Cellphones, Providers, and Plans → Cell phone for $20 for 3 months

I wonder if anyone can tell me if there is a cellphone that charges $20 every 90 days? Someone said that Virgin had a plan like that for us octogenarians who can't afford the high prices of the other cell phones.
Almost everyone I spoke to said not to get a Tracfone or LG as they are not so 'reliable.'
If this is wrong forum for this type of question, where might I post it?

Alice, I moved you over to our Cellphones, Providers, and Plans forum for some help with this.

I have the $10 pay as you go plan as my work phone number:
»www.h2owirelessnow.com/m ··· lanMin10

It's an AT&T MVNO and sold at Target and BestBuy. So far in a week worth of use (A few phone calls and texts) I am down to $28.02 for balance. This is going under the assumption that you need voice only (no data) and maybe limited text.

The other option I use every so often is T-Mobile pay as you go.

Thank you.
How do you pay? Do I have to buy a cellphone?
Do you pay $10 and then when you use that (or 90 days have past) you pay another $10?
(I would only use it for very few calls or if my home phone was not working. Very, very little texts, if at all.)

I use »www.pagepluscellular.com/plans/ .
It runs on the Verizon network, any Verizon phone.

I buy a $10 refill every 120 days for my mother. She doesn't use up the minutes, but has a phone for emergencies for less than $3/month.

For me, an $80 card, lasts ~6 months.

Double post...

Yes, you would need either an unlocked phone or one from H2O (I believe the SIM card will also work with StraightTalk/AT&T phones as well)

Basically here's the breakdown:
Old GSM phone (mine are unlocked) - Free or up to 1000$ (It sounds like you don't need a smart phone just something that will take and receive calls and a blue moon text)
$10 - Dual Sim
$30 top-up (but you can get cheaper ones from H2O direct and other retailers like Newegg)

And yes, that's exactly how it works, you have 90 days to use your $10 value and either after that or when you deplete your funds you buy another top-up card. I don't know ALL the MVNO options but I have AT&T for years and it has worked fine for me so sticking with an AT&T MVNO I know I won't run into many problems. I believe they are one of the cheapest options. T-Mobile has a differently structured plan (It seems they got rid of their 10 cent plans) where you pay $3 a month for 30 minutes of talk or 30 minutes of text

Another plug for PagePlus. I've used it for almost 5 years. It's a Verizon reseller and its in-network capability is identical fo Verizon for a tiny fraction of the price. I just put my mom on the Pay As You Go plan with an old reliable Moto RAZR V3M and a $10 payment. That $10 can last a max of 120 days (4 months, not 3). They deduct 50 cents every month as some kind of fee, leaving $8 over 4 months. At 10 cents a minute that's 80 minutes of calling, or a max of 20 minutes a month. Plenty for an emergency phone.

If you want to talk more, just add more money...

Free for those who qualify.

»www.safelinkwireless.com

Freedompop is free, 200 minutes a month, 500 texts, 500 MB of data. A phone sells for $79 for a Samsung Victory. Unlimited talk and text is $5 a month if you call customer service.

Freedom pop devices are Sprint data only; Calls and Text are all through freedom pop. Ok for text, not so good for voice.

only 911 calls are through sprint

There's also the $3.33 a month deal from H2O. You get 3 months of calling/texting and use AT&T towers and pay $10 for 90 days of usage.

No extra fees, taxes, etc. For limited usage and great nationwide coverage, I've found nothing better.

YMMV, but voice quality has been fine on 3G or LTE connections. Most of the time at work or home Freedompop uses Wi-Fi to make calls.

Do you own a Freedompop phone? I do.

Reply to yippz

"There's also the $3.33 a month deal from H2O. You get 3 months of calling/texting and use AT&T towers and pay $10 for 90 days of usage.

No extra fees, taxes, etc. For limited usage and great nationwide coverage, I've found nothing better."
----------------------------

Do I have to buy a cellphone with this $20 or $10 pay as you go?
Do unused minutes carry over?
My son gave me a cellphone to use (that he didn't use any more), but the cellphone model is quite old. Could I keep that one's phone number?
(I think all cell phones are quite expensive, right?)

