didn't Meg post this yesterday? [consumerist.com]

If you're like me and don't use your phone much but don't want to go without one entirely, get a Virgin prepaid. Their only stipulation is that you have to top up $20 every 3 months, even if you still have money on your account.

I almost never have to top up more than $20 every 3 months, so it works out to just under $7 a month.

You don't actually expect the editors to read the Consumerist, do you?

I used about 8.3% of my alotted minutes, coming out to be about $1.80/minute. Of course, if you count the "free" nights, weekends, and myFaves, which actually drove me to purchase my particular plan, that drops to less than 2 cents/minute.

Thanks.

I will be entering my bill later at home. My wife uses her cell much more than I do. I would not mind going to pre-paid especially Virgin, but since I am a techie, their phones are not the best...

@bnelson333:
T-Mobile prepaid is cheaper then virgin mobile, also using Tmobile you can use almost/any GSM phone compare to virgin mobile branded CDMA phones. After using the Tmobile prepaid plan for a few months you will then be a Golds Rewards (something like that) member where your mintues dont expire TILL NEXT YEAR!!!...compare to virgin 3 months needed for a top up

The Validas link doesn't work for me. I tried the BillShrink, and it has some interesting suggestions, but I think my results are skewed because I make international calls with my cell phone too (T-Mobile has a plan for an extra $5 a month that gets me decent per minute rates, as long as I'm not calling an international mobile phone).

I only use about half of my minutes, but they roll over so I don't necessarily lose them and I use a lot of the data access so I don't mind the voice minutes so much.

Why do the menu bar (no profile or login links) and the quote function hate me all of a sudden?

Sure, I use maybe 10% of my minutes in the lowest family plan but I use 5000 + txts and 6-7 gig of data every month . . . makes up for it if you ask me.

Okay, Validas link should be myvalidas.com, not validas.com as is posted above. I tried to use their service, but apparently they can't upload T-Mobile bills (though Bill Shrink had no problem), and suggest a long convoluted process where you have to download a PDF creator program (if you don't already have one), go to T-Mobile's website yourself and access your bill, convert it into a PDF, and then upload that PDF to Validas' website. And then pay them $5 for the privilege.

Um, no thanks!

@radiochief: It is the same with net10, the phones aren't the best, but they get the job done.

@ radiochief: (for some reason the button to reply isn't working)

My Virgin phone isn't that bad. I got a camera (VGA) flip phone with bluetooth and speakerphone for $50. I think they're even cheaper now on sale.

It doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but it makes calls and does texting just fine.

@Shaun Hoffman: Do you know what's involved in switching from T-Mobile subscription to T-Mobile pre-paid? I'm not interested in a new phone, would I still have to buy one? I'm a little nervous about screwing it up and losing my number or something!

@radiochief: Use a GSM prepaid service instead. They're not terribly picky about what phone you use.

I had an ATT contract for 2 years and was so happy to get it over with. I had maxed roll-over minutes for every single month of that contract. I've now switched to T-Mobile Prepaid and couldn't be happier. I have saved a great amount of money this way, and as an added bonus- no more monthly cell phone billing statement to check and recheck for erroneous charges!

@formergr:
From the looks of it, i believe all you might need is maybe a new SIM card and then call up tmobile customer support and tell them to transfer your number from the old sim to the new one

Maybe call up customer support and ask them if they can just change your account over to prepaid without the need of a new sim (which that might work out alot better)

My Cell is $55/month (SERO 1250 + 300 Bonus minutes). I usually use about 1200 of my anytime minutes and another 1500 N&W & M2M. The plan also includes Navigator and unlimited text & Data. About the only time I use the data is to read news (when I am bored) or check movie times but I average about 1,500 text messages. I definitely get my 50 bucks worth!

On the other hand, my home phone is $35/month and I use it less than an hour a month. I keep it for emergencies - and my fax machine.

The statistic mixes some users' high bill costs with others' low minute usage. It really means: cell phone companies EARN $3.02 for each minute of calling (totally ignoring SMS, data plans, contracts, etc).

Here's a similar statement: car buyers pay $1.50 for every mile driven on their cars!!!1

Quick poll for advice (hope no one minds...)

I currently have three prepaid cell phones: one for me, one for wife, one for kids. Average cost per line per month: $12.

Wife & I now thinking about switching from dialup acct ($10/mo) to "lite" high-speed cable service ($21/mo), dropping landline service (was $30/mo, now averaging $70/mo because daughter gets calls from friend with long-distance cell phone... ATT charging for INBOUND cell calls?!).

Question: Is prepaid a smart alternative here? Math looks right, but it is a "leap of faith" to forego landline.

