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A comment on Burner Phone. Parent comment

Re:Burner Phone by cakeface on Friday June 07, 2013 @02:09PM (#5840560)
Does the 30 day talk time start when you get the phone? Or after you make a call? I'm curious if this is something that you could buy and then hold on to as a backup or emergency phone.
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Re:Burner Phone by rdegges on Friday June 07, 2013 @02:10PM (#5840569)
It starts after you turn the phone on for the first time -- you can purchase these in advance and activate them when you're ready to use them.
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Re:Burner Phone by mst on Friday June 07, 2013 @03:23PM (#5841066)
That seems suboptimal for being sure the phone wasn't either (a) a dud or (b) damaged between receipt and first use.

Any thoughts on being able to do at least some sort of basic self test without starting the 30 day count down?

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Re:Burner Phone by Sami_Lehtinen on Saturday June 08, 2013 @01:48AM (#5843989)
Many Finnish prepaids are activated from first outbound call. So actually you can use SIM and receive calls, without starting the day counter. Only annoying thing is that SIM must be in home network before it's getting activated. So I can't send Phones & cards all over europe to only receive calls & SMS without starting the timer. In many countries you can get anonymous SIMs direclty from any SIM card automat.
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