>EVEN IF I BRING MY OWN GSM PHONE they won't
>move the account from TDMA to GSM without switching
>to a $39.99 or higher plan.
>
>Guess I'll switch mom to Virgin Mobile. They have a
>pay as you go plan that's effectively $20/quarter, so
>I'll be saving $$. Only downsides are that it's CDMA,
>and on the Sprint network, so coverage is spotty off
>the highways.

FWIW, I just went through that same process. Went round and round
both on the phone and in an inependent Cingular store. Got all sorts
of unsatisfactory answers.... the best I was offered was a two year
contract and either $29/month for 200 rollover minutes or $39/month
for the standard plan. I had the old Nation 250 for $29/month and
wanted to keep it. Per everyone at Cingular, no way. I tried
everything... reminding them that there were other carriers out there
and the like. The guy at the store told me my best bet was to keep my
current plan and phone and use it until it stopped.... said it was the
best deal I could get, even with the $5 TDMA surcharge.

Finally I tried talking to a "supervisor" on the phone one last time
and they transferred me to the "activations" department. After
explaining that I was a customer, not a dealer I spoke to someone who
actually did the activations and she said..... "NO PROBLEM. Go to any
Cingular store and you can keep your plan, sign a new 2 year contract
and get a discount on a phone". So I did and I did. Got a Razr for
$99 after rebate and still have my $29 Free Nation 250 plan. It was
dead easy in fact. I have no idea whatsoever why it was so hard up to
that point though. Cingular really needs to get its act together.
They almost lost me.

In retrospect, I have to say that I might have been better with the
"Pick your plan" plan for $29/month and 200 minutes that roll over.
Basically, from what I can determine, you pay $29/month into your
account. They bill minutes at $0.15/minute and other services like
data are also billed at whatever rate applies. Unused money rolls to
the next month up to a max of something like $500. In the long run I
think it is a better deal because it includes data.... my current plan
does not. The only down side is that on my Nation plan, voicemail
retrieval calls are billed as one minute regardless of duration. On
the other plans they are billed per minute.

Paul