I have never owned a cell phone.
Now, with Dad’s health an issue, I may need one.
It must be cheap.
The per-month must be cheap.
I care nothing for bells & whistles.
Advice?
Is it for regular use or emergencies? If the latter just get the cheapest Pay As you Go from amazon or whatever. Assuming no signal problems where you or your father may be using it.
Bosda, just get the cheapest pay as you go phone you can find. Over here, you can pick one up in any supermarket for about ten or fifteen pounds - I assume it’s similar in the US.
You might want to check the coverage for the various networks in the areas you are likely to be using it. There are websites that attempt to help with this, but it’s probably best if you just ask people in those locations what network they use.
Tracfone sounds right up your alley.
I had good experiences with AT&T’s GoPhone a while back while between contract phones. You get a choice of straight-up $0.25/min or $0.10/min with a $1.00/day charge, but only on the days you actually use it. Good coverage AND you can call anyone who’s with AT&T for free.
Also check out consumercellular.com. You buy the phone for $20 + $35 activation fee, then $10 a month, $0.25 a minute, no daily fees, no expiring minutes like the prepaid plans. They use the ATT network.
Can’t you get a “no daily fee” payg phone? Just pay for what you use ? If not, sorry Bosda, poor advice on my part.
T-mobile has 10 cents per minute, no daily fee. You can buy slightly cheaper minutes for them from the website callingmart dot com. Net10 is also 10 cents per minute, no daily fee. Several others have the same rates, too. Virgin Mobile is even cheaper, if you can follow their plan.
A January thread on the same subject.
With AT&T you can get the charge per day used plan that DCnDC mentioned or 25 every 90 days and .25/minute out of that.
OK, who is & is not talking about US plans?
http://www.cellguru.net/ has comparative info on the different prepaid providers.
Also try: http://www.letstalk.com/. They have some very good deals. I have used them and you can get some very good deals on phones with rebates, although maybe not with prepaid plans.
I have been very happy with my Tracfone. I bought the phone for $20 - no bells and whistles. It is a great phone if you don’t use very many minutes. My husband and I get 50 minutes/month total (split between our two phones) and it costs us a total of $18/month. You can also buy minutes and airtime as you go. You just have to make sure your airtime doesn’t expire or you will lose your phone number. My minutes don’t expire, either. I currently have about 300 minutes on my phone because I don’t use it very much.
How many minutes per month would you use?
Less than 30 minutes.
Possibly less than 15.
Do you buy a phone, or does one come with the deal?
I’ve never own one, & rarely used one.
In the U.S.A., some cheap prepaid plans and phone prices:
-Net10 (10 cents per minute, no other fees) often has phones that are $30 but come loaded with 300 minutes, so they’re essentially free. Looks like the website is being updated right now.
-Virgin Mobile prepaid has a $10 phone.
-T-Mobile (10 cents per minute if you buy 1000 minutes that last a year, cheaper if you go through callingmart.com) has a $20 phone.
You will probably end up using more minutes than you think, since once you have a cell phone you will use it. Prepaid is the cheaper plan until you get over $40 per month or so.
I used to use Virgin Mobile, and it was great. We bought a phone at about $50ish, but they have various models for various prices, ranging from basic but functional and cheap to bells and whistles and more expensive. The phone purchase includes a small number of minutes to get you started.
After that, we were required to buy $20 worth of minutes every 90 days to keep the phone activated, so it cost us about $7 a month. As long as you “top up” with minutes every 90 days, the minutes never expire. That said, we didn’t use it much, and so had a bank that would keep building up. We figured it was worth it just to have the coverage.
This was all a few years ago; it’s possible that their plans have changed. I recall that they added one which was much more like a traditional cell phone plan - they took your details and then automatically charged you or withdrew money for the next month, for slightly cheaper rates. I was violently against this as a) I didn’t want a traditional plan and b) I wanted to be in control of when I got more minutes. It seems that they still offer both sorts of plans, the monthly and the pay-as-you-go. The pas-as-you-go was what I used, and I was really satisfied with it.
Coverage was good; we never had any issues. (I believe they piggy-back on some other provider’s network. Maybe Verizon’s?)
We bought our phone at Target. Definitely recommended. I’ve written about it here on the SDMB before - a search will probably print those details up.
Confusing thing about prepaid is when you buy a card, you’re buying 2 things: minutes of talk time a days of service in which you can use those minutes. Watch the details on any plan you look at for expiration dates/service days, etc.
I’m a dealer for a number of prepaid carriers. What I invariably recommend for people in situations similar to yours, so long as this will not be a short-term thing:
Tracfone W376 $19.99 - simple flip phone, has their “double minute feature”, comes with 20 minutes talk time and 2 months service length.
One year card - $99.99 - comes with 400 minutes, doubles to 800 with the double minute feature on your phone.
If you activate it yourself, look at tracfone.com for a promotional code. If the store activates it for you, make them look. The code changes, but its always there. Gives you an extra 200 minutes or so with your one year card for $99.99
End result is you have around 1020 minutes and 14 months to use them in. This gives you 72 minutes per month at a cost of $7.14 per month (not including cost of phone) and a little better than 10 cents a minute. Tracfone owns net10, and net10 is simpler mathwise, but you get a better deal in cost per month with Tracfone.
T-mobile is still cheaper if you buy minutes through callingmart. Normally it’s 1000 minutes for $100, good for a year, but callingmart sells it for $96. Every month they have a promotion where it costs $90. Good for a year, no math or double minutes or anything to worry about. Now that I look at their website, they also sell discounted Tracfone minutes, and many other company’s minutes. Go though to those websites and check out rates. I think there might be other plans this cheap or cheaper, too, with other companies. You’ll have to look it up.
I’ve seen ads for Jitterbug, which is supposed to be very low on the frills and bells’n’whistles. I don’t know anyone with one though, sorry.