Has anyone here had any experience with US Cellular phones and bluetooth? I have searched the forums, but not found anything on US Cellular. I am mainly interested in whether the US Cellular phones have the same restrictions as the Verizon phones in phone book connections, etc. LetsTalkToyota only has TMobile and Cingular listed, which are not viable options for me. Any input will be appreciated. We have a 2004 Prius. Thanks.

 

I don't have any experience with US Cellular, but I don't think you'll have any problems with bluetooth enabled phones from them. Verizon customizes their firmware pretty heavily to put tight controls on what a user can and cannot do. I work for a rural telephone coop in North Dakota and we have our own wireless network and our phones use the standard firmware from the manufacturer. I have a Motorola RAZR V3c that works flawlessly with my 2005 Prius through our own network, and I have a additional RAZR V3c from Verizon that will interface with the car so I can make and receive phone calls, but that's about it. In my case, I populated my Prius' phonebook with my work RAZR, but have both RAZR's enabled for the car.

I would suspect that US Cellular is probably a little less restrictive than Verizon with their firmware. I would suggest driving to the store with your Prius and asking if you can borrow a bluetooth enabled phone to test for five minutes. Chances are a Sales Rep will be more than happy to walk out to your car with you and let you use his/her phone to test connectivity to your Prius.

Good luck, and if you get a chance, report back to let us know how it works out. I'm sure others would be interested in knowing what options they have for using bluetooth enabled phones with their cars.