The missus and I are considering going to a simple cell phone plan where one buys a certain number of minutes, and then “refills” the minutes as needed.
I’m no longer on the road and we just don’t use the cell phones very much any more, so don’t see the need to keep paying a bunch of money for the typical cell phone plan.
My question, though, is are there any plans where we can buy minutes but keep our existing cell phones?
I’ve tried googling this, but most of what I get is links to unhelpful or downright questionable links. I’ve tried to wade through the major providers web sites, but haven’t seen a specific answer to my question.
FWIW, my phone is a Motorola Razr, on the Sprint network.
If your phone is GSM, you may be able to “unlock” it, and then insert a SIM card with account info such as minutes on it.
US carriers are very reluctant to to unlock their phones, though. This no-unlock policy originated when the carriers provided the phones at low cost to users, then required the phone to be used on, and locked to, their network for a certain time, to make up the rest of their cost via the monthly usage fees. Unfortunately, they do not usually unlock the phones afterwards, nor is there often a clear policy on when the subsidy is paid up. Many GSM phones can be unlocked by third parties.
Some US carriers use non-GSM networks. In this case there may be no SIM and the account info is programmed directly into the phone. Unfortunately, Sprint appears to be one of these. You will have to talk to them directly.
Sprint and Verizon are te only two in the US that still use CDMA. Those phones don’t use SIM cards that are easily swappable, and therefore even more likely to be locked…and even if they were unlocked, there is a whopping one other network you cold then use it on.
However, if Sprint offers a pay-as-you-go/pre-pay option (similar to GoPhone from AT&T) then it might be possible to use an existing phone.
But the phones for pre-pay plans are often fairly cheap, $20-$50. No fancy features, but then, if you have a Razr, it doesn’t have anything that those won’t. It’s not like you’re going from a smartphone/Blackberry/iPhone, where it would be a very noticeable difference.
In the UK, ‘Sim-only’ deals are widely available - and because there’s no phone worked into the cost, they often represent a good deal - I picked one up the other day that was free (as long as I bought a £5 initial top-up and will cost me 4p per text, 8p per minute, across the board.
Appreciate this might not be of much use to the OP - what I actually came in here for was to mention that even if your carrier refuses to unlock your handset, you can still probably use it on another network with a little sim unlock device - it’s like a shim that sits on top of the SIM card and forces the phone to accept it (and stops doing this when you take it out). Google ‘Sim Rebel’ for an example of such a device.
Why not contact Sprint customer service to see? They (and Verizon) both offer prepaid plans, presumably sans SIM card.
I will say, however, that unless Verizon has changed their plans drastically in the past 10ish months, they are not all that great price-wise and I wouldn’t recommend them for that (as Typo Knig and I both have Verizon service-plan phones, our initial hope was to keep the kids on the same provider but the economics just didn’t make sense e.g. minutes expiring far too soon).
We wound up T-Mobile doesn’t have any nifty phones; their prepaid phones are quite basic. Also quite cheap. When we got the kids’ phones, they were 30 dollars and came with 27.50 in prepaid minutes… so basically they were almost free.
And of course wherever you go, you should be able to port your number.
I couldn’t find much about Sprint prepaid - I wonder if they’re avoiding the marketplace to some extent?
I’m currently trying to do exactly this same thing.
Sprint has a prepaid service… it’s Boost Mobile. Technically speaking, it’s possible to use your current phone with the prepaid service. Practically speaking, it’s not. Sprint has decided that to use Boost Mobile, you need to use a Boost Mobile phone. Ostensibly, the reason is that the tech support for Boost is only available/knowledgeable about the phones that are sold for Boost. Cynically, this keeps people from getting a “good” phone with Sprint and jumping ship to Boost where the phones are of “lesser” quality. I use the quotation marks because I was unable to get the Sprint Store reps to quantify how the Boost phones were worse than the Sprint phones. One of Sprint’s concerns is cannibalization. They don’t want people leaving their $100 unlimited plans for Boost’s $50 unlimited plan.
When I poked around the phone hack forums, I found out how to get my Sprint phone on the Boost plan. It involved buying a Boost phone, activating it, and then calling into customer service and switching phones. Field reports suggest that it’s hit-or-miss… some customer service reps will switch it and warn you that the phone isn’t officially supported, some features may not work, etc.; other reps just flatly refuse to do it.
And all of that was pointless for me. I only wanted to avoid buying/wasting yet-another-phone. If I have to buy their cheap phone to get my current cheap phone on their system, I might as well just keep their cheap phone and not introduce any more headaches.
We hardly use our cell phones any more. Our bill is low, but we’re gimped on features. I’ve got texting blocked. My wife wants texting. It’s possible for us to switch to Boost Mobile and through some selective plan/prepaid choices, get our current usage covered and add unlimited texting for the same price we’re paying now.
The only thing holding us back is Sprint’s inability / unwillingness to ease the transition (and a pesky contract that is over on one line, but in effect through January on the other line)
OK, thanks all for the good info. Looks like it will be easier to just say goodbye to the old phones and just shop around for the best plan that fits us.