Ditch the cell, get a Peek?

April 3, 2009 11:20 AM

Should I ditch my cell phone in favor of a Peek/Skype/GrandCentral solution? Has anyone successfully attempted this kind of migration away from traditional cell phone service? Is there anything I should consider or be aware of?

I'm tired of the cell-phone runaround and what seems to me a high cost and a low value situation, but I need to be able to keep in touch with friends and coworkers. I usually make phone calls at home and most of my other communications are text based.

So the new Peek Pronto combined with some sort of wifi phone at home or the cafe (i was thinking to repurpose a disused windows mobile device) seems to be a economical/practical/attractive way to keep in touch.

Alternative similar suggestions/experiences?

posted by tev to technology (3 comments total)

Sounds like a hassle to not have a cell phone.

Why not go prepaid? If you message a lot, there is the Sidekick prepaid plan from Tmo, which is $30 a month (plus per minute voice charges) and that gives you IM and Web browsing in addition to email and text. Plus you have the option of taking and placing calls.
posted by wongcorgi at 12:20 PM on April 3

Peek in your pocket and Skype at home sounds great to me, if you already have high-speed internet anyway. As long as you can live without voice calls from the street, what else are you losing. "I'll call you when I get home/work" is acceptable for all kinds of communication.

And since Google Voice will send you text/sms of your voice messages... hell, you're set.

I never talk on my cell phone while I am out anyway. Noisy and annoying and rude. It's almost all for e-mail and texting and stuff, and then I call people back when I get home where I am settled and it's quiet. That Peek is pretty appealing.
posted by rokusan at 4:08 PM on April 3

If your phone bill is over $20/month, then sure, the Peek Pronto option sounds like a reasonable way to save some cash.

I would caution you about the wifi phone, though. I have an older Nokia (E61) that I use with wifi and an asterisk server at home. Works great, but I never was able to get the phone to connect reliably to other wifi spots outside my house. I know that some VOIP services are better at traversing routers and NAT firewalls (say, Skype and Truphone) but just don't expect wifi and VOIP to be as easy as a cellphone.
posted by kamelhoecker at 7:33 PM on April 3