Amp'd Mobile

Heard of this company? If not, then if you can get it...get it!

These guys abashedly run on Verizon's network, but the really sweet thing is that they can take full advantage of VZW EV-DO where it's available. As in broadband-speed downloads wirelessly...prepaid...

Roaming is also allowed as far as I have found (called Customer Service), at 10 cents a minute! Home calling is also 10 cents a minute. Groovy.

So why is this so cheap? Well, SMS is 10 cents both ways (BOO!), and Amp'd plans toi make a fortune off of content purchases (viral video, music, TV clips, etc.) in its Amp'd Live on-phone store. If you're prepaid you get an 18% surcharge for getting whatever content you want.

But 10 cents a minute is really good.

Especially when you consider the phones are really good.

Their low-end model, the Kyocera Jet, is $75 after a $100 rebate, which is actually a $100 prepaid Visa card. I'll buy that. Oh, and you can get $15 back from DealKing on this deal...

http://www.dealking.com/deals/listcoupons.php?storeid=97

...and the Jet isn't too shabby either. It's a fairly small sldier with a big screen. It has a VGA camera, Kodiak RTX Push To Talk ($1 a day) and a music player utilizing a TransFlash slot. And of course if has EV-Do. A silver, mirrored-screen version of this phone with a 1.3 megapixel camera sells for the same price. Then there's the Hollywood, aka Motorola e816, which is $149 after the rebate and without the DealKing cash back. It's a super flip phone and looks really great in black. It has a 1.3 megapixel camera, push to talk, and everything the Jet has, plus maybe some reception and Motorola quality. And it's a flip.

The minimum refill is $20 every 60 days, but $10 a month isn't bad for nationwide 10 cents a minute.

You see, you can also use web (even EV-DO) for regular things, like...um...tethering. It's 30 cents per megabyte, charged by the penny, rounded down. So actually if you use less than 30 MB a month and have Amp'd in your area, it's a better deal than STi, especially considering that the voice cost is better (10 cents flat vs. 12 weekdays \ 10 nights and weekends) and the phones are better and the data speed is better and the coverage is better. As a note of warning though, the Hollywood won't tether...yet...

But all in all this is one sweet company, and I look forward to using it as my primary prepaid, as soon as I get enough money to buy the Jet. Look for more info on that service here in the fairly near future. And if it's available in your zip (it says it isn't in mine but why not? We have Verizon aplenty, albeit no EVDO) I'd strongly suggest getting it.