Prepaid mobile, or pay as you go plans, are usually packaged according to different types of user behaviour, so to save money it’s important to choose a specific plan, depending for instance on if you text a lot or if you call during peak times Here are some tips on choosing the best prepaid mobile phone plans in the US.
Most prepaid mobile plans work the same, although the tariffs are often wildly different. You pay a certain amount of dollars to charge your credit and can then use that money for calls and for other services, such as sending text messages.
One of the most important things to know about when choosing your prepaid mobile service, especially if you are a light phone user, are credit expiration times. Often you will have a month to use your credit, and then it will expire, Better carriers give you up to a year of credit expiration time, and rollover of any unused credit if you top it up.
If you have no credit on your phone, you will still be able to receive calls, but after a time that can vary between four months and a year the line will expire and you will lose your number. In this case, you are faced with the option of paying to reactivate the line, or going through the hassle of getting another prepaid mobile phone number.
Before getting that prepaid mobile, you should of course also make sure that your the carrier of choice has a good coverage in the area where you live, as well as in other places in the country where you tend to hang out.
As for the actual prepaid mobile providers, Virgin Mobile is probably the best overall operator, and its customer service is also quite good. Pay-as-you-go cards are very convenient. For $20, you can get 200 talk time minutes, which is much cheaper than several competitors. Unused credit only rolls over for 30 days though, and only if you top up some more.
T-Mobile is one of the few operators offering nice handsets together with prepaid mobile contracts, so if you would like a new multimedia phone rather than a basic device, this is the best carrier. If you top your pay as you go credit up in chunks of 100$, they will last a whole year.
TracFone is renowned for the good call quality on its network, and for relatively decent pricing, at 20 cents a minute for prepaid mobile calls. As there is no difference between recharging your prepaid mobile account with big or small amounts, this carrier is good if you want to top up small amounts.
MetroPCS also offers good service and rates, but its prepaid mobile service is only available in 33 states. This includes the most populous ones, so there is a good chance that this carrier will be available to you, though. Avoid it if you travel a lot out of state though, as their roaming and long distance rates are quite steep for prepaid mobiles.
There is also Cingular plan that is great if you don’t plan to use your prepaid mobile every day. Calls cost 10 cents a minute, plus a dollar for every day that you will use the phone to make calls. It’s good offer for occasional prepaid mobile phone users.