Nope, unless you consider phones in the $50 range to be expensive. Here is a deal that was running at amazon a couple days ago:

»slickdeals.net/f/7536198 ··· shipping

Lumia phones are pretty update to date for what they offer. I'm not suggesting this as a phone for you but just showing that you don't have to spend several hundred dollars to get pretty decent tech specs.

Thank you.
But if I bought that I would have to sign-up with AT&T correct? And they would charge me more than $20 for 90 days, correct?
My son's cellphone is Virgin (an older one Vox 8610) and he pays $20 for 90 the same with one his daughter has - LG 800G TracFone she pays $20 for 90 days, but I don't like her's because there is a lot of static.
I'm not looking for a "great" phone but rather one that would cost me around $20 for the 90 day service. Any of those still around?

Here's another option for a cheap phone
»www.amazon.com/Nokia-Lum ··· 0E45043A

The 635 is a better phone of course but the 520 is another good option at only $30, and I think it was even cheaper a few days ago.

You can buy an AT&T GoPhone and not sign up for AT&T pre-paid plans because there's no contract associated with them. What you really want is a phone that's compatible with other (cheaper) MVNO providers.

A bit of a technical discussion that hopefully makes it more clear for you how to accomplish what you want to accomplish.

MVNO is a Mobile Virtual Network Operator and there are a number of them utilizing different "large service provider" networks (Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile). Sprint & Verizon use CDMA technology so their phones are not compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile. AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM technologies so they use a SIM chip (Subscriber Identity Module). The SIM card contains a lot of information for what network it tries to connect to and some other information.

Handsets/Phones are usually subsidy locked to a specific network (T-Mobile, AT&T, other international ones) so when you try to use a T-Mobile sim card in an AT&T phone you usually get a prompt that says "Invalid Sim", "Sim Locked", etc...So you need to unlock the phone to be usable with other providers.

To tie these two paragraphs together, those MVNO providers basically use the same SIM cards as AT&T or T-Mobile would so if you buy an AT&T locked handset, the MVNO sim cards are still accepted by the phone and do not have to be unlocked.

To get the best coverage & best deal, try to find out what network is stronger in your area, AT&T or T-Mobile if you want to use GSM or Verizon/Sprint if you want to use CDMA. Knowing that will help your frustrations with coverage & dropped calls. Just as a side note, I do not know how CDMA networks deal with phones from MVNO providers (it's a bit different on the technology end). They may not register them on the network, but I am hoping someone with more CDMA network knowledge can chime in.

But once you know what network you want, you can buy a pre-paid handset (AT&T GoPhone is quite popular) and then use it on an AT&T MVNO like StraightTalk, H2O Wireless, Cricket, etc). You'll have to get a SIM card from one of those providers and use it in the AT&T phone.

$14.88 basic feature phone at Walmart...

»www.walmart.com/ip/AT-am ··· 30040420

$25 for 90 day NO CONTRACT GoPhone plan gets you 250 minutes of talk time. Unused minutes roll over. That's about as cheap as it gets....

Take a look at Republic Wireless.
For $10.00 per month they provide for "unlimited" talk and text. They use "Sprint" as a carrier and combine a cell phone service and WiFi.
They offer data ONLY over a WiFi connection.
They offer phones from $100.00 upwards.
There is no contract you can stop any time you want.
»republicwireless.com/info/plans/

Wow, so much to think about and all so confusing for this simple mind of mine. Guess I will have to keep using my son's old Virgin 8610. Thought I could be independent and get one of my own.
BTW - The $14.88 basic feature phone at Walmart... is out of stock.

Visit your local Walmart(s). The in store stock indicators on their web site is sometimes not very accurate. They may also have other budget priced phones available...

I had Boost Mobile. I put in the minimum $10 every 3 months.

Republic Wireless is similar to how FreedomPop works; it's voip through wifi or sprint data

If you use very few minutes and have good tmobile coverage don't forget tmobile pre-paid. That comes to $9 for 90 days. That is actually $3 a month for 30 mins and/or texts.

»prepaid-phones.t-mobile. ··· s-you-go click on the "Pay as you go and daily plans" button.

