AT&T Burner Phones

J

Jeffrey Knorr

Honorary PhD
Jan 11, 2011
172
6
18
Berwick, PA 18603
jrklabs.com
Hi Guys,

I may need 2-3 burner AT&T cell phones for an upcoming festival gig where there won't be Verizon coverage. What's the best way to go about this? We'll mostly need calls/text but I would spring for smartphones and data if it wasn't too expensive. Any suggestions? I currently use Cricket Wireless so that's where I'm leaning but could use a good phone source to BYOD.

Thank you,

Jeff
 
Re: AT&T Burner Phones

Rob Timmerman said:
How big's the festival? Big enough for it to be worth Verizon's time to bring in a CoW?

Otherwise, it looks like AT&T's prepaid lineup is the "Go Phone" line, which is likely what you want. Smartphones are available.

http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/gophone.html
Click to expand...

There's 4,000 people camping there plus day passes. In past years, Verizon has brought a mobile truck in. For some reason, that's not happening this year.

Jeff
 
Re: AT&T Burner Phones

I have been using this Nokia lumia 520 Windows phone. I think they can be had for like 60$ and you can put in whatever chip you want. I have the redpocket for like 40$ unlimited talk text and i think 1 gig data a month but Im sure you could get cricket on there. I crossed over from i phone and it was really straight forward. Have been running it for almost a year with no issues.
 
Re: AT&T Burner Phones

Hey Jeff,

As Rob mentioned above, the AT&T solution would be Go Phone, they provide a chip which you put into whatever device you want. Pay as you go with various plans including data. The cheapest, just calls and texts, is $25 a month. My wife has been using one since we moved from Germany and can't complain. For temporary use they are pretty hard to beat since there are no term limits. Pay as long as you need it. When you are done, stop paying and after 90 days I think, AT&T reclaims the number.

Where and when is the festival? As an AT&T employee, I can talk to the mobile group about providing coverage.

Cheers,
Simon
 
Re: AT&T Burner Phones

Gents,

As a followup to this thread, I contacted the AT&T Mobile group for the NY area. They were already aware of the GreyFox Bluegrass Festival and are increasing coverage accordingly. Its pretty fun working for what is otherwise an enormous company, that still reacts to local events and needs. And as far as I am aware, they are not requesting advertising or sponsor rights from the festival's organizers.

Disclaimer, I work for AT&T as a Network Engineer.

Best,
 
Re: AT&T Burner Phones

Simon Coffin said:
Gents,

As a followup to this thread, I contacted the AT&T Mobile group for the NY area. They were already aware of the GreyFox Bluegrass Festival and are increasing coverage accordingly. Its pretty fun working for what is otherwise an enormous company, that still reacts to local events and needs. And as far as I am aware, they are not requesting advertising or sponsor rights from the festival's organizers.

Disclaimer, I work for AT&T as a Network Engineer.

Best,
Click to expand...

That is pretty cool Simon! I'll report back on how it works out!

Thank you,

Jeff
 
Re: AT&T Burner Phones

Simon Coffin said:
Gents,

As a followup to this thread, I contacted the AT&T Mobile group for the NY area. They were already aware of the GreyFox Bluegrass Festival and are increasing coverage accordingly. Its pretty fun working for what is otherwise an enormous company, that still reacts to local events and needs. And as far as I am aware, they are not requesting advertising or sponsor rights from the festival's organizers.

Disclaimer, I work for AT&T as a Network Engineer.

Best,
Click to expand...

Simon, can you work your magic with ATT here in Kansas? We have a very large festival in Zipcode 67156 in September, and ATT's service becomes unusable. Playing connection lottery to make or receive a voice call, use data, or even get a text message through. Verizon brings a portable "Cell on a truck" but ATT does absolutely f'ing nothing.
 
Re: AT&T Burner Phones

Tim McCulloch said:
We have a very large festival in Zipcode 67156 in September, and ATT's service becomes unusable. Playing connection lottery to make or receive a voice call, use data, or even get a text message through. Verizon brings a portable "Cell on a truck" but ATT does absolutely f'ing nothing.
Click to expand...

I've been told that some carriers, instead of bringing in a truck the way Verizon does, will add additional capacity to existing cell sites for large events. Less visible, but generally accomplishes the same thing as bringing in additional cells. Of course, connection lottery suggests that if they did bring in additional capacity, they didn't bring in enough.
 
Re: AT&T Burner Phones

I think most AT&T phones worked OK, the burner phones seemed to be fine with voice/texting. My phone had spotty coverage/service through Cricket Wireless. I don't know if that was by design or just that the data service was much more congested/lacking. Anyway, we made it through the festival just fine.

Jeff
 
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