Almost all major cellular carrier have added prepaid or month-to-month no contact plans. These are appealing to people who are trying to stick to a budget, aren’t heavy users or just want something to stay in touch with family members. There are some things to consider when looking at plans; phones, minutes, text messages, data plans and monthly service fees.
A data plan is what allows you to have access to the internet; before you think about adding a data plan or going with an “unlimited everything” plan you are going to want to try out a phone to see if the service is worth it. Providers like Cricket and Virgin Mobile offer unlimited plans but the network connections are slow, the browsers are horrible and there are a lot of browser stalls. Contrary to what most plans say about “unlimited data”, there are restrictions can caps in place to keep people from streaming or clogging networks. I have had Boost Mobile, Cricket Wireless and Virgin Mobile over the past seven years in addition to a regular contract with a national carrier that is used only for business calls. Boost, Cricket and Virgin are not the only providers but they are the ones with national coverage and the advertising budget to reach millions of possible customers.
T-Mobile, AT&T; and Verizon are three of the major carries that offer contract and non-contract phone plans. Each of them have different plans and prices available but they do change offers about every six months so be sure to check the most recent deals in a store as websites may have outdated information. Other prepaid providers that are gaining consumer confidence include Net10, Let’s Talk, TracPhone and Straight Talk. Some of these providers are on in certain regions or only offer coverage in specific areas, be sure to look at a coverage map before you sign up. Local and regional providers include Common Cents, US Cellular, Simple Mobile, Simple Freedom, Liberty Communications and Red Pocket Mobile.
Picking The Phone: Are you going to want something to use with Facebook, Twitter and messenger services or something to use more to talk and text? If you want something all inclusive you are looking at spending at least $200.00. Why so much? You are not signing a contract so you are paying through the nose for the phone. Always check to make sure that the phone is brand new; I purchased a Kyocera Lingo for $200.00 from an authorized Cricket store and found out that it was refurbished and the warranty was void. Some prepaid carrier allow you to purchase a SIM card for $10.00 to $15.00 so you can use your existing phone but that is a rarity these days. Please note, most companies charge more for Blackberry and Android phones; not only are the phones more but the coverage plans for them are ten to twenty dollars higher than other phones.
If you are thinking about getting one of the more popular phone models like the Samsung Galaxy, Blackberry Bold, HTC One or HTC Amaze you might be in for some sticker shock. They can be costly with a phone plan but when buying them to use for a prepaid phone you are looking at $250.00 (Blackberry) to $398.00 (HTC MyTouch) without any type of rebate.
Text Messages: (MMS / Multi Media Messages) I have to have a prepaid plan that includes unlimited text messages; I send and receive about 100 messages (on average) a day so if I had to pay for each of them (incoming and outgoing) or work within a 500 message limit, I would be paying a lot of extra fees per month. There are plans that offer 200, 400 or 500 messages per month but you have to keep in mind, these are for ones that are sent and received.
Plan Minutes: Do you use your phone to make calls or mostly for texting? If you are not a heavy talker then you might be able to get away with a 1,200 minute a month plan. Please keep in mind, when you call your voice mail from your phone you are using your minutes. Likewise some carrier will charge you to make toll free calls. Most prepaid plans do not allow for incoming collect calls so if you have kids that forget their phone or never carry change you might want to consider looking for a company that allows you to have ten or fifteen dollars extra on your account so you can accept collect calls. Most plan minutes do not roll over, some companies will allow you to roll over if you have auto-pay so your monthly charge is automatically billed to a credit card but you need to make sure that is an option.
Picture Messages: I get and receive a lot of pictures, these are included with my plan under the text message potion of my plan. Some companies will charge five to ten cents to send or receive a picture message depending on the plan you choose. Others will factor it in to the data plan portion. This can add up quickly if you are sending a single photo to ten of fifteen friends. I made the switch from the $40.00 Virgin Mobile Plan (1,200 talk minutes, unlimited text, unlimited web) because I never used the internet on the phone because it flat out sucked. For the same price I switched to the PayLo plan that gets me unlimited talk and text and 50MB of internet access. My month starts on the 7th and I still have not used any of the bandwidth.
GPS: Only one of my prepaid phones offered GPS locating; the others had the capabilities but you had to pay extra to use them or have them activated. That is one of the disadvantages of a prepaid plan; if you want the perks and extras you are going to have to pay for them.
Plan Management: If you are going to go with a plan that has a limit on minutes or text massages, is there a way to track them easily? Can you have one-touch phone access to what you have used or what you have left? This is where an unlimited plan can be nice, you never have to worry about running out of time or checking to see if you have enough to make a call.
Getting Started: When you have figured out how much time you need or if you are going to go with an unlimited plan, you have to start shopping around. There are some things that you need to take in to consideration when you are dealing with major phone carriers that offer a prepaid version. Is there a monthly usage fee? Can you buy insurance on the phone? Is it new or refurbished? Who provides the warranty? Can you change plans without having to pay a fee? Is there a reconnection fee if you can’t pay your bill on time? How do you pay your bill? Do they have a referral program where you can get free months for having friends sign up? Most phone carrier stores see these questions as pointless, especially if they are working on commission. If you don’t feel like you are getting the answers you need, go elsewhere because if they can’t provide you with the basics of a plan or phone in the beginning chances are their customer service team is going to be even worse.
Making a list of the things that you want from your phone and prepaid plan are going to help you get the best deal and the one that is right for you. Avoid plans that have a daily fee (waived if you do not use the phone that day) because even getting a wrong number call or random text message will cost you for that day.
Prepaid cell phones are not the same as disposable or emergency cell phones. A disposable is something that comes preloaded with a certain amount of time and can not be refilled; it can be recycled but time can not be added to it. Most of these have bare bones features to them. Emergency cell phones are given to those without phone service or those in a domestic violence situation; most of the phones are refurbished from donated phones.
You are going to want to keep track of the use of your phone; if you are cutting it close the last week of your billing cycle and find yourself limiting calls or text messages you might want to look un bumping up your plan. That is one of the things you need to consider when picking out a provider, do they offer different usage plans. Moreover, is there a fee to change them when your new billing cycle begins? Even though I have a dedicated contract phone for business use, I like the freedom of having a prepaid phone. I can change my plan, let it lapse a month or two if I am not going to be using it or switch to another carrier when I want.
Prepaid phone service isn’t for everyone. Most of the major carriers offer great service but you have to plan on service outages and fee increases. Throttling is one of the biggest problems with data plans; if you are constantly on Facebook or Twitter or playing games then going with a one or two year contract that offers a higher range data plan might be more cost effective in the long run.
