God Bless American Mobile Phone Companies!

This blog can now be brought to you from the truck as we drive down the road, thanks to stopping in at a T-Mobile cellular store and buying a mobile hotspot.  This little puppy is worth its weight in gold, but fortunately was mine for only $129.99.  It's a little gizmo about the size of a smaller cell phone, and it creates your own personal WiFi (or MiFi) for up to 5 devices.  Here's a photo of it on the truck console with an iPhone 4 on the left in an Otter case:



It gives you the fastest data service available wherever you are at the time, all the way up to the latest and fastest 4G.  You can buy prepaid data cards for 1 Gb ($30) or 3 Gb ($50), either online or at stores like Walmart or Best Buy. 

We've seen the T-Mobile ads on TV in Canada, right, the hot chick in the little pink outfits?  Well, their stores are the same colour scheme, with that great hot-pink colour accenting arctic white with some touches of lime green.  I'd go in there just to hang out for awhile and drink in the colours, LOL!  And the guy behind the counter was super cool to talk to, just in a really good mood and obviously happy to be there.

Another nice surprise was when we hit our first stop in the USA, near Olympia, Washington, and we went to the nearest AT&T store to get our Go-Phone updated.  We had it on our trip last year and had let the number lapse while we were in Canada, so we needed to reactivate it, get a new SIM card, and buy some time for it.  I was figuring it would probably cost about $35 to activate it, $25 for a SIM card, and then buy $15 or $25 in time for it.

The AT&T stores are white interior with a bright orange band around the top of the walls, and they actually have a guy that comes over and welcomes you to AT&T when you enter, kind of like a Walmart greeter, only he is holding an iPad.  He takes your name and tells you that one of the people at the counters will be with you shortly.  I waited less than 4 minutes with 3 people in front of me, all buying 2-year contracts with iPhone 4s for $99.00 (gah). 

The SIM card was free, the activation was free, so I only had to pay for my $25/90 days.  We got the same plan as last year, where it costs you nothing on the days you don't use the phone, and a flat $2.00 any day that you do use the phone, with unlimited nationwide calling and texting, and 20 cents per minute to Canada.  You also get free voice mail, free call display, free conference calls, free call forwarding, and whatever else that Telus normally charges $5 to $10 each for!

I usually hate shopping, but when we go shopping down here, it actually puts me in a good mood!