AT&T
Prepaid Wireless vs. Monthly Contract
TracFone Prepaid Cell
Phone Special Offers! 
AT&T Prepaid Cell Phone Special Offers!
Most wireless service providers lock you into
a fixed monthly rate that buys you a certain number of airtime minutes
and other extra features that you add on. After you pass a credit
check, you sign a contract committing yourself to the service for
a certain period of time -- usually from 11 months to 3 years. The
carriers, in return, offer free or steeply discounted phones and
accessories when you sign up.
If you decide to cancel service, it will cost you! Most cellular
providers have an early termination penalty. This can range from
a flat fee to a charge per month remaining on your cellular contract.
Also, if you break your contract, some carriers even make you give
the phone back. Some consumer electronics stores levy their own
early cancellation fine! It is a good idea to check into whether
or not you can get a trial period of service to test out a plan.
This gives you a limited window of opportunity to cancel service
without any penalty if you find out that a provider just doesn't
meet your needs. Otherwise, you'll have to wait until your cellular
contract is up to get a new deal from a different provider. There
are also month-to-month plans (with no annual contract) that allow
you to change the number of minutes and other provisions.
Pre-paid wireless is one convenient alternative
to long-term contracts. Like pre-paid phone cards, these plans let
you buy a chunk of airtime that you can draw from until it runs
out. You can buy service in $25, $50 and $100 blocks. Until recently,
carriers offered these cellular plans with little fanfare to those
who didn't meet their credit requirements. The wireless plans proved
popular with some cellphone users who want to keep a close watch
on their cell-phone expenses, however, and now are more widely available.
These plans have a number of benefits including:
• No monthly fee
• No long-term commitment
• No credit check required to
sign up for service
• No deposit to start service
• Features such as caller ID,
three-way calling, call forwarding and the wireless Web are available
from some carriers. (There is a per-minute fee that is subtracted
from your account balance if you use these extras.)
There is also a downside to choosing some pre-paid plans. First,
you usually buy the phone without any special discount. The retail
price for a cell phone can top $50, depending on the features included.
Some other disadvantages are:
• You pay more per minute.
• If you don't use the phone for
an extended period of time, you lose the money in your account.
• You can't make collect calls,
third-party billed calls, and calls to 500, 700, 855, 900 and 976
numbers.
If you're trying to stick to a budget, you should know that only
some monthly and pre-paid plans may have "hidden" charges.
With a monthly plan, these extras are added to your monthly bill,
but with a pre-paid plan, they are simply subtracted from your account
balance. Examples of these are:
• One-time fee activation fee
charged to program the MIN and SID codes into the phone.
• Directory assistance costs up
to 99 cents per call
• Per-minute fee charged by land-based
phone companies for terminating calls from cellular phones to regular
phones (3 to 16 cents per minute). This fee is in addition to what
you've already shelled out for your on-air minutes!
• Federal, state, and local taxes
and other fees charged for monthly service.
Get a TracFone Prepaid
Wireless Phone Today!
Get a Cricket Prepaid Cell Phone Today!
Get a AT&T
Prepaid Phone Today!
More pre-paid wireless resources
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