Saturday, December 09, 2006
Pre Paid Cell Phones & Pay as You Go Cellular Plans
Not very long ago, pre paid cell phone service was thought of as being mainly for people with bad credit. Today, pre paid cell phones and plans are a good alternative to a regular monthly cellular plan, but buyer beware. Pre paid can be broken down into two totally different categories, and knowing the difference can save you time and money.
The two types of pre paid cellular plans are prepaid monthly cell phone service, and pay as you go cellular service. At first glance there wouldn't appear to be a considerable difference in these two pre paid plan types, that is until you dig in and read the plan details. The truth is there is a huge difference between pay as you go, and monthly prepaid.
Pay as you go cell phone plans can be thought of as the phone card of the wireless world. After you initially purchase your cell phone, you can add minutes anytime you like by either purchasing additional minutes online with a credit card or go to a retail outlet and purchase a pre loaded refill card.
Think of Pay as you go cell phone plans as a plan of convenience, best when used for emergency situations or very infrequent use. Since you only need to add minutes when you need them, a pre pay cell phone is great to just have around. You never know when your car might break down or you need to make a call away from home.
Stay away from pay as you go if you plan to actually be using your cell phone on a regular basis, or more than thirty minutes a week. At this point pay as you go isn't so cheap anymore since you'll find yourself buying more refill cards and burning up your minutes on connection fees. More frequent calling requires a monthly prepaid plan.
When you purchase a monthly prepaid cell phone plan you'll be billed the same amount of money each month and you will not be able to go over your monthly minutes, making monthly prepaid a great choice for cellular if you will be making calls from your cell phone frequently but need to be on a budget.
Some of the more attractive features of a prepaid monthly cellular plan are those providers often times provide features you would normally find in a regular cellular plan like, mobile-to-mobile calling, and nights & weekends as free calling time, and are sometimes compatible with regular cell phone plans.
Some cell phone carriers such as Cingular allow customers to call GoPhone customers as free calling time, and vise verse. This is particularly useful if you have friends and family members who use either GoPhone or Cingular. Another cellular provider that offers a comparable service is Verizon.
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