I’d like to ditch my land line entirely and switch to a mobile phone. I’ve been using a prepaid mobile phone when I’m out and about and realized that I’d probably save a significant amount of money to just ditch the landline entirely and use the cel phone exclusively.
Now, my credit rating is not exactly stellar. In fact, it’s kind of borderline, in a “you may be able to get credit cards and car loans, but you’re gonna get a pretty high interest rate when you do” sort of way. I haven’t tried to get a wireless provider contract and I’m not even sure if I’d want to, but the credit check part of the process kind of worries me. It would be much simpler (and probably cheaper in the long run) if I could just use my prepaid phone exclusively.
So I’m wondering if anyone else has done this, and if so, are there any special considerations or ramifications of doing it?
It depends on how much you talk on the phone, of course. It wouldn’t hurt to try it for a few months and see how it works out, though. But I know someone who got a contract with Verizon with no problem with poor credit- all that was required was a deposit up front and everything else was just like a regular person- no extra charges or anything.
So don’t let bad credit scare you off- the most you’ll likely have to do if you decide on a regular cell service is provide a deposit prior to your contract starting.
Interesting. I figured out that I use long distance around 20 minutes or less per month, on average, and maybe a half hour of local calls at the most per month. I guess the next step is going to be making a comparison of cost per year for prepaid versus contract versus land line. Thanks.
I have lived without a landline for 3 years now. It has worked fine. I don’t think I would go the prepaid route, however. The advantage of a regular contract is you will probably get free nights and weekends. This will give you an opportunity to talk for longer periods of time should you ever need to. I’ll use this time for calls to 800 numbers which will probably take 10-15 minutes of waiting on hold or to call friends and family who love to chat…and chat…and chat…
Prepaid works out to be much more expensive by the minute. The only advantages to prepaid might be for a phone which is kept for emergencies only and very quick…“I’m stuck in traffic…be there in 15 minutes…bye…” calls.
I’d think twice about using prepaid, too. Prepaid cell phone users are the second-class citizens of the telecommunications world.
For example, I use Verizon Free-Up. The Free-Up phone is a lame-o near-obsolecent model, which seemed okay to me when I first enrolled—I don’t need all those fancy features, do I? But then after a couple of years the battery on my phone stopped taking a charge and I discovered that because it was so old, I couldn’t get a new battery. Verizon couldn’t find me one, and I scoured the internet myself to no avail.
So I had to shell out for a new phone (which is new to me, but, of course, an older model.) No upgrade plan with prepaid! Then they told me that I couldn’t keep my number. The way Free-Up works, I basically became a new customer. New phone, new phone number, new vtext nickname, etc.
I guess if you used a prepaid phone for your primary phone and ended up having to get a new number, it wouldn’t be any worse than if you moved and had to notify everyone of that new number, but it’d still be kind of a pain.
(I should say, I am not dissing Free-Up. The getting-a-new-phone thing was annoying, but otherwise, it works out to $15 a month for cell phone service that is completely adequate to my needs. And my hubby got his first phone the very same day that I did, and his battery is still fine.)