I’m dealing with someone who claims to be poor and cannot afford much. Latest deal is that they can’t afford their cell phone, but can still get texts.
Is this anyway possible? Can someone have a plan that only allows texts but not voice and phone calls?
I call b.s. but want to make sure before I press the issue.
I can’t say for sure but it might be possible to get a plan with a low number of minutes for talk time but an unlimited, or at least large, allowance for texting.
What about prepaid phones? I don’t know how their plans work but maybe it’s possible to prepay and then spend it all on texting.
Yes, this is very possible. Not from the main carriers, but from many of the MVNO companies. The MNVO companies buy extra bandwidth from the main carriers and offer all types of creative plans. For example, a company like byowireless runs on Verizon (I think) and has a plan for 100min/100text/20Meg for $5/mo.
Several years ago, my daughter had an unlimited texting plan from TMobile for $15 month. I’m not sure if they still offer that.
Nationwide Messaging Plan with No Voice Minutes
There are lots of others. On Ting they charge for voice, text, and data separately – don’t use voice, don’t pay for it, etc.
Consumer Cellular has separate talk and text plans. I know it’s possible to get talk plans with no texting; I suppose it might be possible to get a text only plan with no voice.
I have a $20 year plan. Calls and sending texts are relatively expensive, but it’s primary task is to receive texts, so it doesn’t matter. Phone only cost $29 too.
This is Vodafone Australia, can hardly be unique though.
There’s messaging apps that you can use to send and receive texts as long as your phone is connected to wifi. So you can have a prepaid plan and be out of credit but still text.
And with Google Voice, you can get free unlimited WiFi texting.
IIRC, Tracfone is something like .30c per minute of talk time, but texts (incoming or outgoing) cost 1/3 of a minute. So you can send/recieve 3 texts for what it would cost to talk for one minutes. This is all prepaid, of course.
Didn’t they used to call these “pagers”?
The character type and limit had grown since the three digit days.
And, yes, there are plans with few to no minutes but free texts. And the Obamaphones sometimes have free texts.
People who receive gov’t assistance (like food stamps/SNAP) or are very low income qualify for a free very basic phone. See the website safelink dot com to confirm, if need be.
The phone is NOT a smart phone, it is a very stripped down phone. They get 500 voice minutes the first month and 250 voice minutes per month thereafter, with unlimited text.
If they have such a phone (which is sometimes derisively called an “Obama phone” FWIW) it could be that the person you know uses up all the talk minutes before the end of the month and is only able to send/receive texts until the next 250 minutes re-ups.
In the US, you typically pay as much to receive texts as you do to send them. Ridiculous, but that’s the way it is. Fortunately, unlimited texting plans are usually fairly cheap.
I have a prepaid phone from Virgin Mobile. I am on a plan that give me 300 texts per month for $3 per month, but calls are 15 cents a minute. So I can text A LOT, but talking on the phone will use up my balance really fast.
Not 100% what OP described, but close enough.