7-11 free phone deal on again

The 7-11 Speakout free cellphone promotion is on again. Buy $100 airtime and you’ll get at free phone or $59 towards  the purchase of any Speakout phone. The local 7-11 store has three different phone models in at $59, $75 and $139.  
I’ve used my Speakout phone for over a year now and think that their no-plan pay per use service is great.  I just picked one up for my daughter for Christmas.
They have a second promotion going on currently.  It’s a referral promotion. A current user as well as a new user can each get $10 free airtime. The current user just gets a referral code from Speakout and gives it to the new user who submits it when activating the phone and each will get an extra $10.  Anyone getting one of their phones, I will happily supply a referral code to get the extra $10.  Just PM me.
speakout7eleven.ca/pages/promotions/

Do you know which models of phones they are? There are 6 shown on their website.

Also, the Speakout website says that they have unlimited web browsing for $10/month… does that work in Rupert? If so, I am fucking sold.

Also, is number porting free? I’m in Vancouver right now, but could I just ask for a Port Ed number when I activate it?

Yes. I did this with my wife’s phone. It comes with a number, but if you phone the Speakout people they will change it to a Port Edward number. Took all of 5 minutes.

Dunno about the models.  I think the cheap one is the Nokia 1661.  Decent, but cheap.  I have a couple of 1661s, a 1208 and a 1600.  The 1661 is the best one, I think.

You can ask for a Port Edward number as soon as you get the phone.  Dial 611 and ask for a 250-600-xxxx number if they don’t know where Port Edward is.  

Not sure what the status is of getting Citywest number porting (ie: take your current number with you).  I don’t think it works yet.

The $10/month unlimited browsing is crappy – GPRS.  Not even Edge.  So it’s very slow, and crappy on those Nokia phones.

How crappy? Can I peep wikipedia and check gmail, or is it basically unusable?

I might try to find a cheap used 1st gen iPhone while I’m down here too, so a data plan would be sweet.

It’s not a data plan, it’s a WAP plan.  The same one that Citywest has for $7/month or so, and so does Rogers on pay-as-you-go.

If you want to use an iPhone with it, you need to do some stuff to make it tunnel through the WAP proxy.  Totally useable for gmail and wikipedia for sure, if you don’t mind the wait.  Slower than Edge, though. Don’t try HTMF on it, unless you use the WAP version of HTMF – then it’s just as bad as a Blackberry browser. 

Anyway, Pam has my old first gen iPhone on Speakout, and it’s just fine without a mobile data plan.  There’s wifi everywhere, and when there isn’t, she still can post photos to twitter and facebook and stuff like that – they just get sent automatically when she’s near a wifi zone again. 

Seriously, she texts, occasional call, and does all the other iPhone things for $7-$8 per month.  It’s pretty sweet.  Incoming texts are free, so I can spam her like mad.  Outgoing texts are 10 cents each.

An aside:  hackingthemainframe.com/m .  I’m eventually going to have an iPhone version of this site.  When I have a free night to add the theme!

So it’s like, a data plan would be having a TCP/UDP connectivity, and having a WAP plan is like having HTTP only?

Yeah, I think that’s the case.

It only supports http requests, and only through their proxy.  So it’s possible to make your iPhone tunnel traffic through there, with some limitations.  

It’s not a true “data plan” which would let you make any kind of UDP or TCP connection to anywhere.  It’s basically Speakout’s version of this Citywest offering:  citywest.ca/prince_rupert/cellul … sing 

It’s also $10, while Citywest and Rogers have it for $7.  I guess Rogers doesn’t want Speakout underselling it on its own network.

[quote]We recommend that you subscribe to Unlimited Mobile Web Browsing if you plan to download games, music, TV and similar content to your phone. This would prevent the high pay-per use charges due to the large download file sizes or these types of content.  Please click here to see how quickly the usage can add up.

What can you do with Mobile Web Browsing?

    * Messaging: Check your email, send instant messages, play games and more
    * News and info: Weather, lottery results, horoscopes, entertainment, sports, business news and more!
    * Sports: Get the latest sports scores and player stats, fast!
    * Games: Test your gaming skills
    * Communities & dating: Connect with people around the world or find that special someone.
    * Shopping: Make your phone your own - download music and ringtones, games and more!
[/quote]

So they’re kind of making it sound better than it is? “TV and similar content”? Like, would an embedded Flash video a la Youtube be functional?

I have no idea what it’s like on the Citywest $7/month plan.  But I know on the Rogers one it is painfully slow.

Rogers Edge is much faster than the $7/unlimited plan.  And that’s really saying something, since Edge is only 2 or 3 times faster than dialup.  

If you do get an iPhone on the Speakout service, try it for a month without the “unlimited browsing” plan and see how you do.  You’ll be surprised at how easy it is to find wifi.

I have the 6GB Rogers data plan on my iPhone 3G, and I’m a pretty heavy iPhone user.  But most of the time I’m at work, at home.  Both of which are covered by wifi.  I could definitely live without the data plan.  However, when traveling, it becomes my modem, and the free tethering from Rogers makes it worthwhile to keep the data plan.

Just wondering, I could be wrong… but is this advertising? :imp:

I would love to get an iphone, but, I’m paying for a bathroom reno atm.  It sounds very cool indeed.  The 7-11 phones look like they’re worth investigating. :smile:

Do as I say, not as I do. :stuck_out_tongue:

Nope.  I don’t have a problem with advertising at all.  I have a problem with HTMF becoming overrun with classified ads.  You know how many posts we had about wood for sale?

I bought one of these last year. With $100 worth of airtime on it ($125 after the bonus).  I put the SIM in a iPhone 3G and have been using it since then. I have about $30 left there now. Not bad, 11 months for $70.  I need to top it up now before Christmas, because airtime expires after a year if you don’t add to it, right?

I just topped up Pam’s phone.  But I might add another $100 just to get the free phone :smile:  An unlocked 1661 goes for about $50 on ebay.

How many minutes is a $100 of airtime worth?

You’ll get 500 minutes airtime, incoming text is free, outgoint 10 cents, free voicemail and the only fee you’ll pay is 1$ per month for 911 access.

Check out the website:  speakout7eleven.ca/