Sunday, May 15, 2011

Prepaid Cell Phone Service and Understanding the Plans

By Daymon Hoag

Everyone knows prepaid simply means you pay up front, or buy time or minutes in advance. What people generally get confused about is the difference between different types of prepaid cell phone plans, and I'm going to break it down for you. Since you're looking for prepaid cellular I have to assume one of two things. You have bad or no credit, you're on a strict budget, or both. Either way, prepaid doesn't always mean cheaper. I'll explain in a moment.


Two Types of Prepaid Cell Phone Service
When most people refer to prepaid in cellular, it is a fairly broad term, so to get the best plan for your situation it's good to understand the two main plan setups. There are regular or monthly prepaid plans, and there are Pay as You Go prepaid plans. These are not the same, and the only real similarity between the two is the fact you do have to pay in advance, and they have no, or limited contracts. Let me explain.


Pay as You Go Cell Phone Plans
You'll never see a contract for one of these plans. Not even a limited contract. That's because you have to buy your own phone which can cost as little as ten dollars in some cases, and it works almost the same way as a long distance calling card you buy at the store, but you use it for your cell phone. These are commonly referred to as reload cards. They can range anywhere from ten dollars, to one hundred dollars. It just depends on how many minutes you want to add, and the minutes typically range from ten to twenty five cents per minute.
Regular Prepaid Cell Phone Service

These plans work almost the same way as a regular contracted cell phone plan, but you have to pay in advance for the month, and it is often slightly more expensive than a contracted plan. Again, you have to buy your cell phone, or get a used one from someone who no longer needs their phone, but used it on the same network you're planning to use. These plans may have no contract, or sometimes a limited contract. One huge benefit to monthly prepaid plans are unlimited talk time, whether it be free nights and weekends, or in network calling, plus a provisioned amount of anytime minutes.


Which is cheapest?
Some people mistakenly think pay as you go is the cheapest prepaid plan, but it's simply not true. Just because you can get talk time at ten cents per minute doesn't mean it won't cost you more in the long run. Pay as you go works best for people who will barely ever use their cell phone. If you want a cell phone just for security purposes, or to make the occasional quick call, this is the way to go.
If you like to talk a lot on your cell phone, a pay as you go plan could quickly add up. For example, in one month you buy a twenty five dollar air time card, run out of minutes and buy another, you just spent fifty dollars. What's worse, you didn't get any free talk time at all. You would be better off to take that fifty dollars and get a regular monthly prepaid plan. This way you get a few minutes you can use any time, and you may also get some goodies like free mobile to mobile in network calling, or a healthy amount of night and weekend minutes. This way you'll talk more, and pay less.
Daymon Hoag is the founder of Phone TV Internet where you can shop for prepaid cell phone service.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Daymon_Hoag

http://EzineArticles.com/?Prepaid-Cell-Phone-Service-and-Understanding-the-Plans&id=1972084

A Cellular Phone For The Whole Family!

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By Dane J Stanton

There are many different types of cellular phone plans that all sport different features and services for different people. Each of these plans offer different cellular phones to go along with the package and most of the time, they allow people to pay off that phone while they're paying for their plan. One of the most popular plans that people are choosing above the rest are family plans, which enable every member of your family to have their own phone. Generally this type of plan helps to save a great deal of money. So in this article we are going to go through all the advantages to signing up for a family plan, as well as discussing all the different features that are available with this service.

Why?
Well as communication starts to become more and more important day after day, many parents are finding it hard to keep up with what their children are doing, mainly parents who have teenagers of course! Basically every teenager wants to have their own cellular phone and really can you blame them? Everyone has a one these days and there are of course so many benefits to owning one. The first being that if an emergency happens and you need to contact someone, having a cell phone will allow you to do this faster compared to having to search for a phone box, which may of course be the difference between life and death! The second is that it's now becoming increasingly important to communicate with people as fast as possible.
We live in an age where communication runs our lives, where information can be passed within the blink of an eye and if we are not keeping up with technology, then we're just watching the world pass us by. Anyway enough blabbering on, let's discuss the reasons why you should get on a family plan, presuming you have a family to share with of course!

Basically the best possible reason why you should sign up for a family plan is because you are going to save a whole lot of money. If you have already decided that you want your kids to have their own phones, then you need to start shopping around. Don't just sign up for the first plan you hear about. Spend a whole day shopping around.

Firstly try the internet because it's probably going to be the fastest way to find the plan for you and secondly it means you won't have to put up with annoying sales people looking to see you anything they can just so they can get a commission. If you do decide to go shopping down at the local mall, make sure you don't allow anyone to sway your opinion. Ask the questions by all means but don't let them sell you something you are not sure about. Find out the call rates on every plan possible and make an educated decision. You could save hundreds of dollars just by making the right decision!
If you want to learn more about Cell Phones including free information, reviews and much more, or you want to join our free weekly newsletter then please visit Cell Phone Plans (Recommended) or for more free articles all about cell phones visit Cell Phone Blog.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dane_J_Stanton

http://EzineArticles.com/?A-Cellular-Phone-For-The-Whole-Family!&id=350101

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