I've been given a Samsung Model SCH-A930 cell phone. It's branded as Verizon, and the display shows "VCAST" when I turn it on, but that's all I know about it.
If you use or sell this model, please answer there questions: thanks in advance.
Bill
It's so old that Verizon probably doesn't support it any more. You might see if it's possible to activate with a reseller. For example, try
Sort of. It does WAP, which is slow and painful.
No wifi at all.
I've had good luck with Swappa, which is sort of an eBay only for mobile phones. You can get a decent used smartphone like a Moto E or an iPhone 4 for under $50.
Here is the manual.
Duncan
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I found just such a model in my old university's phone-recycling bin, and was able to activate it with the MVNO Page Plus Cellular (a Verizon reseller) on a minimal use prepaid plan calling for the princely sum of $10 to be paid at least once every 120 days, with your domestic air-time debited from your balance at 10 cents per minute, and an additional 50 cents deducted once a month, on or around the 25th of the month.
Unused funds accumulate into the next 120-day spell; depleted funds can be replenished at any time. Further details upon request. Many other options are offered, too.
Both. See above. I'd suggest you contact Page Plus, talk to the nice lady at 1-800-550-2436 (550-AGEN(t)), read her your handset's MEID (on the label on the floor of the battery compartment, underneath the battery -- showing both Hex, as 8 hex-digits 0-F, and Dec, as 11 digits 0-9), learn whether it's usable on Page Plus (it won't be if that MEID belongs to a phone reported as lost, stolen, or associated with a bill that's yet unpaid), and she can even set you up with a number of her choice and a few gratis minutes of air time (for testing, etc.).
Supposedly, yes, but I was never able to achieve that through Page Plus. Perhaps activation through Verizon would result in a different outcome.
Nope. Not a ghost of a hint of a prayer of that.
What ever became of mine, you ask? I still have it, but something in the charge circuitry between the wall-wort charging unit and the handset's battery terminals fritzed out, so the device's battery no longer charges.
Until that little calamity, it was very handy to keep along as an emergency phone for use when only VZW had towers within reach, and as an emergency camera for recording pictures onto its little removable 1GB microSD card.
As for its MP3-player abilities, I never started up that path, don't know.
It's now been replaced by a nearly equally old Motorola Droid X2, true Android phone (but w/ antique version 2.3.5), capable indeed of serving as WiFi hotspot (serving up cellular data to other wifi-dependent equipment), as well as capable of internet connection using not necessarily cellular data but wifi connections, all with acceptable battery life (needing recharge only when I too need recharge, i.e., overnight), and costing (through an Amazon Marketplace Vendor) under $25 postpaid. No LTE. But it takes microSD cards up to 32 GB in capacity (versus A-930's 1 GB). Anyway, enjoy your new-found A-930 in good health :-) . Cheers, -- tlvp
[snip]
Thank you for the info: it looks like the A-930 will be useful as a temporary "bridge" device for evaluating Verizon service at my new home. Assuming that VZM is (as the neighbors say) the only choice, then I need more advice about compatible phones and least-cost plans.
I'm going to be working in secure areas again, and I will occasionally need to tether my laptop to my cellphone for Internet access. I will need:
Other features don't matter to me. Suggestions welcome, TIA.
I signed up for their $13/month plan, just to get the thing going, and they told me that the MEI was usable. However, evertime I call someone, they hear only a couple of words and then it cuts off.
I waited 12 hours after I activated it, and the problem continues. Did this ever happen to anyone else?
Bill
That's a good way to get started. You can always add a richer plan, or replace it with a simple $10/120-day deal, later.
That's not normal. Have you a Time/Temp info number (like the number
1-203-777-4647 formerly serving New Haven, before Frontier axed it)?If so, see whether you can maintain a connection with it for at least 50 seconds. Or try calling 1800Walmart or 1800Walgree[ns] or the like, so as to test connection duration.
If such tests fail, I'd wager your handset is defective. In that case, try to transfer your PagePlus number to another handset (same cust service number will just swap MEIDs for you in their database).
Apologies in advance for your lost $12 if indeed they turn out to be gone forever ... but I think this will resolve itself better than that.
Cheers, and all best, -- tlvp
I've now learned (from a Frontier rep, who bemoaned with me the loss of
203-777-4647, but recalled with pleasure the Time/Temp number in the town-- Marion, OH -- of her childhood) of 1-740-383-2141. Still works, too -- it's a Date/Time/Temp/Promo line run by a local landscaping company :-) .
Costs no more on Page Plus than any local call. And seems to be in the same time zone -- EDT now -- as Boston.
Cheers again, and all best, -- tlvp
I continue to have the problem, and also received a text message saying that I had to add money to the account - after I'd just signed up!
I called the customer service line with the phone, and talked for over ten minutes without problem, and then the rep asked to call me back on my home phone, so we hanged up, but they haven't called back yet.
Right after /that/ call, I tried to call my home phone from the cell, but it cut off after about 15 seconds.
What are the chances that this phone was locked to Verizon? Page Plus said that they could serve my phone's MEI, but I'm starting to wonder.
With what "plan", if I can call it that, did you sign up? Did you pay $10 for a first 120 days of service or 100 minutes of airtime, whichever expires first? Or just the few minutes of starter/testing time that is gratis? Or one of their recurrent monthly plans?
