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Reasonable Pre-Paid Cellphones in the US?
MBCook asks: "I've been with my current cell provider for a few years, and never been terribly happy with them. They lock and cripple their phones, but their coverage has been decent. However, in the last month I have experienced having my phone telling me it had voice mail when it didn't for about 2 weeks (little icon was there, but calling in said 'No messages'). Then today (Dec. 4th) it notified me of a very important call I missed — on November 19th. Since my contract expires next month, I've been looking at pre-paid cell phones and their plans. I'm not a big talker, and it would take me a while to use up 100 minutes. All the pre-paid plans seem to like to expire your minutes relatively fast (30 days) unless you buy a large number like 1000, then you get 90 days. Add to that the daily access fees some of them want to charge you ($1 per day you use your phone) and I may as well be paying $40 a month to one of the big boys. Is there any way to get cheap pre-paid cell service in the US? I don't care about ring tones, and while I'd like to be able to get games I can survive without 'em. I can't be the only one in this boat, what have others found?"
I've got a tracfone. It's some nokia that was $19.99 just about anywhere (phones depend on where you live)...color screen, texting, etc... Minutes are $19.99 (roughly) for 60 (and you can find promo codes for more) and it lasts 60 days. Usually, if you buy online you can buy 30 more days for $5. It's great for low usage and has good coverage. I'm happy with them.
Ethernet (n): Device Used to Catch the Etherbunny
Take a look at virgin mobile. I used to have Verizon and paid almost $50 each month. With virgin I have the $0.18 per minute plan and pay only $20 per 90 days. The idea is that you have to pay at least $20 every 90 days to keep the service, and since I talk very rarely I haven't ever needed to pay more. What I really like about them is that you don't need to worry about payments, you can set it up to automatically charge your credit care either every 90 days, or when you have less than $5 left.
On the down-side, the service is worse than Verizon (actual reception that is). In places with strong signal it's fine, but at my house it's a bit worse, for example. This depends on your location though, so just take a look at their coverage map. I've been with them for almost 3 months now and am overall very happy.
. . . is what I have. Buy a phone ($30 after rebates) and $100 of service, and the minutes are good for a year. One thing to watch out for is that most prepaid phones don't do any roaming at all. Check the prepaid coverage map, not just the regular coverage map.
My wife has T-mobile prepaid. If you buy 1000 minutes for $100 the time does not expire for a year. It has worked well for her.
I used T-Mobile to Go for a couple years and only switched cause I am now on a T-Mo postpaid plan (I wanted Internet among other things). If you have an unlocked GSM mobile (or care to buy one on ebay) you can pick up a T-Mo to Go sim on ebay for $10-$20 which will include ~$25 bucks of airtime. The starter kits w/ a T-Mo branded phone and sim are pretty reasonable as well. When you activate it you can port your old number which is one thing some prepaids will not do. When you add $100 it will make that $100's minutes worth .10c a minute. AND as soon as you add $100 to your account they give you what they call 'gold rewards' and any amount added to the card after that will be good for 1 year.
Best prepaid deal out there imo.
About six months ago, I got my wife (who barely uses any minutes) a T-Mobile pre-paid phone. $100 gets you 1000 minutes and they don't expire for the whole year. Your challenge becomes remembering to recharge, a year later! Here's the link:
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http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/default.aspx?p
Some areas can get really cheap pre-paid old-tech these days. But without a location, I'll assume you want something that could be just about anyplace in the U.S.
If you need the best national coverage, it will end up costing you at least $8/month to keep alive a plan from. (That's CDMA or TDMA... Tracfone has a newer setup using GSM, but that will cost more money and much worse coverage.) Get a referral from someone before activating, you'll get free minutes and so will they. Starter kit with phone and a few minutes will cost you $20 on up. That's about the cheapest way to get started, but beware that you have to use their phone, and their phones only work with tracfone.
The cheapest national option I've found is if t-mobile has prepaid coverage where you need it (most metro areas, interstate highways, etc). The coverage map on is really good, but do not confuse the prepaid map with the post-paid contract map. Buy a starter kit for about $30-40 (walmart or after rebate, better if you watch slickdeals or fatwallet) or more depending on what phone you want (any t-mobile or unlocked GSM phone with U.S. frequency bands will work if you just buy a prepaid sim on e.g. e-bay), and buy a $100 refill (1000 minutes, use a coupon at e.g. staples or online discount reseller and get it for $80). Those minutes will last for a year, so under $9/month (plus the phone) for 1000 minutes total. It's a HUGE win in year two IFF you don't need minutes. A $10 card will keep your minutes alive for another year, or under $0.10 per month.
Check out the best prepaid plan comparison I've seen.
sdb
P.S. Wife and I have t-mobile prepaid. Several members of my extended family have tracfone. I hate that t-mobile started charging for incoming SMS/MMS messages, but haven't found anything better enough to be worth switching or even to recommend instead.
