Posted on 10/16/2013 6:24:05 AM PDT by kyperman
Prepaid phone plans, where you pay the full price for a cellphone and then pay lower monthly rates without a contract, seem to offer what most budget-conscious people want. So why haven’t they really caught on?
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I have two phones: the simplest, “dumbest” phone with a prepaid plan that doesn’t even include text messages, with Virgin Mobile. Either $20/mo for 200 minutes or $50/mo for 1000 minutes. I usually get the $20; when I’m low, I get the $50. It balances out to about $25 a month over time for me.
The other phone is a cast-off smartphone with no service from when my wife upgraded her own phone service. I use free wifi at McDonald’s &c from time to time, and play music and take pictures and make voice memos to myself and all that stuff.
I pay $9 a month for an AT&T go phone, anyone know of a cheaper plan?
If you own the equipment pre-paid is by FAR your best bet. I have the entire family on pre-paid...Four of us, unlimited EVERYTHING...54.00 per line...that’s including tax. Verizon.
It does appear there is not many phone choices that don’t require a data plan.
And by the way..these are smartphones with all the bells and whistles.
I’ve been with T Mobile for about 6 years. I’m happy with them, although they did ship me a worthless piece of crap phone called a Gravity3 I think. Then i had so many issues with it’s lack of performance (dropped calls every.single.day)that they sent me a refurb of it, it was baaaad, so they were going to send me a new one and I said WHOA, I want a new phone, these refurbs aren’t worth the shipping costs.
So they did, and it messed up worst of all. so I said NO GRAVITY and the first guy and a supervisor said I couldn’t get anything else. Then the call dropped. I called back and got a cs rep named Tiffany and she said of course you can get a different phone. The alternative was a bottom line business phone, but it worked!
I kept it a couple of months and then finally got a smart phone. I pay $30 a month per phone for unlimited minutes, texts and some amt of internet that i never use. I also pay $ 10 or 20 a month toward my LG Optimus L9, it cost $245.
The app PDANet+ will give you a hot spot on an Android phone without needing to have the phone company to turn it on. Everything will work except the web. And you can get the web to work too if you know how to change the USER_AGENT string in Firefox.
But, for a long time, I just used my 3GS and stayed on my current plan with no contract. Even when it broke, it bought a new 3gs (because upgrading meant I had to get a new contract or pay cash) for $150
I did end up paying for the 5 phone outright but at the end of two years I still come out about even and have no contract.
If you are paying more for just minutes than you would pay for a plan with data and/or text, then you aren't saving any money. Straight Talk is AT&T service. Virgin Mobile is CDMA from Sprint. They have $30/month plans and unlimited plans for a little more. The only advantage for a contract plan is a discount on a high end phone. If you don't have a new, high end phone, you are getting screwed.
My situation is a little unique in that the place where I work doesn’t allow camera phones for security reasons. I went to the local Verizon store one day and asked if they had phones without cameras and the kid looked at me like I was from Mars. So I’m stuck with a probably 10 year old Motorola cell phone without a camera. Luckily you can’t kill this thing.
Betcha I’m not the only one with this no camera restriction.
My last phone was a Blackberry Bold, and they made a version of the phone without a camera.
Net 10 offers a cellphone for 35 bucks it is a basic phone with camera and caller id and recent call feature and voice mail unlimited long distance the card costs anywhere from 15 or 20 bucks for 500 minutes and 30 days service to unlimited Long distance for 50. I have had no problems with service and have had it for a couple of years. They also have a home verison same features for 84 bucks start up cost and 19.95/mo. I am going to drop the cell phone and go to the home based cell as I no longer have a business and think it is rude to take and make cell calls around other folks. Ever go to a store and have the clerk while waiting on you hear her bell and either answer or checks number? Pisses me off. Also my grandfather fathered his last child at 72 and since I am only 59 I prefer not to kill my remaining sperm, may need em. There is no contract on these phones. I don’t work for them.
I have three phones (for three people) with Boost. My mom and I are using flip phones (we’re old), but my son’s using a smartphone with their service.