If the first, can you possibly have eaten up 100 airtime minutes already? (Even then, I believe you get up to the full 120 days, just with no paid airtime to use remaining, before you *must* pay again, upon penalty of losing your number.)
If the second, perhaps your gratis starter/test time is up.
If the third, it stumps me, you'd have to call them.
Have you registered your phone / your phone number on the Page Plus Cellular web site, ? You can create an account there and register your phone (you put in your PP number and they send an activation code to the phone as a text, that you then enter in the website to prove it?s really your phone).
Once you?ve registered the phone, it shows up under your account and you can: learn its current expiry date; add time as needed; check your call records; etc. (Thanks to Todd Allcock, whose tutorial words to me I've repurposed here for you.)
Unlike a phone originally branded for Sprint, any Verizon-branded phone whose MEID is *not* recognized as lost or stolen, or implicated in bill-evasion, is eligible for conversion to service with Page Plus. The Page Plus CS rep whom you first speak with generally gets something done to your handset over the air to achieve that end.
One test: dial #737. If that's answered by a Verizon network interrupt, something's screwy. If it's answered by PP CS, that's as things should be. (Until it's activated on Page Plus, #737 dialed on the handset *will* be dealt with via Verizon's billing/charging technology; only once PP has activated it will that #737 refresh to the incoming Page Plus CS lines.)
I hope your puzzling effects get resolved.
In a worst case scenario, try to scrounge up (even if only temporarily) a friend's currently-out-of-service but fundamentally functional Verizon-branded handset, and get CS to transfer your account and phone number *from* your current A-930 with its MEID *to* that "new" instrument with its own MEID. If the troubles go away, I'd blame them on your A-930, and seek a replacement for that. If not, there must be something fishy in the way PP set up your account. For that, I can only wish you best of luck.
Cheers, -- tlvp
As of this afternoon, at around five PM, the phone is working - and I'm a Verizon customer.
Dealing with Page Plus was the most irritating, confusing, frustrating, and fruitless waste of time I've ever had in dealing with any company.
From the time I tried to "activate" the phone until this afternoon, I had six separate calls with Page Plus call centers, none of which improved the situation in any measurable way. Each employee demanded that I perform the same steps in the same order, and whenever I told them that I had already done what they wanted me to do, they would recite a glib non-answer, and talk by me with the hope that I'd do it their way again, and again, and again.
My requests to speak to a supervisor were either ignored or treated as an excuse to get rid of me. I was dumped twice, and promised call backs that never occurred, three times. The last person I spoke with told me that there was nothing else she could do, and gave me an address for "the local Page Plus dealer", which turned out to be a private residence.
I just called Page Plus for the last time, and told them to issue a credit, and they tried to tell me I wasn't entitled to a refund. I replied that I would order my credit-card vendor to chargeback their bill, and after that, I was promised a refund "In three to five business days".
I've been accused of being anti-cellular, or anti "smart"-phone, but neither is true. I've used basic cellphones for years, and I'm well acquainted with their benefits and limitations. Although I freely admit that I feel too many users don't make productive use of the capabilities of cellphones, or expect them to be a substitute for basic business competence, *that* isn't what bothers me about them at the basic level.
What gets under my skin, and Page Plus is (AFAICT) the canonical example, is that so much of the cellular industry is geared to treat customers as sheep to be fleeced and lied to instead of served. I judge cell phones by the behavior of the companies that sell them, and by that of their employees, and when those employees pretend to "fix" a non-working phone by demanding that I perform a puppet's dance for them, without any attempt to ascertain a root cause for my phone not working, I am entitled to complain in public.
The fact is that they couldn't make the phone work after they had told me it was compatible with their system, and Page Plus even had the temerity to claim that I wasn't entitled to my money back after they had wasted over three hours of my time.
Bill
As I wrote in my previous post, I switched the Samsung phone over to Verizon this afternoon. I'll take this opportunity to thank the Verizon Mobile Solutions Specialist who helped me do that.
Craig Bernabei went out of his way to get the phone I brought to him working. He spent almost thirty minutes on the phone to my former vendor, trying to find the problem, and then offered me a better plan than they had, and the chance to switch over right away without any contract. He involved two other employees in solving the problem, took care to make sure that the phone worked properly on Verizon's network, and offered me a wide range of accessories to choose from when I asked about headsets.
I know that T-D readers are in all corners of the map, but if you're ever in Avon, Massachusetts, please stop in to the Verizon store at 1 Harrison Blvd in Avon, and tell him "Thanks" for me.
Bill
... [Remainder of rant excised] ...
Bill, forgive me, please, for having led you up this bramble-strewn path.
My own experiences with PP have been remarkably different -- pleasant, productive, and efficient.
On the other hand, I think all my interactions took place before PP became another of Carlos Slim's holdings -- could that account for the difference?
Cheers, and enjoy Verizon Wireless in good health and with lots of bars,
tlvp
A serious advantage of having service through VZW will be that all of whatever rudimentary mobile-web browsing your A-930 is capable of will be at your disposal (even including tethering). (Not so with the PP service.)
Again, my regrets for having steered you so wrong. My own experiences would never have let me imagine they could possibly have mishandled you so badly.
Cheers,
tlvp
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