Thanks Steve,

I will get the Tracfone CDMA I think. We have CDMA on a small scale
here in
Australia and I am aware that it gives greater range in country areas
than the GSM system which is almost universal here, at least in the
major
cities.

The inclusion of the car charger will be very useful as we'll be
spending a
lot of time on the road, visiting many different parts of the USA and
in
some cases will be in relatively remote locations. I assume if need
be our
family in Australia can call us on this phone easily enough. If
calling a
cell phone from outside the 'States I guess you just call country code
1
then the cell phone number... Or is there something more to it?

I've printed off the various Tracfone web pages tonight and will take
them
with me when we leave on March 26. We're staying in Venice Beach and
it
looks like there are several stores there (7-Eleven for one) that
sell
Tracfone.

Anyway, I really appreciate all your help. It will make this task a
whole
lot easier and make it a lot less likely that I'll get screwed in the
process!

Kind regards,

Dom

"Steven M. Scharf" wrote in
message
link.net...
"Dominic Kelly" wrote in
message
...
This query is probably more for the non-Americans...

My family and are visiting the USA (from Australia) for 11 weeks
starting
26/3. We want to have a cell phone during our trip, which covers
many
different parts of the country.

I've been researching this online, and there are clearly a few
different
options for getting a phone when we arrive. I'm starting to think
that
for
a
stay of 11 weeks it may well be better to buy rather than rent. Can
anyone
tell me whether one can buy or rent a handset or SIM card in LA
airport?
If
so, would these stores tend to charge more for the same thing than
could
be
obtained elsewhere in the city?

I was in Target today (Northern California), and they were selling
four
different prepaid phones:

-AT&T Free-To-Go with a Nokia 1260 TDMA phone

-Boost Mobile (Nextel) with an iDEN phone

-Tracfone with a CDMA 800&1900/AMPS Motorola V120C for $80. This
is
probably
using Verizon's network Included car charger and AC charger.

-Virgin Mobile with a 1900 Mhz CDMA phone

Of these, avoid the Virgin or the Boost, due to coverage
limitations.

The Free-To-Go and the Tracfone CDMA would be fine. I'd lean toward
the
CDMA
Tracfone because it'll be useful for longer, since TDMA coverage is
declining as it is being replaced by GSM.

There are plenty of Target stores around the LA area. There is one
quite
close to the airport on W. Century Boulevard, see
http://tinyurl.com/34q36

Not all stores may carry all choices above.


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