Mohammed Smith's Cell Phone Review

If you are purchasing for a prepaid cell phone plan, the tremendous assortment of plans could be completely confusing. Prepaid cellular phones offer a few obvious benefits over traditional contract programs. Prepaid wireless plans don’t require credit checks, you do not need to sign a contract, plus they are be significantly cheaper than standard cell phone plans. Unfortunately, because just about every prepaid cell phone company structures its rates in a different way, looking at prepaid cell phone plans is difficult.

When reviewing prepaid cellphones you will need to look at 1 thing - the service period. The service period is the time period that the minutes you buy are useable. Your minutes end at the end of the activation period.

If you take a step back from the particulars of these plans and look at the big picture, you are going to find that all prepaid cell phone plans fall into either of several general groups: Pay As You Go plans, or Monthly plans. Pay as you go plans have varying activation periods, while monthly plans end after a 30 day time period. Whenever you read through the review articles of prepaid mobile phone plans keep these 2 rate structures in mind.

Pay As You Go
Pay as you go plans offer you varying service periods. These could be the most flexible type plans, however unfortunately pay as you go plans might also be the most confusing for consumers. The basic principle is that a person purchase a phone card and you get to utilize the airtime for the amount of time associated to that card. The average activation period is 3 months, but it is possible to buy cards which have much more or less time. Minutes expire at the end of the activation period. If you use up the minutes before the activation period ends, you can just buy more minutes and your service period begins again. Many providers provide longer service periods if you purchase a large number of minutes.

The standard activation period is Ninety days, but quite a few companies provide more or even less time periods. Many companies offer you activation periods of THIRTY, SIXTY, NINETY or 180 days. A couple of companies even offer a daily plan, while a couple of companies provide a annual activation period. TracFone provides a separate card (without any minutes attached) designed to extend your service period out one entire year.

Monthly
This can be the easiest of choices. With monthly plans your minutes run out at the end of Thirty days. You purchase a set quantity of minutes and they expire Thirty days from the moment you activate them. Of course you’re not locked into that 30 day period. If you use up your airtime before the time period, simply charge your cell phone with an additional card. For instance, if you purchased a monthly card that had A THOUSAND minutes, yet you used those minutes up in 20 days, just simply purchase another card and charge your cell phone with those minutes. Your Thirty day service period resets when you charge your balance with the fresh card.

Just like the pay as you go plans, you can buy minutes in varying quantities. Plans are typically offered in TWO HUNDRED, 500, and 1000 minute selections. A good number of providers also offer an unlimited monthly plan which typically provides you with unlimited text, unlimited talk, and unlimited web access. These kinds of unlimited plans are considerably cheaper in comparison with a contract plan.

The Bottom Line
Whether you select a pay as you go choice or a monthly plan, prepaid cellphones give you the versatility to tailor you cell phone budget to the quantity of minutes you use. You can increase or decrease the amount of minutes you buy according to the number of minutes you actually use.

So just what are the advantages of a pay as you go plan vs. a monthly plan? Each of those types of plans provide varying amounts of minutes from SIXTY up to FIFTEEN HUNDRED minutes. The major difference though is the time element - the activation period. Monthly plans have a One month activation period while pay as you go plans have service periods anywhere from THIRTY to 365 days. So, understanding that, listed below are the benefits of each kind of plan:

• Pay As You Go. If you are an infrequent cellphone user, you can use the extended service periods of pay as you go plans to your benefit. Pay as you go plans make sense for people that use their mobile phones occasionally. When you require a cellphone for emergency use only, or if you go very long periods of time without using your cellphone, say a month or more, then pay as you go plans might make sense for you. By using a longer activation period, you’ll be able to keep your mobile phone activated between the times that you make use of it. You could theoretically use a monthly plan for the same purpose, but many cellphone companies will drop your phone number if you don’t keep your phone activated.
• Monthly. If you use your mobile phone regularly month in and month out, then select a monthly plan. Even if you just use a small amount of minutes a month, if you are sure you’re likely to use your cell phone, opt for the monthly plan. Monthly plans are generally offered in varying minute bundles and that means you can easily tailor your budget to your usage. In addition, if you use a LOT of minutes every month, then you’ll want to go with an unlimited monthly plan. The unlimited plans offered by prepaid cell phone companies are substantially cheaper than nearly every contract plan.

For more on prepaid cell phones, check out www.prepaidphonepro.com/