We're grandfathered in though. I got messages saying that plan is no longer available. The $10 every 90 days, $0.10/min., $0.25/SMS, plan is only available to preexisting P.A.Y.G. customers who (basically) do not change anything about their plan.

Generally there will be the fewest problems when using a phone (handset) from the same network. As an example, I am a Boost Mobile customer, so my phone (which I purchased outright, happened to have been at Target) would have the least trouble transferring to another person who also wanted Boost Mobile, maybe a little trouble tranferring its use to Sprint (the underlying carrier), maybe slightly more trouble transferring its use another Sprint MVNO, and the most trouble transferring to Verizon Wireless (which uses theoretically the same technology, CDMA, but there may be other radio, configuration, and/or phone software issues which prevent it). As long as someone is a customer in good standing, I hear it is very common for carriers to unlock your phone for use on another carrier with compatible technology (either CDMA or GSM) just for the asking (and possibly a visit to one of their retail locations).

Even if you can't use an existing phone on your carrier or MVNO of choice, as others have pointed out, unless you are on the most miniscule of budgets, there are many, many handset (phone) choices for RELATIVELY little money. The advantages are that you are not locked into a contract (where you would have to pay an early termination fee if you wanted to leave before your contract is up, typically two years), and you own your handset outright instead of it being subsidized by any monthly fees. For only occasional/emergency uses (for me, A.A.A.), many of the MVNOs also offer to carry over your balance from period to period, sometimes with a small fee (e.g. Page Plus, $0.50 per month). The downside is, in order to get maximum time for your dollars, you have basically 24 hours to "top up" your balance. I wish I could pay any time and extend another 90 days. But as-is, if I pay early, I do carry over unused money and increase my balance, and extend my period by 90 days from the day I pay, effectively losing as many days as I pay early.

So every 90 days I log onto Boost Mobile's site and add the minimum $10 with my credit card. As I rarely use my phone for talk/SMS and reserve it almost exclusively emergencies, my balance is > $90 at the moment. All and all, for my use case, I think it's terrific for the money, and Page Plus's deal is almost equally as good.

There's nothing wrong with Tracfone per se, phones are cheap to buy but cost more to use than other prepaids.

I myself have used Page Plus and still have one active line with them; they were recently taken over by Tracfone's parent company, America Movil.

Will this phone be used somewhat regularly? Lycamobile is $0.02 a minute voice on T-Mobile's network.

My wife has a Tracfone that she is VERY happy with, service was activate on the Verizon network. I bought the phone, at the beginning of December, along with an annual time card on HSH for $100. Android 4.4 on a LG phone, 1500 min/year. Their monthly plans start at $10/month, good for light usage.

You have a Virgin phone. Nothing wrong with that except that device cannot be used with any other service. Also, you are on a discontinued plan requires a minimum of $20 every 90 days. Thing is: the per minute rate on that plan is an outrageous 20 cents a minute. Sprint probably set this number because they did not want to provide a pay-my-minute plan any longer.

So moving off that Virgin plan would probably save you money in the long run becaue nobody else charges that much per minute. As I mentioned, you would need a new phone for any service. Postpaid service providers with 2 year contracts will usually include a phone or a subsidized one. But then, you pay higher prices. Prepaid service providers where you have no long-term obligaion will generally not give you a phone.

If your budget is limited and do not plan on making many calls, Lycamobile (T-Mobile reseller) would probably be the least expensive since all you need now is any T-Mobile or unlocked gsm phone. For the pay-by-minute plan, there is no formal refilling requirement every X number of days. Instead, the minimum is just making a call or sending a text once every 3 months. You only need to refill when run out of credit. Minimum refill is $10.

Only concern I have of you moving off Virgin is that low usage users will have a huge balance built up with their old provider. If for instance you still have a couple hundred dollars of credit at Virgin, then you should not move until you use up or figure out what to do with that money. Once you move elsewhere, all that money is lost.

I can recommend H2O Wireless. I have my father and grandfather on the $10 plan and it's great. I just recharge it every 90 days and they're good. The leftover minutes carry over as long as you keep recharging every 90 days. The service has been excellent, just as good as our postpaid AT&T account was but much less money.