Comments on: Prepaid plunge: Part II

By: Laree Flennoy

Laree Flennoy — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 06:14:44 +0000

I’m having a slight problem right here. I would like to buy myself a good unlocked phone and can’t decide on which phone to pick. To begin with, i thought of the Nokia N97, which my friend has. It appears quite tough, and everything seemed good, but then i started researching others. Now my biggest dilemma is to decide between the Nokia 5610Nokia 6500 and the Samsung B3310. Any advice?

By: Juan C. Bresnahan

Juan C. Bresnahan — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:32:48 +0000

Good post… hope u will keep on posting like that

By: Carter Levielle

Carter Levielle — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 20:08:57 +0000

hi, I apologize for my awful language. Relating to your article, make sure you check my personal site for courses and ideas.

By: A. Brant

A. Brant — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:44:19 +0000

Wow, this marks twice now I’ve landed on this same blog this week, searching for totally unrelated info. Is that spooky or what?

By: Jim R

Jim R — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 21:18:14 +0000

All Pre-Paid (GO-Phone) providers, other than ATT, TMobile, Verizon, and Sprint, use these 4 Primary carriers to provide you service. They by cell time in very large blocks from Primary Carriers because they do not have Cell Towers of their own.

So, the coverage you get will depend on the carrier your Pre-Paid provider is using. Verizon is the best in the North East where it is mountainous requiring many towers, and Verizon has been there the longest. ATT and T-Mobile provides very good service and is closing in the difference in the North East.
In the West, where it is mostly wide open, ATT and Tmobile are as good if not better.

If you want to check-out a non-primary carrier; Tracfone, Virgin, NET10, etc, then just google them and you can find whose primary tower they are using. Of course, with GO Phones selling at WalMart etc for $10 to $20, sometimes with enough minutes to pay for the phone, you want lose much by buying and trying.

The big advantage to an ATT or Tmobile carrier, is they use GSM international type modulation towers, so your phone will be useable in other countries worldwide by just changing a little SIM (Subscriber Information Module) card in your phone. This SIM also allow you to use it in any other GSM phone that is either unlocked or of the same service provider. In other words, you have much more freedom to switch phones keeping your carrier and phone number(your number and carrier is on your SIM card, not your PHONE), for example buying a used phone that is of the same carrier, or that is unlock from the original carrier.

In addition, a GSM phone(ATT,Tmobile, or a Pre-Paid that uses these carriers towers) is more valuable if sold used, say on ebay, because others can use it by simply plugging their SIM into it. Also, once you are out of your contract, the carrier will usually provide you the unlock code to unlock your phone from their carrier, because you have fully paid for it over the contract period so it is fully YOURS. Once unlock, it can be used on ANY GSM carrier, making your phone even more valuable used.

This brings up another advantage to GSM, you can keep your SIM card and upgrade to a better phone periodically by buying a someone elses used or new phone, that is unlocked or once sold by your carrier, at very good prices. This solves the problem of staying in contract just to have a more modern phone. Remember, if you are in a 2 year contract and got a very expensive phone free or next to free, 2 years is along time and you will be responsible for the FULL NEW PRICE of this phone if you need to bail out due to unknown circumstances.

By: Megan

Megan — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:58:50 +0000

I actually bought a Tracfone for my 10 year old nephew as a birthday present. It’s very affordable plus a good way to teach him to keep tracks of his minutes so he doesn’t go over.

By: Hillary

Hillary — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:11:50 +0000

I am a happy Tracfone customer, since I changed to Tracfone I discovered that I can make long distance and international calls to about 60 country’s for the same price as a local call. I don’t have to pay for roaming and there are no extra state taxes or daily fees which, altogether, makes Tracfone the cheapest prepaid provider on the market.

By: Chris Williams

Chris Williams — Wed, 06 May 2009 19:43:56 +0000

Thanks for the article. I know that I have avoided cell phones all together because of the high cost of plans that I would never use. So this is something that may open the door to cell phones for me at a level of convenience more reasonable with the price to be paid for it.

Thanks,

Chris

By: Stuart Carter

Stuart Carter — Tue, 05 May 2009 13:43:28 +0000

The biggest con the US cell providers pull is not using SIM cards - with SIM cards you can change providers whenever you like, you just copy your contacts from SIM card to phone, insert new SIM, and switch contacts back to new SIM. Instead you have phones which do not give you that option unless you pay someone to swap the contacts over, which leads to a lot of passive resistance to switching networks.

By: Jim262

Jim262 — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:39:18 +0000

I have had my Motorola Tracfone 376g for about a month now. I had to wait for a new SIM card to use my old number and had to spend some time on the phone with customer service when my phone did not dial my Voice mail phone number automatically. Customer service had the answers and was there fairly promptly. Now the savings begin.

Depending on how you buy minutes and what kind of bonuses you get, minutes cost between 8¢ and 13¢. Keep in mind that if you load your phone with cheap minutes and lose the phone, the minutes are gone so it may be in your interest to keep less minutes on the phone and pay a little more. Even at higher minute rates and figuring that you will replace your fone every year at a cost of about $4 per month, you can use Tracfone service for $17/mo if you use 100 minutes per month; $29\mo if you use 200 minutes. No additional taxes or fees!!

Since I can now text for practically nothing [.3 minutes per message], I was disappointed to find how expensive texting is at Verizon. My wife remains a Verizon customer and has to pay 20¢ for each text message sent or received compared to less than 4¢ for me.

Since Tracfone piggy backs on the networks of bloated contract companies to give me reasonably priced service, I urge those of who are supporting those networks by signing up for two year contracts at outrageous prices to continue to do so. As long as Verizon and AT&T are fat, happy, and arrogant they won’t even notice us Tracfone customers using their networks for a whole lot less money.