I agree, we tried the flex for a few weeks and when a promotion came 
along from Bell Atlantic that gave us the free offpeak that we had with C1 we 
dropped the flex and got a BANM phone. Much better way to do it.
Flex is good if one person is going to use both phones and the rate plan is 
no longer available, my free time starts at 7pm. Noone offers that anymore. 
Not in this market anyways.
-GE> on their phones so they can call cell-to-cell. When I have
-GE> a customer
-GE> who needs a car phone and a portable, I put them on an
-GE> aggregate billing
-GE> plan and have the main phone number forward to the
-GE> secondary one.
Normally that would waste minutes, most carriers charge the same for call 
forwarding as for an outgoing call. Instead of using one minute they're using 
two. Is that not the case with BANM?
Some carriers offer a better plan than flex, you get two phones, two numbers, 
and you can no-answer xfer from the primary to the secondary at no additional 
charge or per minute charge, that's the way to do it.
-GE> I've never seen a portable small enough for a shirt pocket
-GE> that was
-GE> worth the price, including the Panasonic EBH-63 I use. But
-GE> the larger
-GE> portables, the ones that fit an inside suit coat pocket or
-GE> briefcase
-GE> usually sound OK.
I tried a little Sony, can't remember the model, it has the microphone that 
folds out. Trouble with the cases, and some trouble with authentication but 
it sounded ok. How did you like the old bricks, the Motorola 8000's?
-GE> Around here, the only new phones that can be sold for BANM
-GE> activation
-GE> (at this time) are Motorola, Audiovox, Nokia, and some
-GE> Panasonics. They
-GE> are the only vendors whose authentication routines have
-GE> been certified
-GE> by BANM. Other phones can be activated, but at greatly
-GE> reduced
-GE> commission. In some BANM regions, if you use a
-GE> non-authenticated phone,
-GE> you also must use a PIN when you place a call.
Yup, same up this way, the commission is quite a bit lower according to the 
people I spoke with at cellular dealer. At least they still can be used. If 
the customer owns the equipment already you will still be making money if you 
activate them.
Pins are a pain. I'm glad they're not mandatory on C1.
-GE> I get 250 minutes peak and 60 minutes off-peak for free, so
-GE> I'm very
-GE> careful aboutmy usage and never exceed that amount. Of
-GE> course, I can
-GE> call the various support departments at BANM airtime free,
-GE> so I use
-GE> extra time for that. I also like to call radio talk shows
-GE> if they have
-GE> airtime free numbers.
Geeze, you're just a novice :) I haven't had a bill under 3000 minutes for 
the past year and a half, I don't think I've ever had one under a thousand 
except maybe the first one. My last one was 6660 minutes, the one before that 
was about 5400 or 5600, and the month before was 4600. This month I expect to 
be pretty low, back to about 3000 or maybe even less, just haven't had the 
need to use it like I used to.
-GE> My wife gets unlimited off-peak on her phone, and since
-GE> there are no
-GE> landline tolls anywhere within our area code, she uses her
-GE> cell phone to
-GE> make calls to her mother & sister. The local landline tolls
-GE> to call just
-GE> 27 miles are outrageous, so we save a great deal on our
-GE> landline bill
-GE> that way. She runs up around 600 minutes a month on a
-GE> regular basis.
We have the same thing on our banm account, it's really nice. On my c1 
account for some reason there is no LL if I call into N.H. but Mass is 5 
cents a minute.
Hey, late breaking development, the cellular numbers are now toll free, type 
2a's according to the Nynex operators that I talked too. My 508 cellular 
number is toll free anywhere in 508/617 (one lata). Don't know how long it 
been like this. I think it's because of a number crunch.
We've run tests and I just got my last bill for my home phone, no charges for 
calling our BANM account which would normally be LD.
In Mass you have to dail 11 digits to make a toll call, no exceptions, I was 
quite surprised when I tried our BANM number with 7 digits and it went right 
thru.
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