So What Are The Best Prepaid Cell Phones?
So What are the Best Prepaid Cell Phones?
When looking for the best prepaid cell phones, you may have more option than you realize. There are, of course, the big companies that are well known that you can go with – such as AT&T, Verizon or Sprint Nextel, but there are also smaller companies that offer you some of the best prepaid cell phones you will get.
One of these companies is Air Link Mobile, which has its network services provided by the Nationwide Sprint PCS Network. This means the company can provide fantastic coverage all across the US, at some very competitive rates.
AirLink promises that its customers will not need to go through credit checks and, being pay as you go, there are no long-term contracts. Included in this are some fantastic wireless services. You pay no roaming charges all across the country and no US long distance charges. You can also keep your existing phone number if you switch to its services.
Mobile services are basically broken down into two types of packages, or 'minutes' as the company calls it. Traditionally, pay as you go means that you pay upfront for the amount of time (minutes) you wish to spend on the network and make calls, send messages etc. For instance, you would pay for 30 minutes upfront of call time, and then how you use those 30 minutes is up to you. This way there are no sneaky bills at the end of the month – you're paying upfront.
Getting minutes is as easy as topping up online or popping into retailers all across the country. This service provider basically offers you Anytime Minutes – calls made between 7am and 9pm – and Night & Weekend Minutes – calls made from 9:01pm on Fridays to Monday at 6:59am, or any weeknight from 9:01pm. So even if you have only one minute left on Anytime Minutes, you could make calls on your Night & Weekend Minutes.
Five prepaid packages (top-up cards) are available to you, starting at $10 up to $75. With all the cards you receive unlimited Nights & Weekends Minutes.
On the $10 top-up card, you get 30 Anytime Minutes and the card expires after seven days from the time you purchase the card. The $20 top-up card gives you 90 Anytime Minutes and a 14 day expiration; the $30 gets you 150 Anytime Minutes and 21 days expiration; $50 gets you 350 Anytime Minutes and 30 days expiration; lastly, $75 gets you 750 Anytime Minutes and 30 days expiration.
There are also some text message packs. Five dollars gets you 200 text messages (about 2.5 cents per text message) and a $10 package gets you 1,000 text messages (one cent a message). Both packs expire after 30 days. The basic text message rate is 20 cents per message, outside of these packages. Getting on the web costs $2.50 per MB.
Features such as Caller ID, Call waiting, US long distance calling, and of course nationwide coverage are all included in the above packages.
At the time of writing, you can get the Motorola C290, the Samsung M3000 and the Nokia 6165i on prepaid. So you don't have to just look at the major carriers to get some of the best prepaid cell phones.
