How a nerd lives

Dec 15, 2014 living US cellphone

Frequencies

The radio frequencies used in US for cellphone communication are different from those in China and Europe. A cellphone in China or Europe cannot be used in US and vice versa, unless it supports multi frequencies.

Carriers and dealers

A carrier is a company who provides you cellphone communication service. Its service may be provided through dealers. Page Plus is a carrier providing cheap and flexible service.

Plans

A set of service is called a plan. There are roughly three types of plans:

  • contract. You sign a contract with a carrier, paying fixed amount of money monthly for 2 or 3 years. Normally one can get newest cellphone models for free. But the monthly payment is rather high.
  • prepaid. There are two sub categories:
    • You pay fixed amount of money monthly.
    • pay-as-you-go. You pay certain amount of money and the cost of each call is subtracted from it each time you make a call.
  • postpaid. You pay what you spent at the end of a certain period. You need some credit to choose this plan.

Pay-as-you-go is the cheapest if you don’t need the newest phones.

SPC/MSL

http://bridog.net/cellular/master-subsidy-lock-msl-codes/