what prepaid cell phone service has the best rates and the best reception?

Answer 1

best reception is dependant on a LOT of things..to say one is better than the other can change 5 miles down the road. however, i'll go over the common prepaid services that i know of..the network they use as thier backbone...and why you should considert them.

If you're a person who uses your phone as a phone, and make a lot of calls and a few texts, then the regular services will help you..if you're an internet addict, get a prepaid Sidekick, i'll talk about that later.

Just to clarify, when i say standard prepaid..i mean you buy cards, and are charged per minute for what you use, usually with an expiration date unless you add more minutes to your phone. A premium prepaid service works similar to a contract..you pay so much a month, however, you're paying a slightly higher rate (true with all prepaid), so you don't get as many minutes...however it gives you a better deal in the prepaid arena.

Tracfone was pretty much the first prepaid cell service in the US..and to my knowledge uses Verizon, so the coverage is good..and Wal-Mart partnered with them..thier phones are EVERYWHERE...however, they aren't cheap compared to the other services.

Verizon has two types of prepaid services. Thier inPulse is similar to the traditional model and you refill your account using cards you pruchase in various locations. They charge 99cents a day access fee, regardless if you use the phone or not. This however gives you unlimited "in" calling to other Verizon wireless customers and unlimited night minutes. other calls are $.10/minute. the txt rates are ok..pretty standard among providers. now, if you talk a lot..then verizon has an easy-pay service..which works the same as most of the prepaid providers "premium" montly rates..except there's no contract or deposit. $50 for 350mintues/month..not exactly a great deal, but, it's verizon, it's got the network, however, you may need a credit card for thier EasyPay option..but inPulse doesn't.

Sprint's prepaid offering comes in the form of Virgin Mobile...and when this hit the US, i jumped on it because it was the cheapest prepaid service at the time offering calls for $.10/minute. However, they've also added a premium monthly prepaid service that offers better deals on minutes. Thier cheapest monthly is $14.99 for 100 minutes..at the $34.99 level you get 300 minutes and the additon of 1000 night/weekend minutes. At 44.99 it ups to 400 minutes with unlimited night minutes. They also have a $7 month opion where all calls are $.10/minute. Being Sprint..overages on the monthly services are similar to fair and flexable and are $.18/minute billed at $4.50 increments (meaning if you go a minute over, you'll get charged $4.50 and get a block of minutes at 18 cents a minute. Thier standard pre-paid is 18 cents a minute and 10 cents per text. you can buy texts in bulk of 1000 messages for $9.99/month. Unlike some of the other premium services that require credit cards, this one doesn't. It's actually one of the best prepaid services out there because of the fact it's rather easy to use.

Nextel offers prepaid through Boost Mobile. This one also ranks high on my list because when I had them, they offered a decent service at a good price, and added a premium prepaid service a few months ago which started out requiring a credit card..but they've now allowed people to pay for it using the refill cards, so, it's a good option. Boost's cheapest premium at $30/month gives you no minutes, but locks the rate in at $.10/minute, but gives you unlimited walkie-talkie with other boost/nextel customers. the $50/month option gives you 300 minutes and $70/month gives you 600 minutes with unlimited night/weekends. an extra $10/month gives you unlimited texting and unlimited mobile web. Thier standard service is 20 cents a minute during the day, 10 cents at night, 35 cents a day for mobile web and the standard 10 cents to send a text message.

AT&T, which is now Cingular, started the premium montly prepaid with the GoPhone. Yes, I had one of these too. Spend enough, get free nights and such. I didn't keep it very long because i kept using AIM too much. Since I'm looking at their standard pay-as-you-go rates first..they run $.25/minute, all the time. no night deals, nothing. If you want to chip in a dollar a day you can get unlimited mobile to mobile..unlike verizon, they only charge you the days you actually use your phone. Now, thier monthly prepaid requires a credit card, but does offer deals CLOSER to contracts..200 mintues for $39.99/month...300 for 39.99..you get the deal. once you hit 49.99 you get night/weekend minutes and at $69.99, you get unlimtiued mobile to mobile. the overage amount decreases as your plans gets more expensive. texting is the usual 10 cents to send and they offer several options for it.

the last service, Tmobile....they don't offer a monthly premium service, and are the only other, aside tracfone, that still uses stictly a pre-paid minutes system. refill cards are sold in values of $10, $25, $50 and $100. $10 gives you 30 minutes, $25 130, $50 400 minutes..now, with thier $100 card...there's this magic called Instant Gold. With tmobile, once you've added $100 of prepaid funds (i don't beleive it has to be all at once) you reach gold status..meaning your minutes won't expire for a full year and, you get extra minutes. a $100 card gives you 1000 minutes because it's instant gold. The other cards give you extra mintues as well...up to an extra 60 with the $50 card. Now, I personally wouldn't reccommend this for people because my expierence the converage is among the worse..I know..because I have it. However, I don't actually call people, I'm more of a texting/IM/email/web addict..so I picked up a prepaid Sidekick, which while I pay a flat $.15/minute for calls....the data is absolutely unlimited at $1/day (web, email, im, sms, and yes, photos)...that's the only reason i can reccommend getting tmobile.

amp'd is new provider that just started offering both premium prepaid (they call it hybrid) and pay as you go options. thier hybrid plans start at $30/month for 500 anytime minutes ..1000 for $50...and so on, they require a credit card. thier prepaid service runs $10/minute, mentions a monthly rate, but doesn't mention if it requires a credit card or not...i've not seen any amp'd prepaid cards..and thier website isn't too informative...i also don't know what network they're using as a backone..but i imagine it's either Sprint's EV-DO or Verion's broadband.
To keep it simple (too late)...your best bet would be between Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile if you go with the montly option...they don't require cards and are actually fairly reasonable . But, if you don't really need the walkie-talkie, I'd go with Virgin.

hope that helps. sorry it was long.

Answer 2

2

Answer 3

Verizon Wireless

Answer 4

here is just the website you need!

http://www.cellguru.net/

I got Tracfone and Virgin Mobile, and I like both!