No Frills Phones and Service Plans - Comments Page 1

I have had the Jitterbug for several years - it's marketed to the older crowd generally. The lowest plan (mine) is 30 minutes with limited texting for $15.00 per month. They offer other plans with more minutes & texting at good prices. Customer service is tops!

What about wifi such as offered by Optimum cable?
Gene Henley

It is just a quibble, but Andrew Luck plays for the Indianapolis Colts. The team sneaked out of Baltimore in 1984.

I have a mobile phone line you to which you may add all the apps you may want for only 2 shillings for a 100 year contract payeble by direct debit. Then all you have to do is download the free string phone line cut to any length you require. Conect the string between two empty Coco cans or other type of empty can by punching a hole in the bottom and securing the string in each witha large knot and by pulling the string tight between the cans you can talk for as long as you want. It worked for us as kids nearly 80 years ago so I don't see why it should not work for todays kids David Guillaume

We have a LG flip phone from Tracfone and pay $ 10 a month. We don't even use all those minutes so they just keep adding up. We still have our land line phone and plan on keeping it. The cell phone is nice when traveling, but for everyday use--no way.

$9.95 Samsung Gusto from Radio Shack....,service from Verizon from $5 a month...,dropped it , dunked it...,thrown it....,3 years and still going....., I'll keep my flipper thank you....,yes I am from the " if it ain't broke don't need to replace it " gen.; 63 and still ticking.

My fifteen tear old Nokia does everything I need. Just talk and text, with a small monochrome screen.

It's tough, but with smooth rounded corners which let it slip in and out of pockets easily. Being 5/8" thick it doesn't bend or crack if I accidentally sit on it. When dropped from more than head height it breaks into three or four main parts which easily click back together.

I don't need email, intertnet, GPS, etc, so why pay for it?

I can't recall what my allowances are, but even on a budget plan I've never exceeded them. I recently changed over to the virgin network for a flat £5 a month.

A hidden little bonus of this 'chunky' phone is there's room enough in the back to hide a couple of folded bank notes for 'get me home money'.

John

Andrew Luck is the QB for Indianapolis Colts, not Baltimore!!!!

Hello Rob,

PureTalkUSA (puretalkusa.com) is also a very good option to really save. My monthly phone and text is $25 per month for a family of 4. This includes 700 minutes for the master line, and 70 minutes for each sub-line on the account. Net, I am receiving 910 minutes per month that rollover, all on a no contract. We get 3 texts per minute of talk time. Great plan!

Bob,
I think you meant that Tracfone service was 400 minutes with a YEAR of service (not 400 minutes per month).
Stu

why not Tracfone wireless?

Mr. Rankin,
Your newsletter heading states "Thanks, But No Smartphone For Me" and I am wondering who that "Me" refers to...
It is very difficult to continue being a refusnik these days, and I (personally) don't know how much longer I can hold out w/o owning a smartphone. For example, most 2-Factor Authentication sites almost mandate ownership of one. I am glad that Google provides their free gVoice (now part of Google Hangouts) service since that is the only means of being able communicate/text (SMS) with smartphone owners; for those of us who are still refusniks.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Usually the 2-factor services will let you confirm via text message.

I discovered this back in May - finally had to replace our Verizon phones - they don't have much of a selection in the basic phones, but I wound up with a much better deal than our previous plan. I even added a line for a total of less than what I had been paying before. I now have unlimited voice and text (previously, 1400 mins/mo and pay-per-text) for $100/mo +tax for five lines (I'm also paying about an additional $20/mo for 2 yrs to finance the cost of all five new phones).

Bob, was it you that spoke about another cell phone service in one of your emails ~ https://ting.com/?

I've been reading this and it looks amazing. According to their rate calculator, I can save almost half on my current cellular plan. And that's adding an additional line. They bill at the END of the month and your charges are based solely on your usage. Genius plan.

All your readers should check this out.

Are you sure about that Tracfone price of $94/yr for 400 min a month? I've been with them for a while and that sounds like the yearly min rate.

Ptel is good.

As I posted previously on a related topic, for 8 years now, I have used PagePlus Cellular, a "reseller" of Verizon's tower network. If your usage is really low-frills/low usage, their "Standard Pay-As-You-Go" service costs just $30 for the ENTIRE YEAR ($10 every four months). The big advantage with this is that you only need to "refill" every 4 months and unused minutes always roll over, as long as you don't forget to refill on time. You can put in the minimum $10 which gets you a rate of 10-cents per talk minute and 5 cents for texts, for four months. If your need is not quite that light, refill with higher amounts, which also get better per/minute rates. I go for the highest ($80) which actually gets me 2000 talk minutes (that's 4-cents/min, though texts are still 5-cents) AND lets me go one full year (instead of four months) before the next refill without losing the rollover balance.

Data (3G) is available but expensive on their prepaid (10 cents/Meg!) so if you need that, go instead for a monthly plan, either from them, or another company. For PagePlus prepaid, you need a Verizon-compatible phone (any, except for the Verizon prepaid type) that you no longer have registered at another carrier. (Don't close your old account entirely until Page Plus has ported in the phone number for you.) Athough you can setup and pay online, the best refill type ($80) can only be bought at a dealer location. Unfortunately, there are not many dealers (and the website's list seems out-of-date), so there might not be one near you. A lot of the above may eventually change however, since I hear that Tracphone bought PagePlus a couple of years ago.

Big fan of Consumer Cellular - especially with the AARP discount. They made it easy to transition to a Smartphone, have very affordable, no-contract plans, add a second line to share the plan for $10 a month. Plus, they allow you to change your plan mid-month, even retroactively, should data usage, for example, spike one month. And you can then change back again for the next month. No negatives to report, as the coverage has been very good.

I bought an old refurbished Verizon flip phone from Cellular Page some 15 years ago...still works and it costs me $10 every 3-4 months for 100 minutes. No data, I had text turned off. Use it only for calling--mostly when traveling or making long distance calls from work (where it is not allowed). Fine for me.

We use tracfone and have the big easy alcatel. It's a nice phone. However, Tracfone is 400 minutes a YEAR, not per month for the $99. But all phones now double the minutes so it is really 800 minutes - which is a fair amount if you don't talk a lot. And all of the unused ones roll over.