Prepaid Cell Phones

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Merkava_4

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How do those work? Do you buy the cell phone and then buy the air card to operate it?

All I need is something to call a tow truck with. Everybody on the freeway will
automatically assume that I already have a cell phone. I can see it happening.
 
I have a TracFone, one of the simple flip phones.

TracFones use minutes of talk time, and days of service.

A year card gives you 1 year of service, and 400 minutes of talk time.

Great for Senior Citizens, and emergency use,
If you use the phone a lot, new cards with more talk minutes can be expensive.

I bought the phone at Kroger, cost me $4.99, but you need to also buy a year card too...
Phone comes with 30 days service and 20 minutes.
look on RetailMeNot.com for codes that will get you free minutes,
I usually get 800-900 total minutes with a year card...
 
We use prepaid.

Buy a phone, and buy the simcard.

$30/mo for the sim gets $220 of call credit, and 400MB of data.

The balance (usually about $25 accumulates, but you have to refresh monthly to keep the accumulated funds, which can be turned into data, transferred to wifes phone, used ISD etc.).

When we were in the states, we bought an Amaysim for $29, which lasted us the entire month's travelling...was really handy on a dual sim phone, my Oz sim able to recieve calls/texts, and the US sim ordering pizza and finding motels.
 
Do you have 'Sim Only' contracts in America?

I have a free (handed down) iPhone, and a sim only contract. £5 per month gts me 500 minutes, 500 MB and unlimited text messages.
Some people spend more than that on fuel additives!
 
I have (two) virgin mobile phones, the emergency one is $10 every 2 months, plus taxes & fees bring it up to $11.50 ish.

If you really only want a phone for emergencies, any cell phone with or without money on it will call 911. Say you're a disabled vehicle and you get whatever creepy tow company contracts with the Highway Patrol.
 
My parents are on AT&T prepaid annual; we just renewed a week ago. $100 for 1000 minutes. So that's $8.33 a month. Go to Verizon for the same thing but you get 500 minutes instead of 1k.
 
you could get ting. its not prepaid but if you dont use it ... only 6$/month

they have buckets for use..

upto 100m 3$ 500m=9$ etc
 
There is prepaid and there is no contract. I have Consumer Cellular and its a no contract. You have or buy a phone and they bill you monthly. I think the cheapest plan is $10/month.

With Tracfone even if you never use up any minutes, you need to buy days/months of service. You cannot for example, buy a phone with 100 minutes and then two years latter expect it to work with your 100 minutes if you never bought additional days/months.

Some prepaid also charge you "minutes" for each text". Maybe 1 minute. When I had a Tracfone, some restaurant was sending me a lunch menu daily via text using minutes. I never requested it.
 
Ive been using a an LG miniflip from NET10 with the prepaid card for years for emergency coms/burner. The phone was free. 15 bucks a month with all minutes carry over - I use a 30 buck card for 2 month call period.
 
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I'm determined to cut ties with AT&T, nothing but headaches and too much money, I might go the ting rout, or republic wireless, but where I live I use alot of mobil data because I live in the boonies where wifi is expensive and slooow.
 
Page Plus has an $80 plan that's good for 2000 minutes and lasts a year. You can also get a cheap $20 phone from them. They're also on Verizon so their coverage should be good. You could also do a $10 card for 100 minutes which is good for 120 days so in theory as long as you remember to renew it every 120 days, you could have coverage for $30 for about a year.
 
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I got Page Plus for my Uncle...initially started out with the $10 card deal but he kept blowing through the minutes so I got him the $80 plan. Nice thing is that as long as you renew before the $80 expires..even with just the $10 card...you keep rolling over the minutes.
 
I use a cheap Republic Wireless phone on a $12 per month plan.

Works fine for me.

The page plus 80 dollar per year plan would work fine also.

For 12 I get unlimited voice/texts no data, unless you are on wifi.
 
I'd get the cheapest prepaid you can w either AT&T or Verizon. At least then you'll have a signal almost everywhere.
 
I have prepaid LG305G through TracFone that costs $6.67/month based on 180 minutes ( triple value of 60 minute card ) for 90 days. The cheap phones ( under $20 ) tend to be double minutes but most generate minutes that are more than the value of the prepaid card you buy.

If it's rarely used like mine you're basically spending $80/year for a phone that, in my case, uses the AT&T network and I've never had any coverage issues where there's civilization. I used to have a Net10 prepaid phone ( same parent company ) and found TracFone to be the same just cheaper. If lifeline voice communication is the goal then one of their cheaper phones might be one of the better options.
 
Originally Posted By: Wolf359
Page Plus has an $80 plan that's good for 2000 minutes and lasts a year. You can also get a cheap $20 phone from them. They're also on Verizon so their coverage should be good. You could also do a $10 card for 100 minutes which is good for 120 days so in theory as long as you remember to renew it every 120 days, you could have coverage for $30 for about a year.

I just got Page Plus as they use Verizon cell towers. I tested for service in a remote mountain area and had clear crisp reception whereas T-Mobile was dead. I'm very pleased. I only use mine for emergencies as well and the $10 card/100 minutes every 120 days is really a good deal.
 
Why do the air cards expire? I can go to Costco and buy a Verizon long distance air card for my home
phone and they give me 700 minutes for $20. No expiration date as long as I got minutes left.
 
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