Fearing life w/out a landline... Geez, I'm older than I thought...

I put in my bill details and - surprise! - BillShrink suggested my current plan as the cheapest with best service.

That's what I get for shopping around every time my contract comes up!

Also: we really wanted smartphones before the last contract signing, so we called up retentions and asked if they could make us a deal if we we stayed. They offered us two new Blackberry Pearls for ~$70 each to resign.

@PencilSharp: unless this long distance person is calling collect, I think your daughter is making calls out. you don't get charged to receive calls on a landline. I say dump the land line. its an unecessary expense.

@PencilSharp: I don't think going without a landline is going to put you in any kind of danger. It's just a landline. The important thing here is that you keep enough minutes that when ANY situation comes up and you have to use your phones more, that you are able to, especially if you don't have a lot of time to add more minutes.

Also, I believe this is the first instance in the last five years in which I have encountered someone still on dial up internet.

What you should do is calculate in a month how much you use your landline. All of the calls you make on your landline will need to be made on a cell phone once you drop a landline. If it's significantly more than how much you use your phones through prepaid, I would go with a family plan with a contract. I know people are always like "booo contract!" but stability is really important when you only have one method of calling.

Also what is important is that you know how much you use your cell phone. If you're using 200+ minutes total, it would possibly be worth switching to a contract family plan that may cost a little more than the $36 you currently pay for the three lines, BUT if you drop a landline, you're most likely going to need the additional minutes the family plan offers.

If AT&T offered a plan with fewer than 450 minutes a month I would have taken it, but they don't. Up until recently I typically used fewer than 100 minutes *total*, including nights/weekends and mobile-to-mobile minutes. Even now that I'm using about 1000 minutes a month only about 50 or 60 of them come out of my 450 "paid" minutes. But, yeah, if I do a strict dollar-per-minute calculation I'm spending about 5 cents a minute.

@mergatroy6: That's why he states 'as we noted yesterday'. This is a follow up on how to avoid the situation.

@josephbloseph: Exactly, it all depends on how you do the math. If you don't include all of those "free" minutes they give you, you are wasting loads of money. If you count them, you are way out ahead.

I am on a family plan. We never use all of our minutes because calls to each other are free. My family is spread across the country. If we didn't have such a plan, all of our phone calls would be extremely expensive, especially compared to land lines.

@pecan etc...
If you're using 200+ minutes total, it would possibly be worth switching to a contract family plan

And therein lies the rub. The daughter talks incessantly, and overages are a concern. The prepaid places a strict limit, but needless to say, the "why won't you let me talk to my friends?!" whine will soon come into play. And I am extremely leery of locking myself into a contract of any length.

@AstraBabble:
Outbound calling is most likely the case (daughter denies it, but we're talking over 100 calls in Jan/Feb, averaging one minute per), but I try to never underestimate ATT's willingness to overextend...

@kerry: If AT&T offered fewer than 450 minutes I'd take it too. Hubby and I both use less than 300 minutes a month because we mostly talk to each other and that's covered through mobile to mobile. And my parents are on AT&T so that would be covered as well. All that is left is his parents who aren't on AT&T and friends, and the calls to customer service and restaurants and such. I would consider going pre-paid, but both Verizon and AT&T (we travel to visit family, so we need the best coverage we can get) charge daily access fees, which is a dealbreaker as far as I'm concerned.

@camman68: Wow, I guess I'm just an old fart, but who the heck are these zillion minute/month and gazillion texts/month people talking to?

My *lifetime* cell usage is now almost up to 500 minutes (and I've had a phone since the StarTac days).

@PencilSharp: I have never had a landline in the 10 years I've been out of my parents' house. They actually gave up the landline a couple years ago too. We have never had an issue where I couldn't place a call when we really needed to. I'm sure it happens from time to time, but the same is true for landlines. My only concern for your plan is that your family will go through minutes quickly since you will be using the prepaid phones more often, which will cost more than $12/mo., possibly negating any savings.

PencilSharp: I've never had problems with a contract. The absolutely VITAL thing is to research thoroughly ahead of time and select the best plan. You can change the plan if you find you need more minutes, or fewer minutes. But in my experience, contracts are not the absolute devil. You just need to pay attention to what you're getting yourself into, IMO.

@shaunhoffman: Virgin's pay as you go minutes don't expire at all. You just have to add at least $20 to your account every three months to keep your phone active.

@Eliamias: The original post was ninja-edited to include "As we noted yesterday" after this comment. Don't know why the editors are reluctant to acknowledge the role of their readership in catching these errors.

