No contract cell phone service

[pasusan]

Sorry for yet another cell phone question. I did a search, but would like to get more info.

My MIL wants a cell phone for purely emergency use - probably won't use it but a couple times a year. She wants it for when she is out and about shopping and what not... Just in case.

I don't know anything about prepaid (or really cheap) cell service so I'm asking you guys.

She had Virgin Mobile, but didn't use the phone much and not at all for a while so stopped the service. She told me she paid $10/month, but the cheapest no contract plan I found was for $20. So, I'm not sure about that...

I know a lot of folks here talk about Tracfone, so I was leaning toward that till I found this site which doesn't even include TracFone in its top ten.

We would prefer something where you buy minutes that would last so it wouldn't be a monthly fee... Any suggestions?

Oh - she lives in the Washington DC area in Maryland.

[Yeti_plus]

Hey pasusan,
Here in Canada we don't have these cell choices, but if you got your Mom one of the one year phone plans for cheap rates you could renew it for her birthday or Mother's day or Christmas, or another annual celebration, so there is no "When do I have to renew that cell phone card?" Just a thought.
I read this because we travel to the US often and I am looking for a cheap way of having cell phone for travelling. Thanks everyone for the ideas.
Brian

[2oldman]

moonlightrunner wrote:
I get tired of having to put my reading glasses on just to make a phone call.

I do as little calling as possible, although I still need glasses to write email. 🙂

[rockhillmanor]

Chris Bryant wrote:
Another vote for AT&T Go Phone- $100/year with rollover minutes. Every now and then I do the donation by text message to burn off rolled over money. Better the Red Cross has the money than AT&T 😄

Do you have a link to that plan for 100 for a year with roll over minutes?

[Cobra21]

I had Virgin Mobil, but now Trac Phone.
Love It, Brian

[moonlightrunner]

I use Tracphone and have for several years now. I tend to buy my minutes online. Considering the "Big Easy" because I get tired of having to put my reading glasses on just to make a phone call. I have "double minutes for life" card and tend to buy a 60 or 120 minute card a couple times per year. I have years of "service days" now. I suspect my "service" will outlive me. I also have months where I will use the phone a lot and months where I don't even know where I put the thing.

[wa8yxm]

Ok, one of the lesser known Federal laws is this: IF you have a no-contract pre-paid phone and you let the minutes expire or burn through them.. Well you can not call home and ask "Hey honey, was that Bread or Milk you wanted me to pick up at the store"

But in a 9-1-1 type emergency (Heart Attack, Flat tire along side the freeway) you can call 9-1-1.

The catch: Some police departments do not consider a flat tire to be a 9-1-1 emergency.. I, on the other hand, dispatched a trooper to a flat tire and by the time he could get there (he was about 3 miles away) it was a multiple car accident with something like seven people going hospital and 2 or 3 dead.

So yes, a flat can be a genuine EMERGENCY!!!! (I will admit the driver of the car was kind of flat-line on the brain scan too.. though still up and walking around.... Just brainless, Had she done the correct thing nobody would have been injured or killed).

[pasusan]

Thank you so much to everyone who responded! I'll be looking into these different services very closely. Not only do we need something cheap (because of low usage) we need it to be *easy* for her to keep it active and buy more time.

[1492]

You can keep a mobile phone active on PagePlusCellular(PPC) on the Verizon network for as little as $3. per month. About 25 minutes per month.

If she already has a Verizon phone, than no activation charge if transferring her phone number.

It usually costs me $12.-$15. month for my iPhone4 on PPC, though I have a couple of other Android smartphones also activated. Still, with all my smartphones, I pay less than one dumb phone I had on AT&T.

[Chris_Bryant]

Another vote for AT&T Go Phone- $100/year with rollover minutes. Every now and then I do the donation by text message to burn off rolled over money. Better the Red Cross has the money than AT&T 😄

[JimBollman]

I use an ATT reseller called H20 that has plans as cheap as $10 every 3 months. Customer service is not great but I haven't had to use that much. I have had them for almost 3 years. I went with the $100/year because I wanted some network connectivity but for just very limited phone the $10/3 months is a good deal.

My wife uses PagePlus that is a reseller for Verizon. We actually use a reseller of the reseller called Kitty Wireless because of some extra services. They have a terrible website but seems to work well, we have used them for a few months now. You can get by for $10/3 months there also. My wife uses that $12/month plan to get a little internet and more minutes.

Wife had a TracPhone for many years, worked fine but she wanted a smart phone, we can use out of contract smart phones on H20 and PagePlus so we switched.

[tatest]

Tracfone is #13 of 14, if you page on through that review. You need to understand their rating criteria. I think they assume people will use these phones all the time, so cost per minute if probably a factor in the rankings.

Tracfone offers only a small selection of phones (same as their higher rated Net10 service). Tracfone minutes are relatively expensive if you use a lot of minutes. On the other hand, being connected to the service is cheap. I keep a Tracfone active for emergency use, paying less than $7 a month, buying a $20 60 minute card every 90 days. I've accumulated about 2000 minutes. I'm buying service time, not minutes.

If you want to use a lot of minutes, you can get 10 cents a minute on Net10, approximately the same borrowed networks. StraightTalk works the same way, it is a Tracfone-type plan marketed through Walmart/Sams. These plans might give you more minutes for your money, but you will pay more per month to stay connected.

[rockhillmanor]

I'll just add that I bought a second phone for just in case when I hit the road full time also. It was there in case my other phone didn't work. Never had a problem so didn't use.

When I DID have to use it, hey only thing they didn't tell me is if you don't use it after so many days they disable the phone and you loose the minutes. They don't care how many minutes you have on it only the fact that you didn't use it within a certain time frame. :R

So check to see if the provider you choose has that same requirement.

[Gdetrailer]

Go with Tracfone, but don't "buy" the monthly "service" (looks and acts like Verizon out of contract service which you are billed monthly).

Instead you buy the phone you like (often for $10-$40 depending on the features) and get the 400 minute one year card for $99.

By the way, they have a nice larger size non smart phone called "The Big Easy" which has larger display and buttons..

BIG EASY TRAC

Non smart phones automatically include the Double minutes built in so your 400 minute card gets you 800 minutes for the year.

Now Trac also gives out promo codes which you add that code at the same time you add the 400 minutes card. Typically the promo adds 200 or 250 minutes for the 400 minute card.

This gives you at least 1000 minutes for the year.

Going this route costs you $8.25 per month and is equivalent to having 83 minutes per month to use.

Now for an piece of not talked about and not advertised info..

If you buy the minutes cards through the Trac website they will "offer" some additional add on bonus items.

Say for instance you do not use up all 1000 minutes for the year.. Instead of buying another 400 minute card you now have a way of extending the days with out having to spend $99 again..

Right now you can buy a 30 minute 90 day card for $9.99 and when you check out it will give you the chance to add 365 DAYS (one year) to your "purchase" for $49. So for about $59 you get 1 year and 3 month extension of days and 60 extra minutes.

That comes out to $3.93 per month for 15 months to extend your days and allow you to use up your minutes without losing them!

[Alfred622]

We use Tracphone. $100 for 1 yr service with lots of minutes (double and triple) works out to $8.33/mo. Good coverage and sound quality.

[hilldude]

AT&T Go phone $100.00 good for one year.Verizon has the same deal.