Now that we’ve already discussed the Pay as You Go Plan, let’s talk about T-Mobile’s unlimited talk/text plan.

There are two unlimited prepaid plans for T-Mobile. One plan is truly an unlimited plan while the other one is a type of an unlimited prepaid hybrid.

For $50 you can purchase unlimited talk time, text message and pictures/video messaging. There’s no need to pay another dime after spending your $50.

If you don’t want to spend $50 a month, you can purchase the $15 option. With the $15 prepaid plan you get unlimited text messaging, picture and video messaging but you must pay $.10 a minute on all domestic calls.

The $15 a month plan sounds like the perfect solution for anyone who has a teenager. Teenagers spend more time texting, video messaging and picture messaging more than talking. Why pay $50 a month when $15 a month would satisfy their requirements.

All T-Mobile Phones

As mentioned in the earlier post, all T-Mobile prepaid plans come with nationwide long distance, no roaming, voicemail, caller ID, call waiting and three-way calling. If you’re not one who wants to count pennies and calculate available air time, the T-Mobile Unlimited plan is the way to go.

Limited Time Offer: If you hurry and activate your T-Mobile phone prior to 9/28/10, you get a $10 discount for the first three months. It’s a limited time offer so hopefully you’re reading this prior to September 28th (here’s some of the fine print).

We talked about the T-Mobile coverage area and the phones in the last post.  Now it’s time to talk about the Pay as You Go prepaid plan.

According to their website, the Pay as You Go prepaid plan touts rates as low as 10 cents per minute. That’s true as long as you purchase the $100 airtime refill which will give you 1,000 minutes (thus 10 cents a minute). However, if you buy a T-Mobile refill of a smaller denomination, your per minute rate goes up. Here’s what they offer in refills:

* Rates rounded up to the nearest penny

T-Mobile Gold Rewards Program

The T-Mobile Pay as You Go prepaid plan offers what they call Gold Rewards. With Gold Rewards you receive 15% more airtime minutes on all refills. To Gold Reward status kicks in after you purchase $100 in refills.

The real perk with Gold Rewards is that your airtime that would normally expire in 90 days doesn’t expire for a year. Therefore, the Gold Rewards per minute airtime cost looks something like this:

* Rates rounded up to the nearest penny

The $15 refill isn’t offered in the Gold Reward program (at least it wasn’t mentioned on the T-Mobile site). From what I can see, it doesn’t make sense to purchase the $15 refill anyway.   The more time you buy, your rate should be cheaper, not remain the same.

It appears that the 15% more air time does not apply for the $100 refill card option.

T-Mobile Text Messaging Rates

It will cost you 10 cents to send and 5 cents to receive text message in the US and Canada and .35 to send and .05 to receive anywhere else. If you send and receive picture and video messages that costs 25 cents to send and receive.

Activating the T-Mobile Phone

You must activate the phone online. When you activate it you get to select your Pay as You Go prepaid plan, insert your basic info, SIM card number, phone serial number and select your pin. Once you activate your phone you’re good to go. The phone comes preloaded with airtime but you’ll need to purchase more.

Where to Purchase Airtime

There are a host of locations from which you can purchase airtime refills for your T-Mobile prepaid phone. There is a location finder search option on the T-Mobile site.

If you don’t want to physically go to a location to purchase airtime, you can buy additional time using the phone itself by dialing *ADD (or visiting t-zones/web2go from your T-Mobile phone). Go to “My Account” and then choose “Refill.”

Pay by The Day Option

While we’re still discussing the Pay as You Go prepaid cell phone plan, it’s a good time to mention that T-Mobile also has a Pay by the Day plan. For this plan you pay $1 a day for each day you use the phone. You can make unlimited T-Mobile to T-Mobile calls, but all other domestic calls costs 10 cents per minute.

Next: The Unlimited Talk Plan

I can’t believe I didn’t do a review on the T-Mobile prepaid cell phone plan.

T-Mobile offers two different types of prepaid plans. They have the Unlimited prepaid plan or the Pay-as-You-Go plan.

Before we discuss the plans and the difference between the two I think is important to find out about the coverage area. I found all too often that I get excited about a prepaid plan, like the features, the phones and the calling rates but the minute I look at the coverage area I find out that the plan doesn’t cover my area. I’ve since learned the hard way review the cell phone coverage area before I go any further.

Calling Coverage Area

So first things first, here’s the T-Mobile calling coverage area.

