Interesting, thanks for the clarification. I could swear that people buy prepaid Tracphones without paying $35 initialization fees. Does Tracphone have some kind of magic that allows them to do this tricky reservation of circuits for nothing? In fact, come to think of it, I currently have a Tmobile sim for a prepaid phone! I don't think it cost me a $35 initialization fee. How did my circuit get reserved?

Edit: Confirmed. You can buy a tracphone for $19.99, including 20 minutes of talk time to start with. How much does tracphone pay to initialize and reserve the circuit?