Pre-paid cellular data with longest shelf life?

Take a look at Tracfone. I've used their voice plans for years. They have smart phones now, or bring you own, and data plans. See if they can meet your needs.
http://www.tracfone.com/

Most cell phone providers have prepaid phone plans, shop around.

Not sure what they offer for Data but I use a Cellular signal for my "Temp Alarm" from Page Plus Cellular. I pay 10 bucks for a 100 minute plan that is good for 4 months. Since the only time it dials is when there is an alarm condition..it works well for me. Might be worth a look if they offer a Data Plan.

Tiger4x4RV wrote:
Take a look at Tracfone. I've used their voice plans for years. They have smart phones now, or bring you own, and data plans. See if they can meet your needs.
http://www.tracfone.com/

yep, I've had a tracfone for years. got the annual service for under $100 at sam's club that came with lots of minutes doubled or tripled depending on phone. since I did not use it all that much my minutes ended up being quite a stash so I switched to a service retaining plan at $6 a month IIRC. thought of switching back to the annual plan for $100 instead of $72 and getting more minutes? but then just got a new galaxy S7.
bumpy

Re tracphone, the minutes seem to not expire, as long as you pay at least something regularly. The data appears to expire after 30 days, lowest cost option I could find is $16/monthly for 500mb?. Under Tracphone's other brand, SmartTalk, I can get 5gb LTE on Verizon for 3 mo at $16.67 monthly.

TING wireless is also $16/monthly, for 1gb... not sure if Ting is another Tracphone brand, or if the pricing is coincidental. $6 "access fee" and $10 for data, no talk or txt included.

I'd like to find something under $50 per year or about $4 a month. Looks like that's not possible right now.

GordonThree wrote:
Re tracphone, the minutes seem to not expire, as long as you pay at least something regularly. .

when I last bought time and I think currently you buy time/minutes on cards, 30 days with 300 minutes, etc. and most phones will double/triple minutes.but you must get/activate another card before that time is up or you will lose your minutes. that is why I think the year card for $99 or so with ???? minutes tripled is the way to go. once you build up minutes you can retain them with the service continuation plans I think it is called for about $6 a month.
bumpy

Bumpyroad wrote:

GordonThree wrote:
Re tracphone, the minutes seem to not expire, as long as you pay at least something regularly. .

when I last bought time and I think currently you buy time/minutes on cards, 30 days with 300 minutes, etc. and most phones will double/triple minutes.but you must get/activate another card before that time is up or you will lose your minutes. that is why I think the year card for $99 or so with ???? minutes tripled is the way to go. once you build up minutes you can retain them with the service continuation plans I think it is called for about $6 a month.
bumpy

With Tracfone you do not "have" to buy a "card".

You can setup a online account with Trac, go to their website and buy service days/minutes/data directly from their website.

If you are a light user like myself I can easily get away with buying any of their one year of service deals. which typically will cost about $100.

On smart phones however there are a few "catches" that you do need to be watchful.. Smart phones do not qualify for any "promo codes" but they do triple the minutes/data. Smart phones if you buy say 400 minutes of talk you get 1200 minutes of talk, 1200 texts, 1200 minutes of data.

With smart phones there is also some flexibility in the fact if you are a heavy data user or text user you can simply buy TEXT OR DATA minutes (last time I looked, it was $10 for 1 gig and $5 for 1000 texts).

You really NEED to go through the Trac website and compare, do not just buy cards at your local retail store! The website also offers MORE variety of plans that retail outlets, for instance you can only buy a 1 yr 400 minute card in retail, but the website offers up to 1,500 minutes plans.

They do have two separate "plans" to buy from, one is for NON SMART PHONES and one IS FOR SMART PHONES.. Make the choice that will work the best for you.

with the trac fone service can you get wifi calling?
bumpy

I'm looking for prepay data that doesn't expire after 30 days

GordonThree wrote:
I'm looking for prepay data that doesn't expire after 30 days

Tracfones data does not "expire" after 30 days, it will rollover provided you have SERVICE DAYS..

I HAVE a Tracfone "smart phone" and have had it for nearly a year now and STILL have my data.. The only data I have lost is what I myself have used.

You can keep your data as long as you have service days.

Not sure where you got the idea that you loose data after 30 days?

You simply choose a plan with one year of service days to get started.. When you run out of data, you can simply buy data..

when you get close to the END of SERVICE DAYS you can simply buy another one year of SERVICE days (it will add voice, data, text along with service days..

The key here is you MUST maintain SERVICE DAYS if you do not wish to lose voice/data/text minutes.

With Trac and smart phones I have discovered an ugly secret though, EVERYTHING preloaded on these phones insist on using DATA to continually update (IE EVERY DAY).. You MUST either disable all the updates or check to see if you can set to update only on WiFi.. Or turn off the data and force the updates to use WiFi.. otherwise the updates will use up all your data.