I’m considering getting a cell phone for my wife and myself and possibly even dumping the landline. I’m looking to know if anyone has any advice on what I should be looking for in a cell phone and plan.
Right now we have 1 cell phone that is on a pay as you go plan. We use it less than 30 minutes a month I think (my wife carries it with her… I rarely use it). In other words, I don’t need a plan with tons of minutes because we just don’t use the cell phone all that much. Perhaps if we both had one it would get used more, but we just aren’t the type to be on the phone all the time.
I don’t really need many features on the phone. I’m not looking to take pictures with it and I don’t do any texting. As before, I might make use of this if it was more available, though. I don’t think I need web browsing but I can see where that might be handy if you are out somewhere new and would like to find the nearest Costco or restaurant. But here again, I don’t even remember the last time I was in a situation like that.
One cell phone plan I’m considering is consumer cellular. They have a $20/month plan that gets me 250 minutes and texting is only $0.10/text. I can add a second line for only $10/month, so it seems reasonable. Also, there is no contract so I could cancel at any time.
Cell phones are pretty much commodities these days and you can get a basic phone for free from most carriers or even get paid if you get a phone from Amazon.com or Buy.com (who provide their own amazing rebates). In other words, for your purposes, I’d consider the carrier and plan more important than the device – but definitely buy online from one of the two if you end up going with a major carrier.
As for plans, what was wrong with the prepaid plan? Do you and your wife plan on talking to each other a lot? If so, there are often Family Plans or “My favorite X amount of phone numbers” plans that let you speak to a few specific people as much as you want without using up your minutes.
Otherwise, since you’re only seeking basic phone functionality, you could just compare coverage versus price since none of the other features matter. Definitely look up cellular coverage maps before you consider a carrier, and then see if they offer an actual take-home trial; most carriers give you 15-30 days to test out a new phone/plan to see if it works where you live/work/travel. The lesser-known carriers often have cheapeer plans because their coverage isn’t as good, but this isn’t always the case as they sometimes piggyback off the major carriers’ networks. Investigate each potential carrier for yourself.
I’m not familiar with Consumer Cellular myself, but my experience has been that it’s DEFINITELY worth it to spend more money on good coverage – not being able to place or receive a call when you need to makes your $20 plan worth $0. I’ve had good luck with Verizon in this regard and found unacceptable performance with T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T… but of course YMMV depending on your area.
Another thing to consider…if you’re seriously thinking of ditching the landline, you need to take into consideration how many minutes a month you spend using it when determining the minutes you’ll need for the cells.
Going over your minutes can be an expensive proposition, so better to be covered for what you use than paying a premium for being over.
As I understand it, they don’t own any towers…they just rent time from other carriers.
As far as cost goes, I pay about 9 cents a minute and texts cost 1/3 minute, so 3 cents I guess. You need to get the “Double Minutes for Life” and buy the 450 minute cards to achieve that. But it isn’t “per month” because you buy time as you need it. Note, however, that I pay whether I’m calling or receiving the call.
Like you I don’t use it much, so I don’t have anything dramatic. Still, my $35 phone does have some web browsing, a camera, and texting ability. I almost never use any of them.
One issue I did have: I was unable to set up voice mail. Actually, I realized that I don’t want voice mail. Someone might call, the phone would be in the car, and they’d leave me a message. I’d forget to check it and they’d be waiting for my call back. So maybe I could have pursued it but I think other carriers handle the voice mail for Tracfone and there might have been some bureaucracy to cut through there. But there’s another issue—how much would you pay to retrieve those?