SOLVED! I Want More Control Over My Cell Phone Bill
Consider switching to a prepaid service plan if you only use your cell phone for the occasional late-for-dinner or stuck-in-traffic call. In addition to saving money, you'll pay only for the minutes you use -- with no nasty surprises, in the form of unexpected taxes and fees, tacked on to your bill. And you won't be tied down to a long-term contract.
That's what prompted John Linnehan to sign up for a prepaid plan from AT&T Wireless when he returned to the University of Pennsylvania last September. "I wasn't sure how often I would use a cell phone," says Linnehan, "so I went with a prepaid plan because I could cancel it at any time." Linnehan paid $30 upfront for 30 days of service or until his balance dipped below $5, whichever came first; night and weekend calls were free. He nearly always managed to squeeze out 30 days of talk time, without having to ante up more cash, and estimates he used about 400 minutes each month, including free time.
Rates for prepaid-wireless airtime range from 20 cents to 30 cents per minute, compared with 5 cents per minute for traditional plans -- "not a great deal if you're making lots of calls," says Matt Coffin of LowerMyBills.com. But for occasional cell-phone users, it beats emergency plans offered by traditional carriers.
Sprint PCS, for example, offers an emergency plan with 75 "anytime" minutes for $15 a month (long distance is extra). That might seem tempting, until you factor in the $1-a-minute rate Sprint charges for talking over your allotted minutes and an average of $5 for monthly taxes and fees (which, if you crunch the numbers, amounts to more than 20% of the bill).
You have to buy the phone, but prepaid-service providers never require a contract, and canceling the service is usually as easy as not adding money to your account. You're always free to leave -- and take your number with you.
Virgin Mobile offers one of the better prepaid deals. All you pay for is the phone ($70 to $150; available at www.virginmobileusa.com and retailers) and the airtime you use. Calls cost 25 cents per minute for the first ten minutes you talk each day and 10 cents a minute thereafter (Virgin doesn't differentiate between peak and weekend hours). To keep your phone active, you must add $20 to your account every 90 days, which you can do at Virgin's Web site or by credit card over the phone. As long as you "top up," your minutes don't expire. Virgin has no activation, cancellation, long-distance or roaming fees.
TracFone (www.tracfone.com) has the cheapest plan. Pay by the month -- $14.99 plus a one-time $5 enrollment fee -- or buy airtime cards (the more time you buy, the cheaper the rate). Long distance is included, but roaming costs extra. Phones range from $40 to $100. For a side-by-side comparison of prepaid plans, visit Myrateplan.com.
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