T-Mobile Area Coverage Map

Don’t let the green fool you. Visit their site, insert your zip code to see if you live in an area where you can get good reception. T-Mobile’s coverage search will display a map of your local area shaded in various degrees of green. Dark green means excellent light green means moderate. If you find that your area is gray or white opt for another prepaid cell phone service because you’ll have a difficult time finding a signal.

After searching the T-Mobile voice coverage, click on the data coverage tab to find out if you could surf the Web from your phone. Similar to the voice map you’ll find a map with various shades of purple; the darker the purple the faster the mobile web.

T-Mobile Prepaid Cell Phones

Confirming that there’s coverage in my area, I decided to check out the phones. I’m not sure if T-Mobile displays available phones based on zip code because some prepaid cell phone providers only offer certain model phones in certain areas so the information that I am sharing next may be for my local area only. That being said, when I click to review their phone selection I found that they offer a collection of 5 phones manufactured by Nokia, Samsung and T-Mobile

T-Mobiles cell phones ranged in price from $19.99 for the Nokia 1661 (that includes an instant discount of $30) to $119.99 for the T-Mobile Tap (which also included a $30 instant discount).

Features ranged from Bluetooth technology, camera phones, speaker phones and more. One thing I did note is that these phones were not designed with seniors in mind. The number pads and screens were pretty small, except for the T-Mobile Tap which has a nice sized screen.

Selecting the T-Mobile Prepaid Cell Phone Plan

Now that we know T-Mobile provides coverage in the area and I’ve selected my phone, its time to take a look at how much service will cost. I’ll start with the T-Mobile Pay As You Go Plan.

Next: T-Mobile Pay as You Go Plan

This site generally reviews American prepaid cell phone plans, but I came across 7-Eleven’s SpeakOut plan and thought it was worth a look see.

The SpeakOut plan is 7-Eleven’s prepaid cell phone service. It’s really pretty simple. All you have to do is walk into any 7-Eleven store, buy a SpeakOut phone and start talking. Each phone comes with 20 minutes of airtime. It really doesn’t get any easier than that.

Here are a few of the particulars

SpeakOut Coverage Area

Currently the phones are only available for purchase in BC, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario. Before even purchasing the phone, spend a little time reviewing the coverage area. According to the coverage map on their website “Actual coverage area may differ substantially from map graphics…” so you might want to contact them to find out if there is coverage in your calling area.

SpeakOut Coverage Map

Available Prepaid Cell Phones

The Phone selections are limited. You get to choose one of three Nokia phones. The prices are $59 for the Nokia 1661, $99 for the Eclipse Nokia 2720 flip phone and $119 for the Jamma Nokia 5130.

All three phones have the speakerphone and FM radio feature. The Eclipse and Jamma have cameras and are blue tooth and data capable, but only the Nokia Jamma 5130 has an MP3 player. If you’re looking for basic phone service, the $59 option is a good deal.

7-Eleven SpeakOut Calling Rates

One unique quality with the SpeakOut phone is once you purchase airtime, it doesn’t expire for a full 365 days. I wish more prepaid cell phone service providers would offer such a feature. SpeakOut truly allows its users to buy time and use it only when they need it instead of having to buy more time every 30 or 60 days just to maintain service.

Airtime is purchased in $25 increments maxing out at $100. Each $25 gets 100 airtime minutes. So $25 gets 100 minutes, $50, 200 and so on up to 400 minutes for $100.
The rate per minute is 25 cents.

Text Messaging Costs

Here’s another nice perk. Incoming text messages are free. Its good to know you’re not penalized because of telemarketers (or should I say text-a-marketers). Outgoing text messages are 10 cents per message unless you purchase the $10/month bundle which gives you 2,500 outgoing text messages. Unlike airtime, the text messaging bundle expires 30 days after activation.

Web Browsing on Nokia Phones

Another great feature is the unlimited browsing or $10 a month. Keep in mind you can only browse the web if you selected the Nokia Eclipse or Jamma. Nokia 1661 is not web enabled.

SpeakOut Free Features

The phones all come equipped with voice mail, caller ID, call waiting, three-way calling and as mentioned above, free incoming text messages. You should be aware, however, that regular airtime rates apply when accessing voice mail or three-way calling.

The Downside to 7-Eleven’s SpeakOut Plan

All in all, I think the SpeakOut plan has a lot to offer. I’m just surprised that in the current technological internet age the plan does not allow you to purchase additional airtime online. You must go into a 7-Eleven to buy additional airtime.