@PencilSharp: T-Mobile has a nifty feature that lets you partition off a segment of your pool of minutes if you want to control how much time a particular line gets to use.

@Ninjanice: Without my daughter's 100 1-minute calls, we typically use the landline about 40 minutes a month, almost all of it local. (Shoulda brought that up in the initial question...) So, the math basically adds up as:

$30 (40 minutes/mo landline) + $10 (dialup) + $36 (3 prepaid lines/mo) + $21 (current cable service) = $97
vs.
$36 (3 prepaid lines/mo) + $21 (lite cable internet) + $21 (current cable service) + $10 (cost of 40 add'l prepaid minutes) = $88

Bottom line:
Is giving up the landline (and escaping ATT) worth $9?

@formergr: the big downside to pre-paids is that i don't believe providers are required to comply with federal number port requirements (meaning, they don't have to let you keep your phone #). t-mobile will likely tell you that you cannot convert your post-paid account to pre-paid. if you don't want to lose your number, you might be stuck.

also keep in mind that if you are under contract, converting your plan will likely result in an early termination fee.

Honestly, I have a hard time believing this is true. I've got AT&T (450 minutes w/ iPhone 3G) and I use nearly all the minutes on the plan; I'd imagine most people do as well. Just seems to me they chose a bunch of high-usage cell phone users to survey.

@pecan 3.14159265: My fiance has been using AT&T prepaid with the free mobile-to-mobile, since most of his calling is to me, only paying a dollar a day is actually very nice. We were doing the 25cents/minute flat rate deal before, but it got very expensive very quickly.

My wife and I are on a family plan and even between us we only use about half of our allotted minutes every month. We just don't call that often, we use our phones for data use way more often than voice. But we're already on the cheapest family plan available, so, guess there's nothing to be done. :-)

I use T-mobile pay as you go and have for three years.
After you pay for $100.00 worth of minutes you can get free minutes and use them for a year I generally pay $50.00 to use my phone for a year... can get the info At
T-mobile.com

@mac-phisto: I was under the impression that one of the benefits of pre-paid cell phones was that you weren't under contract, is this not true? Do most pre-paid providers require a minimum amount of months on the plan?

I myself was wondering whether you could port a number to pre-paid. If you can't, I won't be switching to pre-paid...I've had my number for about 6 years now, I'm not about to change it.

@Cocoa Vanilla: I use more than 450 minutes for sure - but a lot of it is taken care of by mobile to mobile and nights and weekends. So the only minutes that are actually not covered by those total less than 450. More like 200. I suppose what I'm really paying for is the ability to get mobile to mobile calling.

I just used billshrink. Looks like I am ahead of the game. Mighty cool tool. Also very clever affiliate marketing site - they must make a fortune. Great idea, wish I thought of it first :(

Validas suggested carriers that don't even operate in my state (Vermont). FAIL.

@kerry: The rub is that at $30 a month (1.00 a day) it's cheaper just to spend the $60 for the both of us to have a family plan because we call other people too, and that would be covered in the family plan. We do use our phones every day, but why should I get automatically charged a fee when I use my phone? I'd rather just pay for the cheapest family plan and be covered without having to pay $1 a day and then minutes.

@PencilSharp: The reality is that the internet is requiring more processing power and more bandwidth to keep up with the streaming video, the live feeds and even the wikipedia pages. Upgrading to faster internet is important for education. I wouldn't budge on that one.

As far as the phone goes, I would give up the landline and get onto a better cell phone plan...and I think you should add more than 40 minutes because your family is going to find out really quickly that your phone use will go up higher than 40 minutes. You're going to use your cell phones for everything - there's no waiting til you get home anymore just to save minutes.

Sr Winston Thriller One important thing to notice is that we also look at coverage from the 4 major carriers. We also look at your home to work commute to find the best carrier that will have the signal along that route.

It's amazing that there's actually 10 Million plan combinations between just the 4 carriers, (multiple lines, add on combos, etc).

Thanks for trying the site, let us know what you think..

BillShrink

@spanky: Sounds like they expire after three months to me. With T-mobile prepaid, once you hit gold rewards, you just have to add money once a year to keep your phone active. Same deal, but better.

@AstraBabble: Blah, if you are concerned with having some sort of home phone, just use skype. For unlimited US calls and an actual phone number it comes out to about $8/mo. It doesn't have 911 access but the prepaid phones do, so you're set.

@samisalsa: When I signed up for my current contract I got a Blackberry Pearl for a penny before a $50 rebate. So I was actually paid $49.99 to take the phone and sign the contract. Now this was almost two years ago, I can't imagine how cheap those phones are now.