I’ve been with Virgin Mobile pretty much since they started up and never had a problem with reception or customer service.
I was on a plan that was $15 every 90 days (I don’t know if they offer it anymore), but then they started offering a Blackberry plan for $35 a month, which was about what my landline bill was - a landline that I maybe made calls out on 3 or 4 times a month. So I shelled out the money for the phone (which is one downside of going pre-paid - you have to buy the phone) and got rid of my landline.
I don’t use a lot of talk minutes (I hate talking in the phone!), but I love being able to text (so I don’t have to talk to people!) and it’s nice being able to get and send e-mail and have games and internet access.
Does anyone have personal experience with Jitterbug or know someone who has one? From their print ads, it looks like they gear their service specifically towards people of retirement age. (Large buttons, etc.)
There are some prepaid plans that are “pay only on the days you use it” where it is less $ per minute + $1 per day you use it, for example - so for those someone making infrequent, longer calls would pay less than lots of short calls.
I wanted to pop in here to mention that if you decide on a smart phone with data you can get unlimited texting for free. Not having the cost of the texting plan can help mitigate the cost of a data plan.
Android and Iphone smart phones get the Google Voice App which can be used to send and receive unlimited texts for free. People just text your google voice number. (so long as you have a data connection, the caveat here is that there are places where you will have voice connection but no data connection. These places are pretty rare). On Android phones I believe this is totally seamless, works just like if you were messaging natively on your phone. On the iphone it is slightly less seamless as you have to activate the Google voice app to respond. However, there is a Jailbreak extension called GV send which makes it 100% seamless as well.
I’m doing this personally. The 10-15 dollars I save on unlimited texting goes to mitigate the cost of the 30$ unlimited data plan I have.
w
Oh, and smart phones are totally worth it. I get far more then 30$ out of utility out of my data plan every single month I pay for it.
I apologize if anything I wrote was repeated by someone else, I didn’t read the whole thread.
I just want to jump in to say that AT&T no longer offers unlimited data for the iPhone. They have two basic plans, 200 MB per month for $15 and 2 GB for $25. People who originally had a $30 unlimited plan get to keep those, but lose it if they downgrade.
Verizon also plans to drop their unlimited iPhone data plan this summer.
Their prices are insanely cheap! Question - do you have to buy your phone through them to get access to the $25/month price, or can you buy one on ebay/craigslist and go from there?
Buy it from anywhere. I got two from Best Buy and one off eBay. Amazon often has the best price. If you buy it used, you may have to confirm the serial number with VM to make sure it’s not stolen or anything first.
I also want to chime in about getting an Android. I don’t spend much time of the phone, and my former cellphones were used primarily to tell the time. Now, I find myself fiddling with this gadget all the time. It’s an MP3 player, a decent point-and-shoot camera, GPS, and has access to all sorts of games and other kinds of entertainment. All that, and it still tells the time.
Any phone with a signal and battery life will call 911. You don’t need a plan, or minutes or anything. It’s an emergency service. Any phone you buy from craigslist or a flea market or something will call 911. You don’t even need to activate it.
Also, you can make calls to family members with any phone during an emergency, but it will cost you. Keep any unactivated cell phone in your glove box. In an emergency, (after calling 911 for free), you can then choose to make paid calls. When you dial from an unactivated phone, it should ring to a recording that will let you enter a credit card number.
Try it first to be sure. But this is how I remember it.
Wow. That’s awesome. For now I’m skating free ‘n easy on my parents’ family plan but I was already dreading the SO and I combining plans in 3 years. $25 apiece is definitely cheaper than the cheapest family plan.
I could be wrong (check it out) but I have the impression thata pre-pay cell phone with no minutes on it will still connect to 911.
I have a jitterbug that I got three years ago. At first, I bought minutes at $25 for 100 that expired after a year. The phone was fairly expensive, they charged I think $100 to register it and charged something like $100/ year maintenance fee. About a year ago, I switched to paying $15/month for 50 minutes. They expired after 2 months, but recently that seems to have been changed to 3 months. But—and for me this was the most important point—there was no roaming fee for use in Canada, where I live, but it is used mainly while I am visiting children in the US. I only once got close to using the 50 minutes during a visit to my daughter in NY. But $15/month (plus close to $5 in taxes and fees) is worth it to be able to call my wife on the nearest whim. Sample “Would you bring grocery bags when you come to the car.”
They do offer texting now, but I don’t have nimble thumbs and they charge extra so I have not got it.
Actually, people discard cell phones all the time. You could probably get one free if you asked around. If you wanted it only for 911.
The only reason I bought one was because my living arrangements were never solid, so the land line number kept changing. Then you gotta call everyone to tell them your new number.
Well that was 15 years ago and now I still have the same number, upgraded phones every 2 years…although no one ever really calls anymore.
It’s got a cool camera…I used it once the day I got the phone.
edit: I went with Verizon, because it was nation-wide and had the best clarity…although 'spensive service…I had no idea where I was gonna move at anytime.
On the other hand, with PAYG you usually get dinged every time you make or receive a call, or each day you use it–like a dollar or two. I’d rather be resigned to a fixed monthly amount but then be able to use it as much as I like.
Smart phones with their data plans are more expensive to carry, but the ability to connect to the internet helps you recoup some of the extra cost. For instance, you can easily find out the numbers of businesses without having to go through directory assistance. On mine, I can use Google Maps to find what I need, and automatically add the name, number, and address of the place to my contacts list. I also enjoy the ability to access a good deal of free streamed content–e.g. foreign radio stations and other audio content I find on websites maintained by enthusiasts in this or that obscure little area of interest. I have 3.5G worth of music that I uploaded from CDs and other media that I already owned, but I find I listen to streamed content a lot more than my own stuff.
A couple of words of caution:
A lot of phone OSs will not run Adobe Flash, which means that most streamed content off the Internet isn’t available. On the other hand, some providers offer alternative formats, such as Windows Media Player, and then there are also some third-party apps you can download for free, that will allow you to play other formats.
And most important of all: When shopping brands, make sure you sign up with one whose signal is sufficiently strong where you’ll be using the phone–your home and your workplace, obviously, but also anywhere else you tend to spend a lot of time. The official coverage maps from the companies are useless in this regard, because signal strength can vary from block to block, with numerous dead spots. Ask your neighbors what they have and if it works for them.