My other concern is the rate of 25 cents per minute seems a bit high. I recently did a review on PlatinumTel and they charge 5 cents per minute while Net10’s prepaid plan charges 10 cents. Maybe it is the US/Canada differential, but 25 cents per minute seems a little steep.

Aside from those two concerns, the SpeakOut plan seems like a keeper (if you don’t mind spending 25 cents a minute).

Real PayGo

This is a typical pay as you go plan. 5 cents per minute, 2 cents text messaging (both in and outgoing), 10 cents per megabyte for web services and picture messaging. It includes long distance and air time carries over for a year (we discussed this yesterday).

Additional Costs: $1.49 for directory assistance (411) and 50 cents a month in fees (the Feds have to get their portion of the action).

The Real PayGo plan is pretty straight forward. It will cost you anywhere from $10 to $100 to purchase air time and it’s good from 90 to 365 days depending on the amount purchased (also discussed yesterday).

PlatinumTel Hybrid Plan

The tag line on their website for this plan is “Hybrid, the not a heavy talker during the day plan.” So, you guessed it, if you make/receive most of your calls at night, this might be the one for you. Here are the particulars:

You can purchase a monthly or bi-monthly plan. The monthly plan seems to be more cost effective for nocturnal heavy hitters. Here’s the breakdown of cost and charges:

The unlimited nights and weekend plan starts at 9:00 PM. If you make a week day call it will cost you 10 cents per minute and 1 anytime minute to send a text message outside of the $5 or $10 bundle. As with the Real PayGo plan, long distance is included, directory assistance is $1.49 but the Feds get a larger chunk in fees. The monthly Federal and Number Portability fee is $1.95 a month.

You can carry your minutes over for 90 days and if you access the web out of the bundle it will cost you 30 cents per megabyte and 10 cents per picture message.

PlatinumTel Unlimited

The tag line for the Unlimited plan is “Unlimited the talker, texter, surfer all the time plan” and is advertised for $50 a month.

If you are a big user then this seems like the way to go. Here’s the plan in a nutshell:

Some fine print to be aware of: If you purchase the $50 option, you get unlimited talk and $60 airtime. (not sure why you need airtime if you get unlimited talk/text), but you are also charged $2 per day to talk and text. So, if you’re a heavy user and talk/text daily, on top of your $50 you are charged $2 a day. I’m not quite clear if the $2 is deducted from the $60 air time or whether it’s an additional charge.

Long distance, texting and roaming are all included. 411 Directory assistance is still $1.49 per call web/picture messaging is about 51 cents per MB if you don’t purchase the add-on and picture messaging is 10 cents per message.

The website is silent regarding the Feds. They don’t seem to list the Federal and Numbers Portability Fee for the unlimited plan.

If You Don’t Know…Ask PlatinumTel

Since I was a little confused on a couple of the particulars, I shot them an email to see if they could clear up my questions. I’ve got to say, they responded quickly and put my fears to rest.

Here are my PlatinumTel Questions:

I’m a little confused about the unlimited plan. Is the $2 per day included in the $60 air time or is it billed in addition to the airtime? Additionally, what is the charge for the Federal and Number Portability Fee for the unlimited plan? I couldn’t find it on the site.

PlatinumTel Prompt Response:

Thank you for choosing PlatinumTel. When you load $50 Unlimited you receive $60 worth of airtime, each day the $2 daily fee is deducted from that balance. So if you divide 60 by 2 it equal 30 (days). There is no other fee on the Unlimited plan for Federal. If you are calling 411 or 0 (operator assistance) it will deduct $1.49 from airtime (days). If you need to contact information you can call 1-800-FREE-411 and that call will not deduct from airtime (days). If you are calling party/chat lines, International, and are accepting charges for downloads that is additional and will deduct from airtime (days). Also keep in mind that only the $10 data card offers Unlimited web browsing for 30 days and the $50 Unlimited comes with 100 mega bytes. If there is no data card or mega bytes on the account, the charge to browse the web is 1 penny every 20 kilo bytes. Have a great day.

PlatinumTel Bottom Line

PlatinumTel doesn’t appear to be available in my area, but I do like the fact that they responded very quickly to my query. It’s nice to know that help is readily accessible.  Quality customer service seems to be a lost art.

Here’s a new prepaid cell phone provider that I had never heard of before. It’s called PlatinumTel. According to their website they have the cheapest pay-as-you-go plan anywhere.

