I live in Belmont, MA, (zip code 02478) and I'm looking to find the
best phone plan or combination of phone plans for me and for my
roommate. This phone plan would include a cell phone for each of us,
and possibly a land line to share (but the land line is not
necessary).

(For comparison purposes: right now we have a land line only, with the
Verizon Freedom package, which allows unlimited calling to the US and
Canada, but is quite expensive.)

My phone usage:
an average of a half an hour per day to Canada, always after 6:00pm or
on the weekends. I'd be willing to make calls after 7 or 8 instead if
it turned out to be cheaper that way.

My roommate's phone usage:
about an hour per week, long-distance within the U.S. All calls are
also in the evenings and on weekends.

We'd also like to be able to call locally (mostly each other), usually
after about 5:00 in the evening or on weekends.

The question is, which cell phones should we get and what is the
cheapest way to make these phone calls? I'm willing to use calling
cards for the long-distance if it helps, but for the actual phones and
plans I'd like to stick to "name brands" if possible.

A perfect answer would summarize the possibilities you considered and
make a specific recommendation (including the monthly cost) for the
phone plans we should be using.

Please let me know if you need any clarifications. Thank you so much!

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Clarification of Question by cider24-ga on 21 Apr 2004 08:57 PDT

Sorry, I forgot to add that I'd prefer to avoid plans that have a
higher connection fee and then a low per-minute fee if possible, just
because I've found that those 99 cent charges add up. (I'll often have
to try several times in order to reach someone.)

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Clarification of Question by cider24-ga on 26 Apr 2004 06:48 PDT

Something like the plan suggested by drip sounds reasonable for long
distance, (although it could add up to $30 a month, so if there's a
calling card that is 2 cents a minute, for example, that could be
better -- but maybe that's unreasonable).

USA Datanet (www.usadatanet.com) has a no-monthly-fee plan offering
calls for 5 cents per minute, capped at $.99 per call, or 10 cents a
minute, capped at $1.99 per call, depending on where the call
originates and where the call is going to. If most of these calls are
long in duration, this can be very cheap. There's no need to switch
phone or access providers to use them. I've used them for over a year
now and I've been very happy with them.

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