Prepaid Cell Phones Cost- Good Deal?

[some user]

Check this page:

Looks like STi is the best if you don't use wireless a lot. For example, TracFone would charge $80+ for a year's service and 150 minutes. STi only charges $18, even if all your calls are at weekday peak time.

In addition to their low rate, STi offer a few nice free-after- rebate phones: Samsung A660 from Staple, LG 5225 from STi (You need to buy a $50 card), and Sanyo 200 from CompUSA (Now it is back to $110 minus $100 rebate).

I got a Samsung A660. This is brand new phone, quite good looking flip color phone, that is far better looking than my old free phone (remanufactured) from TracFone. .The reason for Samsung is that I am more comfortable with Staple's easy rebate system.

I don't know how STi can make money with that kind of price. I wish them good and be profitable, and we can have more choices in the low cost prepaid phone market.

[LoL]

[Mark Lloyd]

Good, so far. What about the rest (time/minutes)? Would changing to another phone mean you lose those?

[Mark Lloyd]

I use the TracFone mostly for emergencies. I buy the 1-year cards BTW, doing the whole thing online seems easier than buying a card at a store). I have plenty of units available since they don't "disappear".

[Steve IA]

Marina,

Help me with my new Tracfone, please, as you allude to my VM question. I haven't set up the VM yet, but am getting message alerts occasionally.(or so it says). No one knows this CP number except tracfone. Are there really messages there? How do you check messages from a land line?

Thanks

[katpawley]

I have a Tracfone that I got just for emergencies. I do use it occassionally for other calls, just keep them short. It took a bit for me to get used to the charge system, but basically you prebuy minutes that are good for some given period of time (I bought a one year card). It is charge in 1 minute allotments (called units), though roaming charges are higher. I love it and plan on getting one for my wife when her "normal" plan expires since neither of us use cell phones much. I bought ours thru Radio Shack - phone was about $10 after a rebate. Bought the card at Sams at a lower price. Our savings are substantial. With the "normal" plan we pay about $23/mo. including taxes ($270 per year). Now, we do get 40 minutes a month plus long distance and (I think) extra weekend minutes. With Tracfone we paid $10 for the phone and $80 for the card (200 minutes good for a year). That's plenty of minutes for what we really need, but, if need be, we can always get another card. I think we get long distance, but no break on roaming. But, again, we don't use it in those circumstances much. Phone works just like all others - as long as a tower is available, you can use it.

[HerHusband]

We rarely make phone calls, so we still live in the dark ages without a cell phone. :) But, we've thought about getting a cell phone for emergency purposes, like if we have car trouble or something.

The pre-paid cell plans sound like they would work well for us, but I'm curious how these work. Are they like the phone cards you buy in the stores where you have to type in some long code every time you want to make a phone call? It's a simple question that I never see answered...

Thanks,

Anthony

[Bob G.]

Yep...I have had no problems using it on the west coast this summer (Washington State) My local area is in Maryland...

Bob G.

[Bob G.]

.

Well I dropped my original Virgin Moble phone over the side of a boat..and had to buy a replacement...kept the same number...kept the prepaid "minutes" etc... no problem at all ...

Bob G.

[clifto]

Something else to beware of: someone posted to another newsgroup just yesterday that TracFone is losing coverage in major markets. I can believe it, because Cingular is gradually phasing out TDMA in favor of GSM, and a lot of the prepay phones (ALL those using the Cingular network) are TDMA.

[chicagofan]

I have TracFone, and with their service, you just dial the regular telephone number with area code. I wondered about that too, before I got a cellphone. :) You have put those lengthy codes when you buy/add airtime to your phone though.

I got my [refurbished] Nokia cellphone free, and bought a couple of months service at first to see if it worked as advertised, and it did. So I've bought the annual prepaid service for the last 2 years, which has worked fine for me. I'm even thinking of giving up my landline next month. :) bj

[Sherman]

Wow!

You're the MAN!

[Mark Lloyd]

I know about the TracFone I've been using for over 3 years.

First, you buy a phone (I've seen some for as little as $29 recently, Wal-Mart has them). You call TracFone to activate it (or do it online), they give you some numbers to enter into the phone. Then, you use it as you would any cell phone (no extra numbers to dial) as long as the time/units you bought last.

If you're activating online, it's easier to buy time/units that way, instead of getting a card.

Since I use mine mostly for emergencies, time is more important than units. I get activation that lasts a year and includes 150 units (they've been adding to that at activation). There are both smaller and larger amounts available.

BTW, it looks strange but my spell checker keeps wanting to change TracFone into Raccoon :-)

[Mark Lloyd]

Do any prepaid cellphone companies use GSM? I was going to be getting a new phone sometime, and that would be something to consider.

[Jim Yanik]

HerHusband wrote in news:Xns972554F79A8Dherhusband@216.196.97.136:

WalMart has TracFones for $20.00,then you buy the aircards you desire. amazingly inexpensive! You can also buy airtime over the Internet,that's where you often get bonus minutes and other deals. The site guides you step by step thru the data-input process. That's what I've used.

You only need to enter the card's data once,not each time you use the phone. Buy a one-year card(150 "units",plus any bonus units),your minutes on the shorter cards expire after a couple of months. Also buy a 12V auto charging cord;you can get those at WalMart,too.

It's useful for blackouts when your house charger will not work,or if your CP battery runs low when you are far from home.(when you are really likely to need it!)

[Jim Yanik]

Bob G. wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Suggestion;keep the cellphone in a ziplock plastic baggie(when boating!);it keeps it safe from immersions,and even FLOATS!

[Jim Yanik]

Mark Lloyd wrote in news: [e-mail]:

You would think that TracFone would notify customers of this conversion.

[amykae]

Hi, Sherman. We had a Sprint plan for 8 years while my husband was an over the road truckdriver and we burned up THOUSANDS of minutes. When he came off the road he wanted to eliminate that bill and didn't want to get into another contract. When our 3rd child was due in August we decided he needed a phone for a month and I did tons of research. We ended up with Virgin Mobile. I'm sure it will work fine in Houston/La Porte. I gave a friend the referral bonus in Corpus. I think it runs on Sprint lines but I can't remember for sure. Anyway, for us it sucks because I'm adding time every couple of days! I am trying to talk my husband into another plan! . We are spending $100+ a month in minutes. Virgin Mobile has 3 different "plans" and you can figure out what works best for you. Right now I have it set at them taking 35 cents a minute per day and everything is 10 cents per minute. If you use it infrequently you can set it to 25 cents per minute for the first 10 minutes and then 10 cents the rest of the day. Only on the days you use it. They also have a "talk all the time" deal which I haven't checked into much. You have to "top up" I think every

90 days but you don't lose your minutes as long as you add some every 90 days to stay activated. They also have some "auto top-up" things but I haven't checked into it much since I'm adding time all the time!

If I can talk my husband into a contract I'd gladly give you our phone. Virgin Mobile actually encourages recycling your phones. It's REALLY easy to go online and set up your own phone number on a recycled phone. My only complaint with them has been for the first 2 months we got TONS of wrong numbers....they re-issue phone numbers too fast! We didn't b other checking voicemail because it was always a wrong number and wasted minutes.

You can check out Virgin Mobile's deals at

. You could also try to pick up a phone on freecycle. Are you familiar with freecycle in your area? You can email me for information if you're not.

amy

[Joseph Meehan]

It looks like I am going to go with Beyond. Thanks for the lead. That was was what I was looking for.

[clifto]

Not to my knowledge. It can't stay that way forever, though.