PlatinumTel Rates

Texting: 2 cents per SMS
Picture messaging: 10 cents per message
Talk: 5 cents per minute including long distance any time all the time (although roaming is billed separately)
Web browsing, 10 cents per megabyte

Buying Air Time for Platinum Tel

As with all prepaid cell phone plans you have to buy airtime in order to keep talking. According to their website the units of time can be purchased as follows:

$10 90 days of service
$20 90 days of service
$30 180 days of service
$50 180 days
$100 365 days

With Platinum Tel phones you can carry airtime over for up to a year from the date it is activated (loaded) on your phone. I guess if I spend $10 and get 90 days of service and don’t use all of my talk time, my airtime is carried over for a year. From a practical standpoint I probably won’t be able to use the phone because the 90 days have expired, but I do at least retain my phone number for the year. I guess 365 days is enough time for me to muster up $10 to buy 90 more days of air time so that I could talk.

Platinum Tel Service Area

From their current map (as of Aug, 2010) it looks as though the eastern half of the US is well covered with more and more locations becoming available along the west. It’s best to insert your own address to see if coverage is offered in your area.

Available Cell Phone Selection

Currently Platinum Tell offers 8 different pre paid cell phones ranging in price from $24.99 to $149.99. The most expensive LG Rumor 2 has a sliding QWERTY keyboard while the least expensive LG LX145 is a flip phone. As far as cell phones go, you’ll probably find one that you’ll like.

Now that we have all of the basics out of the way, the most important aspect of purchasing pre paid cell phones are the available plans. Platinum Tel has 3 plans, Real Paygo, Hybrid and Unlimited Text & Talk.

Next: Reviewing the 3 Plans

Okay, the title is a little peppery, but that’s what they’re referred to. Have you ever placed your cell phone in your back pocket, sat down and found that your rear end placed a butt call? My daughter’s posterior had an uncanny habit of making butt calls until she figured out how to prevent them.

Oh, this also works for preventing friends from seeing your phone when you really don’t want them to see what’s on your phone (in the old days we would just say “No”).

If you have the Verizon prepaid cell phone service and want to stop your body parts or your hand bag ore anything else from making unwanted calls (or you don’t want your friends to see personal information on your phone), here’s a quick way to lock your phone:

Phone: Samsung Intensity

Go to Menu and press Settings and Tools. From Settings and Tools select Phone Settings. From there you select Security (which by default is the last 4 digits of your phone number). Enter the security numbers and select Lock Phone Now.

If you have followed the directions correctly, you’ll need your security code to unlock your phone.

If you don’t want to go through reading all of the above directions, just go to the Menu and type in 9, 6, 9 and enter your 4 digit code and press 4. That’s the quick way to lock your phone.

Answering a Locked Phone

Not to worry, you can still answer incoming phone calls if your phone is locked. You can also make outgoing calls, but the caveat is that you must manually dial the number. When the phone is locked, you are prevented from scrolling through your contact list to auto dial the number.

Changing Your 4-Digit Security Code

If you want to change your security code, follow the above directions until you get to the Security option. Once at the Security menu select Edit Codes and then select Phone Only.

Enter your new 4-digit code and press Set. You must remember your 4-digit code, because if you forget it your phone is permanently locked.
Go back to Security put in code

Locking a Verizon LG env2.

You can lock it the quick way by going to Menu then press 9, 6, 6, enter your security number and then press 4. Or, you can go do it the long way by going to Menu, Settings & Tools, Phone Settings, Security, enter our number and then press Lock Phone Now.

Since my cell phone is off more than it is on, I see no need to lock it, but if you get tired of people calling you saying “Why did you call me and not say anything?” You might need to lock your phone because your body parts are using your phone when you’re not looking.

(This is the second of a two part overview of Cricket PAYGo prepaid cell phones. If you missed the first part, you can read it here: Cricket PAYGo Prepaid Cell Phone Plan )

Anytime you use your Cricket PAYGo phone for making/answering a call, sending a text message, checking voice mail, browsing mobile web or calling 411 you initiate your daily charge. Once the daily charge is initiated you have until 12:00 AM Pacific time to use the phone for the day. Once you go beyond 12:00 AM another day’s charge is initiated.

Therefore, if you get a lot of wrong numbers or solicitations, you should utilize the caller ID feature before answering the phone. Answering a wrong number will initiate your daily charge.

There’s no charge for calling Cricket Customer care or for adding time to your PAYGo plan.

