NickBockwinkelFan
Frankfurter
   
   
    
   
 
Since: 10.4.02
From: New York City, NY
Since last post: 400 days
Last activity: 163 days
|  #1 Posted on 29.9.10 1132.28 | Instant Rating: 3.44 | My mother recently retired and she doesn't use her cell phone much, but wants to maintain service. She lives in Florida, so with the storms, she still wants a landline. During the hurricanes of 2004-2005-2006 she was the only person with phone service (hardwired old-school AT&T princess phone). She has had AT&T wireless for over 10 years and asked about switching to TracPhone or some other pre-paid type. She just wants phone service and to keep her number. No text, photos, internet, etc.
Any thoughts or experience with these?
"Well, you can't involve friendship with business. It has to be one or the other. It's either business or friendship, or hit the bricks!"
--Life Lessons from Bobby the Brain Heenan WCW Uncensored 2000 preview
| Promote this thread! |           | samoflange
Lap cheong
Since: 22.2.04
From: Cambridge, MA
Since last post: 2 days
Last activity: 10 hours
| #2 Posted on 29.9.10 1257.23 | Instant Rating: 5.33 | I use T-Mobile's prepaid service. I did a lot of research before starting with them and they had by far the best deal. I pay $100 for 1000 minutes which are good for a year. You can buy less minutes, but then they are only good for a certain number of months (look up the details on their site). Basic phones can be bought at a T-mobile store or Radioshack for $20.
Lloyd: When I met Mary, I got that old fashioned romantic feeling, where I'd do anything to bone her.
Harry: That's a special feeling. | Peter The Hegemon
Lap cheong
Since: 11.2.03
From: Hackettstown, NJ
Since last post: 17 hours
Last activity: 45 min.
| #3 Posted on 29.9.10 1341.06 | Instant Rating: 6.98 | I have the same T-Mobile deal as well. It's worked well for me. Coverage is good unless I'm really in the middle of nowhere.
Note that once you buy that first package of 1000 minutes, you can refill for less and still have them last for a year, IIRC. | StaggerLee
Scrapple
Since: 3.10.02
From: ST Louis
Since last post: 1 day
Last activity: 1 day
| AIM: |  |
| | | Y!: |  |
|
| #4 Posted on 29.9.10 1828.56 | Instant Rating: 3.27 | At&t also has prepaid phones.
What's her estimated budget?
Tracfone are great, I had one, and ended up giving it to my son when I got a "big boy" phone and no longer needed it. You can buy minutes for $30 and they last until you're out of minutes.
| AWArulz
Knackwurst
Since: 28.1.02
From: Louisville, KY
Since last post: 2 days
Last activity: 32 min.
| AIM: |  |
| | | Y!: |  |
|
| #5 Posted on 29.9.10 2231.39 | Instant Rating: 5.67 | Well, out of minutes or time - your cards for either 1 year (it's about 100 bucks) or 60 days (as cheap as 20 bucks, I think).
They use either AT&T or Tmobile Towers. Our Tracfones were great until we decided to go contract.
and the Go-Phones by AT&T seem good too - I have one that I used briefly and now just use it to drop in a prepaid SIM when I go to Mexico or Canada.
 We'll be back right after order has been restored here in the Omni Center. That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy - Swift | rinberg
Boudin rouge
Since: 30.1.02
From: South Georgia
Since last post: 496 days
Last activity: 6 days
| #6 Posted on 29.9.10 2300.17 | Instant Rating: 8.42 | I'll second the love for Tracfones. I used them for several years and was very satisfied with the service, but the minutes do expire. For $30, you get something like 90 minutes that are good for 60 days.
The best thing about Tracfone is how the minutes and the days roll over, which I don't think the other services match, but I could be wrong. For example, if I activate a new card on day 37, then I will have 83 days to use my minutes and if I have 43 minutes left when I activate a new card, then I will have 133 minutes to use.
It's not a good deal if you use more minutes per couple of months than you get in a single purchase, however, if you just need a phone for emergencies, then Tracfone is pretty good at the minimum $15/month average, compared to the cheapest contracts which are $30/month but with several hundred minutes. You can buy a card that doubles the value that you get per time purchase for the life of the phone, but you may want to consider whether that's even necessary for a "just in case" phone.
Also, because they don't own any towers, they lease service from whichever provider happens to have some towers in a given area, implying that they should have service in more places than any single "tower-owning" carrier. I've traveled in some pretty rural areas and maintained service longer with my Tracfone than some of my friends did with their contract phones, but YMMV.
FYI, Net10 is owned by the same company, but I never used those phones so I can't speak to their value.
One of the Thirty-two (or maybe Thirty-four....)!
 | Kevintripod
Andouille
Since: 11.5.03
From: Mount Pleasant, Pa.
Since last post: 11 days
Last activity: 17 hours
| AIM: |  |
| | |
| #7 Posted on 30.9.10 0936.11 | Instant Rating: 4.72 | I've been using the Virgin Mobile prepaid for the last few years with no complaints at all.
It's just $20 every 90 days (as long as you don't use up all of your minutes) and your minutes roll over if you don't use them.
It's the best deal for a person like me that doesn't use his cellphone much.
http://www.virginmobileusa.com/
"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill |
| | | | | | | |