No issues. They use Sprint towers, so we’re getting the exact same service at a fraction of the price.
The only thing that irritated me is that we had the phone insurance for my son’s phone ($5 a month) and when we needed to use it, they charged us a 50% deductible. In the long run, when you add together all of the insurance payments plus the cost of the replacement phone, it ended up costing us more than if we’d just saved that money and bought a new phone.
Other than that, we love it and would never consider a contract.
Went prepaid 6 years ago and never looked back. Best money I spend on communications. Several carriers now have Android “smart” phones. So the me too factor is lessened.
http://www.tracfone.com/phones.jsp
If the phone is stolen you can easily port the number to the new one and most of the time keep the minutes. Buy “double minutes” for life phones and add to the savings.
I now spend less than $40/month per phone and love it(10 phones in service). I have each of my supervisors in the business on them and saves me from their gripping about using their minutes for business. Six years ago I spending $100/ phone for less service.
I used AT&T for years.
I don’t talk on the phone much, and even their lowest tiered plan was too many minutes. I called them and they had an unpublished plan below that which I was on for a few years. Still too many minutes.
Eventually I got a Tracphone. It had double minutes, and I bought one of the large minute cards that had a 1 year expiration. The price of the phone and the card was about 3 months worth of AT&T’s unpublished lowest rate. I got a new 1 year card every year for 3 years and it worked very well for me.
But my company got me a cell, so I’m no longer with Tracphone. The reason they did was I want to send text alerts from my server monitoring software, and that could have easily overwhelmed my Tracphone account. The company phone has unlimited texts.
I was pretty happy with Tracphone, and my wife is still on it. I only wanted a phone, and they do that pretty well. Having the minutes expire on the lower count cards is somewhat annoying. I suspect that part of their business model makes it unattractive for a lot of their potential customers, especially some who might otherwise buy several phones and keep them in their cars for emergencies. But that’s their choice.
It's only for emergencies, so my plan is no minutes, but 25 cents a minute if I actually use it. I'm very happy with Consumer Cellular. Anytime I've needed to call them they've been punctual, friendly, accurate, and English speaking. They also have plans that include different levels of minutes/month, all choices being very clear.
I had Verizon for years and when my mother died, I had to cancel her phone. They wanted me to pay for the phone until the contract run out. I walked away from them without looking back. In the last year, I have been using Metro PCS. I just got a brand new 4G Smart Phone, with unlimited calls, texts, messages, email, The Works. All for $ 40.00 a month. I love it!
We’re with TMobile and their new “no contract” plan. Now, instead of paying 30 days after use, you pay up front, 30 days pre-pay but not a prepaid throw away phone.
Works for us. And even this was 30 a month cheaper than contract plan and I checked Verizon and ATT and they would be about 60 more than what I am currently paying and I’d be under a 2 year contract.
We’ve been with TMobile for 6 years now, they are pretty good. We’d previous had a contract with both ATT & Verizon, customer service with TMobile is much better. Perhaps ATT & Verizon have improved since back then?
With a daughter 4+ hours away at college and son in high school, it is peace of mind . . . keeping in touch with both of them.
I was on Verizon forever. $154 two phones. Just got off the contract.
Wife and I got two free semi-smart reconditioned Android phones from Net 10. $85/month for both lines, “unlimited” text, talk and data.
The “unlimited” isn’t really. You get like 2.5GB per month and then they throttle you way back on speed, till next month comes around. If you don’t download movies or do other pretty stupid, IMO, stuff on your phone the 2.5 is much more than adequate.
Uses AT&T towers and reception is generally better than with Verizon here in FL.
If you already have an iPhone or other phone you like, you can often have connectivity switched to Net10 by buying a simcard. <$10.
I’m just waiting and keeping eyes open for a good buy on a used iPhone or good Android, and then I’ll switch to that.
But it’s really hard to beat for $85 and two free phones. The phones obviously aren’t state of the art, but three or four years ago they’d have been considered really good.
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