When I shopped, I looked at Cingular and T-Mobile's prepaid plans. At least in my area, Cingular's two prepaid plans include a 10 cents per minute, 1 dollar per day plan (I agree, not very useful, though perhaps in some situations) and a 25 cent per minute plan without the daily fee. Minutes in $25-$75 chunks expire after 90 days, with $100 dollar chunks lasting a year.
T-Mobile's prepaid plan has a graduated pay scale as low as 10 cents per minute if you buy minutes in chunks of $100, and as high as 30 cents in chunks of $10. Expiration is 90 days at the $25-50 level. If you've bought enough minutes to be "gold" customer (1000 minutes I believe), then any chunk of minutes lasts a one year. The graduated pricing still applies but gets slightly cheaper with 10 cents still being the cheapest in $100 chunks ($50 buys at 11 cents per min; $25, 17 cents per).
I believe both Cingular and T-Mobile carry over unused minutes as long as you buy new minutes before the old ones expire. Note that number portability does not apply to prepaid accounts, at least T-Mobile told me I could not transfer my previous cell number.
I decided on T-Mobile, brought my unlocked GSM phone to a T-Mobile store, and had no troubles (though some kiosks did not carry prepaid plans; I had to go to my town's main store).
Do you really get screwed? Only if you are attached to your cellphone, have bad credit, and can't find a decent prepaid plan (which might be difficult in some markets).
For those that use their cellphone sparingly, you'd be hard pressed to get a cellphone plan with contract for under $20-30 + tax per month without something like an employee/dealer discount. However, there are numerous prepaid phones that cost a minimum of $10 per month or less to keep the account active. Virgin Mobile's per-minute plan, for example, requires you to deposit $20 every 90 days, for $6.67/mo. Then, it's $0.18 per minute.
T-Mobile's prepaid rate varies based on how much you buy -- anywhere from $0.33 to $0.10/min.
Alltel's U Prepaid per-minute plan is always $0.15/min.
Plans like these are great if your usage is low. Beyond 100-300 minutes per month, it's time to consider a real plan or a flexible prepaid plan. Alltel's U Prepaid has a plan that charges $0.75/day regardless of usage, but allows you to pick 2 out of 4 of these: unlimited nights and weekends, unlimited favorite calling number, unlimited text messaigng, and unlimited mobile to mobile. (Or, you can pick three at $1/day or four at $1.25/day). Then, other calls are always $0.10/min.
For $22.50/mo, you can get unlimited nights and weekends and then daytime calls at $0.10/min. Not a bad deal if you call mainly one person, talk at night/on the weekends, or call other Alltel customers.
A clever person with that Alltel prepaid service could sign up for an unlimited VoIP account for under $30, set that VoIP account number as their favorite number, and effectively get themselves unlimited cellular calls (assuming said VoIP provider allows open access via SIP and "three-way calling".)
They exist. After you spend $100 on T-Mobile USA Prepaid, minutes expire after one year regardless of your refill price. So, the first year will cost $100 ($8.33/mo) and you'll get 1000 minutes total for the year. If you need more, they'll last for a year. For $20 you'll only get 35 minutes, but for $100 you'll get another 1000 minutes. But after that first year, if you hardly ever used your phone, you could get away with $1.67/mo.
Alltel's U Prepaid also has decent rates.
Just FYI, it might be worth your time getting the phone itself from Europe. Just as it's often cheaper for us Brits to pay international shipping on computer hardware from the states, it looks like you guys would probably be better of getting an unlocked RAZR (to use your example) for ~$150 from the UK and putting a local SIM card in it.
This is absolutely false. Wireless Local Number Portability applies to ALL cell phones. If the customer service rep tell you they can't do it, ask to speak with their manager. They generally don't like doing it because (if you decide to go from post-paid to pre-paid and don't use your phone that much) odds are they'll be generating less profit from you, but if you insist on doing it, they are required to do so.
I've been using a pre-paid virginmobileusa.comm phone for years.
It costs $15 every three months, minimum (that is, you have to pay $15 every three months, regardless).
Needless to say, I seldom use it, but it's there when I need it, and the money never expires.
Can't beat $5 a month.
Hope it helps.
*Still* negative function...
Virgin Mobile calls it the "18 cent" anytime(all the time?) plan, or something to that effect. Its actually $20 every 3 months minimum, and I'm pretty sure the parent was correct about the time never expiring permanently... I don't have a link for any of this, but I work for radioshack, and we sell it. This was out of the brochure.
Yep, they currently offer an 18 cents/min plan.
My plan is 25 c/min for the first 10 min/day, then 10 c/min for subsequent minutes. Text is 10 c/text. Minimum $20 every 3 months, reduced to $15 if you let them charge a CC. Unused monies carry-over provided one keeps paying $15... Each part of a minute counts as one minute.
Actually, 18 c/min might suit me better - probably,I should switch. My calls are usually very short duration.
*Still* negative function...