Cell Phone plan?

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>I know this a relatively common topic in this forum, so sorry if that's irksome to anyone. </p>

<p>Anywho, to get on with it, I'm headed off to college this fall, and I've never had a cell phone. This cell phone will be my primary means of communication with family and friends back home, as we have no dorm phones, so I'll definitely be getting one, but I just don't know what route to go down. Prepaid/Pay as you go, or an actual plan? If I do AT&T, which I think I will, the actual plan would be 450 minutes a month for $40, and I could add a text messaging plan on to that (unlimited for $20/month, 1500 messages for $15/month). There's rollover minutes, so that's a plus, however, I don't know if I would even use anywhere near 450 minutes a month. The pay as you go is $.25/minute, which is only cheaper compared to the 450 plan if I use less than 160 minutes a month, not including text messages. I dunno, I think I talk way more than that, and I will continue to.</p>

<p>Now, my parents really want me to down the pre-paid/pay as you go route, because it works for them, but then again, they only use their phone for a couple of minutes at a time, and not for actual conversations. There are, however, all these fees that come with a plan, there's an actual obligation to pay monthly, and missing a payment is not fun. I will have a job, so I *should *be able to afford something like this.</p>

<p>I just don't know what to get. If I do get the pre-paid, it'll be easier to switch up to a plan if I need to, but... I dunno. I don't want to make an impulsive decision.</p>

<p>Does anyone have any suggestions? :)</p>

2

<p>I use tracfone, and it works pretty well. It's all pre-paid. You can get a phone that comes with DMFL (double minutes for life) for probably $20 or less (more if you want a nicer phone. It used to be that you had to use bonus codes to get the good deals, but now you can buy a 400 minute card (which gives you 800 total minutes with DMFL) and it comes out to be 8.3 cents per minute. You might have to pay extra at some point to extend how long you get service, but it's not that bad (I have service until 2011 just because each time you add stuff you get x number of units and something like 90 additional days of service). Each text message you send or receive counts as .3 "units" (where 1 unit is basically 1 minute of talk time).</p>

3

<p>ur about a week late. sero from sprint is dead and it was the best deal out there. $30 for unlimited data, text, night and weekend, other stuff and 500 minutes</p>

4

<p>Since prepaid has no contract you could get one of those at first to test how much you are actually talking. Then, if you find out it'd be cheaper just to go contract then sign up for one. I used to have a prepaid on Cingular several years ago and found out I barely talk on the phone. Now I'm on a family plan with my sister who talks A LOT so I'm basically an extra $10/month line on her plan. </p>

<p>You can also upgrade your plan during that 2 year contract period once a month before the next billing cycle (you have to complain more to get them to downgrade you), so I wouldn't add texting until you know how much you'll use it. Another thing with contracts are the fees/taxes they never mention until you see your first bill... that cheapest "$40/month" will be more like $50.</p>

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<p>Yeah, I know about the fees and taxes they get you with. I've seen my brother's phone bill, and honestly, that's the only thing that really scares me, other than the fact that two years is a long time.</p>

<p>I was about two seconds away from saying, yeah, tracphones are the way to go! I find one I liked, DMFL... Now I really like this phone and plan from Verizon, but I swear, I'm a commitaphobe. I don't even know if Verizon is the way to go, though, because yesterday I was all for AT&T's plan. The only thing I'll really miss is the rollover minutes. =[</p>

<p>I'm relatively certain I'll talk on the phone a lot. Enough to warrant a plan, I think. I think the basic plan is the way to go... Yeah. I hope. I think I just need to get over making a commitment, because it's something you have to do in life.</p>

<p>Anyone else have any input? :)</p>

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<p>Pay as you go has worked pretty well for me, as I don't talk on the phone too often but do text a lot. With pay-as-you-go, you can still get texting plans ($20 unlimited, $10 for 1000 texts, $5 for 200 texts). But if you talk a lot more than 160 min. a month, then I'd consider just getting an actual plan.</p>

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<p>I didn't know pay-as-you-go had texting plans. The people I knew that had it got charged .5 minutes for every text, which really sucks. I think you should do the pay as you go since it has texting plans. You can always see how much you talk and if it ends up being cheaper, you can get a real plan. If your family already has a phone plan, it might actually be cheaper to just have them add a line for you.</p>

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<p>Yeah, with pay-as-you go without a texting plan it costs $0.15 every text (painful, I know). I know that there are 2 pay-as-you go options though, there's the pay as you go 'unlimited talk," where there is a daily access fee of $1 only on days that you use your phone, and then $0.10 a minute. So that might be a better option for you</p>