[EVO 4G Android Development] disco_y2k:
WOW!

it pays to be grandfathered in i guess :)

in late 1998 me and some friends each pitched in $498 to order an entire lot of of the very first 3G phones direct from SANYO. we got them mid-1999. and hurried over to sprint to activate our brand new SANYO 5300's woo!hoo!

lol, sprint had not even officially launched VISION 3G yet so we had to wait i think until around jan 2000 if memory serves to even use them.

back then i think it was $35 just to get 3G service and if you remember it did not take off very fast because of that.

so to keep us using vision over the years until it caught on we widdled them down to (well my plan anyways is still like this) $15 for main phone and $5 each additional plus if you would whine n moan and ask for 'retention' you could get more discounts, etc

so as it stands (I NEVER TOOK THE DISCOUNT FOR NEW PHONES ETC! I BOUGHT NEW ONES AND "REPAIRED" THEM TO MY ACCOUNT) i still have unlimited EVERY data feature data, tether,picture,video main, msg'ing etc on 3 phones (now 2xTPS and 1xEVO shift 4G) and my monthly bill is a whopping $83 a month, taxes, title, license as they say :)

in fact when i talk to sprint my account (paper bill) is like 14 pages long with all the edits, credits, etc and the plan doesnt even exist, so the reps spend 10-15 mins trying to follow it and then just give up and send me level2 or level 3 where you can talk normal to techs and get what ya want :)

moral is... spending few extra $$$ on devices and not updating to new rules pays off :)

BTW, you can borrow a friends data info if they are grandfathered. i been using 0001.prl for years and depending what part of the country im in when i dial *2 i get god knows what provider customer service hehehehe

another anonymous fact/tip i discovered in my travel through the sprint system is that once a phone is activated on an account with legit PAM feature sprint never removes it. meaning, i have used a phone, upgraded, given it to a friend who just had normal VISION or whatever they call it now and even after they legitimately activate it on their account with their info etc, tether still works.

(note we did have 1 advantage when i was in college, granted many, many, many moons ago, for CMPS my roomate was tele-com EENGR and working for sprint as an intern hehe)

someone mentioned it before, and way back when i had made one fore the PPC6700, but if you have a friend with PAM and go through every provision screen on the phone and through QPST you can copy whats needed to make PAM 'legit'

the one worry i have is this new 'error 16' sprint has going on. testing different stuff over the last week to figure it out i have been having to call 2-3 times a day. i am starting to get the feeling they are trying to implement something like the SSDA/SSDB key auth. each time i call i ask different 'playing stoopid questions' to widdle away at this new security feature. but 1 key thing a knowledgeable tech said was that you can get 'error 16' if you have been offline (not on a tower) for a little while and pop up on another tower, so that makes me think of the keys rolling over, but its just speculation, anyone with any real facts on this i would really be interested in reading through it.

just my 2 pennies :)

cheers,

disco

BTW: tethering on 2G REALLY sucked, chatting on mobile on IRC banging away at 1.4K or so was really awesome lemme tell ya, lol

------EDIT---------

i more important tip for the hardcore, needa always been able to be reached like me (i am a first responder for major disasters now) BUY AN OLDSANYO PHONE the 5300 is best because of the powerful radio. these you can switch to ONLY old skool analogue towers WHICH NO ONE uses any more. so for example, hurricane katrina in new orleans when even the police could not use cell phones, i simple turned on my sanyo 5300 (turned off the newer phone with same 3$N of course first) switched to analogue and kept right on moving :) even if you dish out the extra $20 a month to keep it active its worth it if yoou in those type situations and as a bonus, on sanyo 5300, 8200, 5550, and few other, they do not track tether, yes it is 1x but its always on :)

---- 2nd edit ------

SPRINT POLICY DOES NOT STATE YOU HAVE TO PAY EXTRA TO USE A SMART PHONE!!! if you want to test this, get a non smart phone, activate it, get the newest latest bad mamma jamma smart phone, repair it, throw away your old cheapo and live extortion free! in fact while talking to a rep i knda know at a sprint store the way he phrased it to me, word for word was

"yes sir, IF I activate your smart phone I HAVE TO tack on the extra fee per month, but if YOU have time to do it yourself online tonight, I WILL NOT have to add the extra fee to your account sir."

:)