Pre-Paid Cell Phone

[akoba]

no they last 90 days. If you fill up or refill with $100, it lasts a year. I think.

http://www.t-mobile.com/Templates/Po..._Lst_PrePlnTNC

I have the Tmobile to go phone. $100 is 1,000 minutes and is good for one year. Don't purchase in smaller denominations. It's not a good value that way. For my wife, it's good for about four months. The bad thing is you don't get a bill so you don't have a record of call usage. The good thing is, there aren't any extra fees and taxes that you have with a plan.

Agree to both.. I have t-mo prepaid for 5 years. Only load $100 per year. Use it only as my backup phone.

[Breadfan]

Best Prepaid phone is Straight Talk from Walmart. 30$ for 1000Min 1000txt and 30mb of data. Or 45$ for Unlimited. Straight Talk is on the Verizon network. Its a deal done by Verizon, Walmart, And Tracphone. Verizon provides the network service, Tracphone administers it, and Walmart sells it. I dumped my Verizon service and bought a straight talk phone. I save 40$ a month compared to my unlimited plan from Verizon. And I get the same service.

sounds like a good deal I may have to look in to this

[jpopfan]

I use T-Mobile prepaid for my backup phone. The key to making this work is to load up with $100 in one shot to begin with. This gets you into "Gold Rewards" status and your minutes don't expire for 1 year. Then before the 1 year is up, refill with ANY denomination ($10), and it will roll all your minutes forward for another year. Rinse, repeat. I hardly use mine, but it's good to know I've always got a backup.

[dachan]

Got a T-mobile refill card for sale that I accidentally purchased:

http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=263750

[motorhead]

net 10. .10/min., long distance, voicemail. cheap phone packages at wally's. when i got mine they didn't even ask for a name to activate. airtime cards are readily available or buy online.

[gunn]

It all depends on how much you use the phone. For my grandparents, Tmobile Prepaid works great and I know every Xmas I need to go ahead and recharge their phone (anniversary is right around Jan 1st). They hardly burn through the 1K minutes in a year and have no need for data plan coverage.

The phone is GSM so if you travel, you can always unlock it and use it overseas with an local-to-the-country SIM (provided you make sure your phone is a quad band).

-g

[I Like Guns]

I recently got rid of my AT&T plan. I now use tracfone. You prepay the minutes which is good for 90 days. Buy some more minutes and it will last another 90 (unless you buy the one with the yearly expiration). All of your unused minutes roll over too. Works for me since I don't use my phone much. I just need it for emergency.

[6pac]

Best Prepaid phone is Straight Talk from Walmart. 30$ for 1000Min 1000txt and 30mb of data. Or 45$ for Unlimited. Straight Talk is on the Verizon network. Its a deal done by Verizon, Walmart, And Tracphone. Verizon provides the network service, Tracphone administers it, and Walmart sells it. I dumped my Verizon service and bought a straight talk phone. I save 40$ a month compared to my unlimited plan from Verizon. And I get the same service.

For $30 a month you get 1000 any time and 1000 text messages or picture messages?

[odysseus]

Is that pre-paid though? You have to renew a service every 30 days with a credit card? Contract setup? The unused minutes don't roll over per month or do they? Sounds like regular cell service.

To me true pre-paid means I show up and give someone cash for a phone and minutes, no contract, no credit card billing, and minutes=cash and you have what you use. Renewing means I come back and buy more minutes as I need them.

HANDS Down the best cell phone company out there. Straight talk from Walmart. Customer service gets real dicey since they outsource your call to a forgein country and it sounds like Borat on the other line. "Hold me one moment" instead of "Hold for a moment"... The cost savings add up and every 30 days you give them your credit card number and continue service (or sign up for auto refill and they'll bill you automatically every 30 days).

For $30 a month you get 1000 any time and 1000 text messages or picture messages. The reception is solid throughout california or other states since they use Verizon unlike net 10.

[KylaGWolf]

I have the Tmobile to go phone. $100 is 1,000 minutes and is good for one year. Don't purchase in smaller denominations. It's not a good value that way. For my wife, it's good for about four months. The bad thing is you don't get a bill so you don't have a record of call usage. The good thing is, there aren't any extra fees and taxes that you have with a plan.

Then they must have changed it used to be once you spent $100 total they upped you to the VIP or Gold plan where the minutes didn't expire as fast. They also had a decent fee per minute. We have a family plan through them and pay a fee for three phones.

[2600fromAtari]

Cricket!

http://www.mycricket.com/paygo/prepaid-cell-phone-plans#how-does-paygo-work

[xrMike]

I don't use up but ten bucks a month but my wife talks endlessly so she needs unlimited.

This is probably the case in 99.99% of all relationships... heh heh.

[romeomikelima]

*****

[DaveFJ80]

Tmobile -- If you fill up or refill with $100, it lasts a year.

This is what I use for my spare phone (my old number that I've had for 15 years, and don't feel like getting rid of it but also don't want to pay a monthly rate for it since I never use it). Just buy a SIM card from T-mobile for $10, put 1000 minutes onto the phone ($100) and that's good for 1 year.

The best parts are that at the end of 1 year, all you need to do is pay an additional $5 or $10 to add like 30 minutes to your phone. This will allow you to keep the service for another full year, so basically like $10 to renew it each year. The extra minutes just roll over. The other good part is that T-mobile will not charge you a usage fee for using the phone on any day, where as other carriers may charge you $1 for that day if you use your phone for 2 minutes or 2 hours. The only crappy thing is that SMS send & receive is expensive (I think $.25), and MMS is the same.