Prepaid Cell Phones

After studying several of the plans mentioned and a few others, I opted to go with T-Mobile's about 1 year ago.

T-Mobile in my area works fine, so that hasn't been an issue. What really made me decide on T-Mobile were the rates. The more minutes you buy, the less per minute cost - as with all of them. But what I really like with T-Mobile is that after spending $100 (which I finally did last month) in buying more minutes, the minutes are good for a year. And I get 15% bonus minutes now having reached the $100 threshold.

I originally started out with $25 worth (came with the phone - thus the phone cost me almost nothing), then two $10 purchases and last fall I bought $50 worth knowing from Dec - Jan I would be using the phone more on several trips away from home. My recent purchase of $10 worth of minutes put me over the magic $100 - again giving me 15% more minutes and a year before expiration.

Not sure if T-Mobile has changed its plans, but my plan is a basic plan with $10, $25, $50 & $100 amounts that can be used to recharge your minutes.

I think what is referenced in this article ... "This program offers you the ability to prepay your plan on a monthly basis. You can select between several great packages. Each package will offer you a different collection of features that relate to weekend minutes, night minutes, myFave minutes and day minutes" refers to their normal contract plans.

I live in Germany so when I came back to the States to visit my family I needed a cell phone for a short time. I found a NET 10 phone for $25 with 300 minutes of airtime ($30 worth). It would have been cheaper to throw the phone away than to buy more minutes! Normally you can get these phones at Walmart. They are owned by trac phone therefor use the att network. To me it was the most transparent system: 10c for all minutes anytime and I never was out of a coverage zone. (And 15c a min to Germany and most pf Europe and Mexico). Then at the airport someone asked to borrow my phone to make a call. I really enjoyed being able to say to him, "Keep the phone." He insisted on giving me a $5.00 tip. SO it cost me only $20 for 2 months of cell service and I had the convenience of always being in touch.

I have had tracfone service for several years with no problems. It used to be a problem adding minutes online but they solved that. I live in Ohio and have a hard line, spend several months in florida. Campground has free wi-fi, so receive calls on tracfone, hangup and return call using skype on wi-fi with laptop.

I have tried several brands of pre-paid mobile phone services, and have found Virgin Mobile to be the best! I pay about $25.00 a month for 200 minutes and 200 texts. If you buy a new minute pack 1 day before the expiration date of your current minute pack your remaining minutes roll over! I have a pretty good signal in my local area, but if you do a lot of traveling in remote area's use Verizon, it works nearly everywhere, but is more expensive!

virgin mobile sells prepaid cards,$25 for 2 months after 2 months they cut the service off even if you don't use the phone. how can they get away with that? Isn't that a ripoff? Do other company's do this?

I've used T-Mobile pre-paid for several years and have absolutely no complaints. After the first initial purchase of $100 (can be done in increments of $10, $25, $50 or $100), you get extra minutes. They expire in a year, which may be a downfall for some if they don't use it very much. For $25, I get 140 minutes of talk/text time.

I have used NET10 for over 4 years. It has been excellent for me in Northeast Oklahoma.
With every new phone purchase (3) an extra 300 minutes has been included. The latest phone purchase was because I lost my phone.
I called customer service after buying a new phone and they transferred my 3000 plus minutes to my new phone. I don't use it often, but find it very handy at work, never a roaming charge, good connections, and always 10 cents a minute.
I buy a 300 minute card every 60 days = $15.00 per month, plus tax.

A new service from Tracfone, available at Wal-Mart is Straight Talk.
A friend has this service and it is great for him! At this time there are three phones available from $40. to $100. (the last has a full slideout QWERTY keyboard, as well as other features).
There are two plans available at this time: $30. and $45. PER MONTH. $30. for 1000 ANYTIME minutes, 1000 texts, and several MB of internet data. The $45. plan includes UNLIMITED everything: minutes, texts, internet.

My wife and I use the Verizon INPlus Core (pre-paid) plan. Between us we might use 30 minutes a month(probably less). We each buy $100. and it lasts us a year, sometime with time left over. This is not a good thing because the left over minutes are lost. We are thinking about switching to the Basic plan. Neither of us talk much more than 1 or 2 minutes at a time. Our ages 76 & 70. We don't text.

In response to Ven's post of 2/24/10:
You are exactly the light user that I am. As I posted one year ago, with Page Plus prepaid I can pay as little as $30 a YEAR per phone ($10 every four months) plus the unused minutes always will roll over. So even if you were to put in their minimum $10 at first, you will have 100 minutes (an average of 25 mintes for each of the first four months). Then, as you carry over with each refill, your unused minutes will add up and be available whenever you need them.

If you want to be safe, though, you might want to start with a larger initial amount and subsequently refill only as much as you see yourself using. One note to heavier users: a different version of their service now offers what they say is unlimited "talk n' text" for $39.99 a month - with nothing more for taxes or anything else. (Competition from Boost and Metro PCS really started heating things up!) I don't need to go for that, personally. I just use the maximum refill rate, under their standard deal, paying $80 every four months which boils down to a 5 cents a minute discount rate for me. Weird thing is, I keep accumulating more and more minutes that I may never need. They will keep carrying over unless I miss a refill deadline (I'm careful, though!)

Their pre-paid service can be used by anyone with a Verizon-compatible phone like yours (after you discontinue any Verizon plan it has been used under, of course.) As a reseller of Verizon tower access, their coverage is probably identical to the coverage you get now. That has been the case for me and I have never found the phone to "roam", though I admit I use it only in my own major urban area (New York).