Derrygal

My plan with Verizon ends in 5 weeks time. I've decided I don't want another contract cell phone plan - too expensive, I never use all my minutes and I just don't want to be locked into another plan. Just wondering if any of you have tried Tracfone, Net 10, T-Mobile, Virgin or any of the other companies and what you think. I see the minutes/airtime cards for sale in stores and wonder how good the service is and how easy they are to use. I'm not interested in a data plan at all - just talking and texting. Thanks for any advice/input.

Michael

"Pay As You Go" cell service is pretty easy to use. Go to Best Buy or some other place that sells them and see if your phone can accept "Pay As You Go" or if the SIM has to be replaced. After it is activated, you can then electronically acquire additional minutes as you get low by just dialing a number. Most carriers offer "Pay As You Go" service".

I've used both AT&T and T-Mobile but depending on the amount of usage, they may possibly not be economical at typically 1,000 minutes for a $100 refill (more expensive per minute on smaller refills) if you talk or text a lot, the cost could be expensive.

I'm not sure I'd go with the smaller companies unless I was sure they were reliable and covered the area I needed.

steveq

These guys offer a variety of options. I use them when I travel, but their cards are good for US only too.

Here's unlimited talk, unlimited SMS and minimal data.

http://goredpocket.com/rp30.html

They offer an "auto-renew" too.

Weeze

I found virgin great. The only reason I left was because I wanted an iPhone. Then about 3 months into my contract they decided to start doing iPhones. Doh!

Anyhow, no problems with payments or coverage. They were very helpful about changing my number for free when I started to get too much spam. Website was excellent and let you check everything and pretty much do everything online.

Mummy in the foothills

We have tracfone and no complaints, we get good signal, but we don't use them much and don't have smart phones.
My son had goPhone he used his iPhone with them, put a card on it each month ($20 card I think it was) and had plenty of talk time, as many texts as he wanted and internet. He bought the cheapest of their phones for less than $20 and put the SIM card in his iPhone (it originally had an AT&T SIM in it) and it worked great.

Guindalf

Verizon phones work on CDMA and mostly don't have SIM cards. Chances are you'll need a new phone unless you stick with Verizon PAYG. For what you need, though, they are relatively inexpensive.

Most PAYG companies use the AT&T, Sprint or Verizon networks, so the coverage is usually pretty good. The best on for you depends on where you are.

Poppy girl

After nearly 10 years on contract phone services, I am now on a PAYG and wish I had done it before, like you I never used all mins and now get this and all for $70 a month I was paying a 1 point $160 roughly a month.

Rate Plan Details :
Rate Plan Charge $65.00 for 30 days of unlimited nationwide calls anywhere on AT&T's wireless network, send and receive unlimited domestic Text, Picture and Video messages, unlimited Text to Mexico and over 100 international destinations and 1 Gigabyte data allowance. Unused data allowances do not rollover. Data usage over the 1 GB allowance will be charged at $.05/1MB.
Long Distance Included
Includes 50 states, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam & Mariana Islands.
Anytime Minutes Unlimited

Speedwell

I just signed up with P-tel for a new unlocked Nexus 4, using pay-as-you-go, and they are reasonable in price and easy to work with.

fulwood

I have used Tracfone for about 3 years. I like it as I don't need to add minutes on it until they are all used. I put minutes on phone 2 months ago and not forced to do it until I'm ready. only thing is your minutes get used up for outbound and inbound calls but I'm okay with it. For calling UK I use Skype for free or Skype credit. Tracfone is my only phone as well.

Derrygal

Thanks everyone for all your responses/advice. It certainly seems as if PAYG is the way to go with cell phones. I should save myself a lot of money (maybe even enough for a flight back to the UK) There is a new Best Buy Mobile store opened up not too far from me, so I shall call in there - they seem to sell phones and cards for all the providers. Thanks again!

Dewey

I see your point about the minutes, for me I rarely use my cell phone so $100 for 1,000 minutes for the year, and good network coverage, means T-Mobile PAYG is sufficient for my needs.

Bob

Been using Tracfone for years. Not bad.

One nice thing is, the mins don't expire and you only need to top up after 90 days at a minimum. Even if you let it run past by a few weeks you don't seem to lose the minutes or the number.

Much better value to get one of the triple min phones they have now and then google coupon codes which can get you bonus mins, so a $20 60 min card becomes 180-240mins pretty easily.

1 unit per min of call incoming/outgoing including international calls, 3 text messages per unit.

If you really don't use a phone all that much it's not a bad deal.

hungryhorace

T-Mobile offer decent plans, but atrocious coverage outside of city centres. I would sell your Verizon phone and buy a GSM iPhone which you can use on an AT&T MVNO prepaid network (think Red Pocket, Air Voice..) for $50-60 pcm.

PS - Don't move to prepaid Verizon (PagePlusCellular are the most popular), you don't get access to their LTE network so you're stuck with their utterly awful 3G network.

2Mbit will be the maximum speed you ever receive, hence their huge investment into LTE whereas AT&T invested in HSPA+ and was slower in rolling out their LTE network (it wasn't as desperately needed as Verizon's was).

Brando

I use a T-Mobile PAYG, as does my hubby. Coverage is fine for us, but we are in the New York metro area, and have little reason to be calling / texting outside of that area most times!

I started out getting $30 credits, which lasts 90 days. But once you've amounted $100 credit over time, then it lasts a year I think.

My husband used to have a Verizon contract, it was crazy how expensive it was. He hates cell phones, and uses his only for a few texts / calls a week, so a contract phone was a rip-off. So he bought a cheap flip-phone, bought a $100 credit, and that was that. It'll last him the year!

Xebedee

Tracfone.
Same as Orange, basically.