Prepaid Cell Phones with No Contract ???

D

Dana B

New member
Hi Guys,

I'm looking to pick up a phone for my parents who enjoy traveling but still haven't gotten this the times and picked up a cell phone.

I'd like to get them a phone that they could use as they travel to make things easier on all of us.

Is that a company out there that has Prepaid Cell Phones with great coverage/reception, without signing up for a long term contract???

Any ideas or info would be greatly appreciated ...

-TIM
 
Hey,
Although I'm a noob I did a heck of a lot of research on this subject recently. My wife and I are low volume cell users and couldn't justify signing yet another two year contract for minutes we would never use. For us the T Mobile to go prepaid worked out best. Some companies will charge you $1 a day to use their phones + the cost of the call(s), some charge a $.25 connection fee + the cost of a call. TMO doesn't, you can get rates as low as $.10 a minute if you're smart about it. What I like about TMO is that:

1. Phone packages are cheap, the two simple to use Nokia phones were less than $75 for both after rebates. (we bought them on line, dealers charge almost criminal rates for them so be aware.)
2. If you activate the phones with $100 cards the minutes are good for a year, and if you refill before the year is up, remaining minutes roll over
3. The reception and customer service is excellent.
4. No daily fee's no connection fee's, no hassles with monthly bills.

That said there are a lot of options out there for prepaid so do your homework carefully and find out what's best for their needs and most importantly a cell phone with no reception is a doorstop so coverage in their area is the most important thing.
Hope this helps and Cheers!
 
Do your parents also live in NC?

If so I have been real happy with Alltel's coverage throughout that state. Alltel would be a very good pre-paid option because the plans are much cheaper any other, you can pre-pay per minute (15 cents), per day (75 cents/day), or per month. If they don't use it a lot check out the pre-pay-per-minute plans. There is a minimum monthly usage of like 1 minute/month and that's it so the cost is minimal if they don't use it a lot.

Alltel should give you great coverage in NC and throughout the country. They will free roam off of Verizon and Sprint if there is no Alltel signal to pick up. You don't have to sign a contract because everything is pre-pay. It sounds like they would fit your needs really nicely so you might want to check out those plans.

For the absolute best reception I would go with a Motorola or Nokia phone. They just got a new Nokia that has a great price on it, $39 on prepaid I'm pretty sure and it picks up great reception and has great call quality.
 
I would advise against T-Mobile in NC. There is currently no T-Mobile network in NC and they roam off of SunCom. I have known several people that use SunCom in NC but none of them have been happy with their service. You would be sacrificing a lot of coverage by going with T-Mobile (SunCom) in that part of the country if they would even sell you service.
 
Cingular has great prepaid, they do charge you a dollar everyday you use the phone, and then 10 cents a minute. But you get unlimited calling to cingular customers. You can do that or do there flatrate 25 cents per minute. Verizons prepaid sucks because you get charged the dollar regardless.
 
Hi Tim,

I too wanted to mention the fact that T-Mobile dont have any towers and roam off SunCom. You could use Suncom I s'pose. I don't know where your parents travel, but if it's outside the US, I would advise against going with a CDMA provider such as Alltel, Sprint, Verizon etc.
 
Thanks for all the feedback ...

My parents live in North Carolina ... Travel mostly to South Carolina, Tennesse, & within North Carolina ... but will make the occassional RARE trip to Vegas, California, etc ...

I checked into Alltels prepaid options and I'm not really digging the $.75 per day fee if this is regardless of usage ... The $.15 per minute deal would be a possibility for them as this phone will probably get limited use ...

I have Verizon in the NC area and have great coverage but their prepaid plan does have that $.99 fee per day regardless ... def. out of the question ...

Does any other providers have where you only pay $.10 or $.15 per minute and now daily fees ... etc ...?

-TIM
 
T-Mobile does have 10 cents/minute but you have to buy your minutes in $100 chunks I think is the way I understand it. Somebody else will hopefully correct me if I'm wrong about that. Alltel is 15 cents/minute but you can buy them in any amount you want. Those are by far the best 2 as far as price goes. Maybe somebody else will chime in with anybody else that might have those prices with good coverage in the areas you will be travelling.

Between those two, I would stick with Alltel because of the coverage issue. Personally, I do like T-Mobile as a company but you will be disturbed with the coverage they would provide through SunCom. I wouldn't expect you would have any trouble in any of those locations with Alltel just because Alltel customers can free roam off of Verizon and Sprint if an Alltel signal isn't available. This would probably be the case in some places in TN, Vegas, and California. But the rate is still 15 cents/minute off of the Alltel network. If they ever come up to Virginia, I would strongly recommend you avoiding GSM.

Good luck with your decision and hopefully somebody else might be able to provide some reasonable alternatives.
 
net10 will give you Cingular coverage at $0.10/minute. A $150 refill lasts for a year. One downside is that you can't move the SIM to another phone.

It's a pretty good deal for people who might use their phone a couple of hours a month and aren't interested in much other than voice and SMS.
 
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