Adding Air Time to Cricket PAYGo

Cricket uses the cute phrase “Top-up” to add air time. As with most prepaid cell phone services, Cricket requires you to purchase time to extend your service. The one thing that is convenient with them is that the top-up increments are as small as any whole dollar amount you can afford and up. For example, if you are about to run out of air time and you only have $5 to spare, you can top-up your account for $5. How long that $5 extends your service time depends on your current balance and how much service time you had remaining.

It’s convenient for folks who want to bridge the service between their expiration date and their next paycheck. After all, if service is about to expire on Wednesday and you get paid on Friday, adding $3 to your PAYGo will keep it going until payday. At that time you can add $15 or more if you wish.

If you add less than $15 your service is extended one day for each dollar so $3 will buy you three days of service. However, if you buy more time coverage is extended longer.

$15 to $29.99 will extend your PAYGo service by 30 days and $30 or more will extend it for 60 days. If you let your account expire you lose not only phone service but any funds you had on the account. If you don’t top-up within 60 days you’ll lose your phone number and your account will be canceled.

How to Top-Up

You can purchase a Cricket top-up card from participating locations. After purchasing the card you follow the instructions on the card to add additional time. Or, you can add time via your Cricket phone. Use *PAY (*729). Dial *PAY and follow the instructions.

You can also go to a PAYGo location and add time by using a credit/debit card or cash.  Unfortunately, as of this writing, Cricket doesn’t provide online top-up access for PAYGo accounts.

Cricket wireless is another provider that offers both contract and pre-paid cell phone plans. Their prepaid plan is called Cricket PAYGo. They offer three plans, Basic, More and All plans.

The difference in pricing is $1 a day. The Basic costs $1/day, More $2/day and All $3/day. This could prove to be costly if you have the All plan and use it daily.

With phones ranging in price from $19.99 for the Samsung Stunt to $129.99  forthe Samsung Messager II, there are quite a few phones to choose from. There are the basic models such as the Samsung Stunt, Samsung R211 to the more robust Cricket TXTM8, Samsung Messager and Cricket MSGM8 which sport a full QWERTY keyboard. It looks like Cricket has a prepaid model to suit all types of cell phone usage.

What Cricket PAYGo Plans Offer

They each plan offers unlimited local talk time and unlimited incoming text messages which is a good thing, but see the chart below for additional charges:

Cricket wireless offers additional free services/features such as voice mail, caller ID, call waiting and three-way calling. Although these are considered features, now a days it’s a standard feature on just about all cell phones (pre-paid or contract).

Other features such as mobile web and directory assistance are included in the All plan but Basic and More plans must pay an additional 25 cents per day for mobile web and $1 per use for directory assistance.

Cricket Wireless Coverage Map

Areas in dark green indicate Nationwide Talk & Text Coverages
Light Green indicates roaming

Keep in mind that although the map shows green coverage areas, that does not mean Cricket offers service in those areas. For example, I inserted my zip code in the coverage area map page and was told “We currently do not offer service in your area. Sign up to get notified as soon as Cricket service becomes available in this zip code” even though I’m located in a dark green area.

Next: Cricket PAYGo charges and how they work

Often times senior citizens or individuals who wear hearing aids are plagued with static and/or interference when talking on a prepaid cell phone (or any cell phone for that matter). If you or someone you love has a hearing aid and is looking to purchase a pre-paid cell phone that operates compatibly with a hearing aid, check out a few of the phones offered by TracFone.

TracFone Hearing Aid Compatible Models

TracFone offers a variety of pre-paid cell phones that are hearing aid compatible. Below is a listing of their currently available prepaid hearing ad compatible phones:

• Motorola W260g
• Motorola W376g
• Samsung T301G
• Samsung T155G
• LG 410G
• LG100C
• LG200C
• LG220C
• LG290C
• LG600G
• LG420G
• Kyocera K126C

Which Tracfone Phone to Choose?

Although the prices and features on each phone vary, Tracfone’s LG200C (has the highest hearing aid compatibility rating) and the Kyocera K126C (which follows right behind the LG200C in ratings) may provide the best sound for senior citizens or individuals with hearing aids.

The LG200C is a flip phone while Kyocera’s K126C is a more basic non-flip model.  If these two phones don’t fit your calling style, check out the rest of the phones listed.  There’s no reason why you can’t find the right phone to match your cell phone usage just because of a hearing aid.

Unfortunately, not all models are available in all calling areas. Visit the Tracfone website (www.tracfone.com) to see if the phone is available in your calling area.