joem Posted February 10, 2013 Share Posted February 10, 2013 I need some advice. I have someone in my family that uses a cell phone sparingly. He just need to make calls and receive calls and get voice mail if he doesn't answer. He did have a Virgin Mobile clam shell simple phone that did all that just fine for him. The plan was about 18 cents per minute for a prepaid plan. He would have to buy $20 worth every 3 months whether he had time left or not. No problem there at all. So you can see he did not use the phone very much. $80 a year took care of him. He can no longer use Virgin Mobile because the message service no longer works in his area. If callers try to leave a message if he doesn't answer there is a busy signal. If he tries to retrieve his voice mail there is a busy signal ( or circuit busy). I won't go into all the gory details I went through to try get this fixed with Virgin Mobile, but others in this zip code local have the same issue. Time to switch to a different service that is competitive price wise.Do any of you know of what he can switch to? Just another simple phone and about twenty cents a minute or less would be great. I'm not familiar with these simple and basic plans and don't want to give him bad advice. I do a search for this and it's all over the place, and quite frankly I am overwhelmed by it all. All he needs is a new simple phone and a pay as you go plan to go with it. Thanks for your anticipated advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andne Posted February 10, 2013 Share Posted February 10, 2013 The company that I know of that has pretty cheap plans is Tracfone. I never used my phone much when I had them, so I just bought the 1 year cards - they're around $100 I think and they come with a fair amount of time. I'm not sure what their prices have done lately, haven't had one for 4 years now, but they were pretty good before then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awraynor Posted February 11, 2013 Share Posted February 11, 2013 Ting.com was mentioned on Windows Weekly, it can be tailored to your use case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joem Posted February 11, 2013 Author Share Posted February 11, 2013 Thank you for the replies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kylejwx Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 If AT&T works in your area, then I would recommend AT&T GoPhone. They have plans for $0.10 per minute, and you can buy a whole year of service all at once for $100. In my experience, they are one of the more reliable prepaid services, especially in regard to activation, customer service, and ease of use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmwills Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 StraightTalk is what we use. Works with any inlocked phone. UNLIMITED data, etc for $45/month Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joem Posted February 15, 2013 Author Share Posted February 15, 2013 That Go phone from AT&T looks like a really good deal. Ten cents a minute is the best deal out there for this pay as you go stuff. Thanks for the recommendations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Checking Posted May 13, 2013 Share Posted May 13, 2013 Net10 is US$0.10/minute. You get 60 days of service for buying a US$30 card. Works out to US$15/month. The plan allows you to do texting (0.5 min charge/text. There is an added advantage in that you can buy a clamshell phone (Motorola or LG) for US$30 and it gives you 10 minutes of calling and 60 days of service. Put on a US$30 card and you get 120 days of service to use the 310 minutes (or 620 text messages). Net10 is on the Verizon Cell Network which I find has the widest coverage. My nephew had the ATT Go phone service. Be careful to have ATT deactivate the data and text capabilities of the phone when activating it for the first time or you will get all kinds of extra charges. The phones also cost more initially to buy. It might be a wash between ATT and Net10 for cost. The deciding factor may be which cellular service has better coverage in the area of use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vpiya Posted October 22, 2013 Share Posted October 22, 2013 Hi jome, As a advise For my side..... why you should buy a calling tablet.... there are lots of calling and non calling tablets in the gadget market. choose according to your requirement. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joem Posted January 14, 2014 Author Share Posted January 14, 2014 Fianally got this all settled. Got the Nokia 520 for $60 a got the $25 per every three months plan at ten cents a minute and texting at twenty cents. Use wifi around the house and coffee shops. It was easy to from the old flip to the new Nokia. Called AT&T and told them I have the micro sim card that came with the new phone and would like to activate it and continue the pay as you go plan. No problems. I decided to put my wife and I on that plan too. Don't have those big bills anymore and for the money the phone works great. Don't need the from facing camera. For photos and videos we have them set to automactically load up to Skydrive. It has GPS that can be used offline too. Works well and gives traffic advisories. Windows phones are actually quite nice. Although it doesn't have all the apps that iphone and Android do, it has the ones we need. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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