Cheap cellular service w/o contract - incoming free

jongasse · Post by **jongasse** » Thu Jan 06, 2011 4:05 pm

I am on the look out for some cellular service with good coverage in LA and OC that can give me incoming free for less than $15/mo.

I would prefer prepaid plans and certainly no contracts.

It is OK if the provider restricts me to incoming free only for their network (like Sprint to Sprint free), but the fixed cost per moth needs to be less than $15.

Ideas?

davrow · Post by **davrow** » Thu Jan 06, 2011 6:35 pm

I've never heard of such an offering from any cellular service.

Please let us know if you find something even close to what you are looking for.

(edit to add: I can find plenty of plans with free incoming - for 40-50 per month, just nothing for 15.)

jongasse · Post by **jongasse** » Thu Jan 06, 2011 6:44 pm

Hmm.. any ideas about "Pay on the go" plans that charge $1 or less per day of use?

davrow · Post by **davrow** » Thu Jan 06, 2011 6:54 pm

It comes down to how many minutes you use monthly. I googled on "cell phone free incoming" and found a couple sites that compare PAYG cell plans.

My wife and I have cell phones only for emergencies. We use about 5 minutes a month. She is on Virgin Mobile, $20 for 3 months. I have an old (no longer available) no monthly fee plan from Sprint PCS that costs 35 cents per minute only when used.

Good luck!

jongasse · Post by **jongasse** » Thu Jan 06, 2011 7:22 pm

I would be getting ~500 mins of incoming calls a month and almost 0 min outgoing calls.

Is there any possibility of free incoming calls on the $20/3 mo plan?

Darkman90808 · Post by **Darkman90808** » Thu Jan 06, 2011 8:10 pm

Get a Google Voice number and have yourself added to someone's account with Friends and Family. An additional account with Verizon Wireless is $9.99/month. So, my wife and daughter are on my account at $9.99 each, plus tax, license, and dealer prep.

Although, if you have to get married to add yourself to someone's account, it's going to cost you more than $15/month. A lot more!

jongasse · Post by **jongasse** » Thu Jan 06, 2011 8:18 pm

Darkman90808 wrote:Get a Google Voice number and have yourself added to someone's account with Friends and Family. An additional account with Verizon Wireless is $9.99/month. So, my wife and daughter are on my account at $9.99 each, plus tax, license, and dealer prep.

Adding a line is OK in the scheme of things.

How mush does the main line cost?

Is it on a contract?

Darkman90808 wrote: Although, if you have to get married to add yourself to someone's account, it's going to cost you more than $15/month. A lot more!

crackerjack · Post by **crackerjack** » Thu Jan 06, 2011 9:15 pm

See if alltel is available in your area. They have a plan for .75/day which includes 1 'fave' and unlimited text. Point your GV number as a 'fave' and all calls to or from that number are free. .10/minute for other calls
YMMV if you are not in an area serviced by Alltel

jongasse · Post by **jongasse** » Thu Jan 06, 2011 10:38 pm

Alltel or US Cellular do not provide service in the regions I need.

Can you give me a zip code where I can check out their plans?

However, you are bang on target about what I am looking for though.

cell14 · Post by **cell14** » Thu Jan 06, 2011 11:57 pm

See if alltel is available in your area. They have a plan for .75/day which includes 1 'fave' and unlimited text. Point your GV number as a 'fave' and all calls to or from that number are free. .10/minute for other calls
YMMV if you are not in an area serviced by Alltel

The old Alltel does not exist any more. Most of it was bulldozed by Verizon, some of it is in process of being assimilated by AT&Tea and a small remnant by ATN which will operate under the old Alltel name.
BTW my second cell is a former Alltel prepaid, now unfortunately Verizon, but still on the great Alltel plan and you did not have to live in an area with their service, just to buy it there.

jongasse · Post by **jongasse** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 12:22 am

cell14 wrote: BTW my second cell is a former Alltel prepaid, now unfortunately Verizon, but still on the great Alltel plan and you did not have to live in an area with their service, just to buy it there.

Will I get coverage if I buy an Alltel prepaid card in a region where they say they do not support?

Can you give me a zip code where I can check out their plans?

grm · Post by **grm** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 1:58 am

Check out Straight Talk, cheapest is $30 a month 1000 min talk 1000 text the use Verizon and AT&t service I also like Net10 but my favorite is ST. I know this is not in your price range but might be the only source.

jongasse · Post by **jongasse** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 2:12 am

grm wrote:Check out Straight Talk, cheapest is $30 a month 1000 min talk 1000 text the use Verizon and AT&t service I also like Net10 but my favorite is ST. I know this is not in your price range but might be the only source.

Would they allow me to use an unlocked GSM phone that I already have?

Would they require me to buy a phone from them before I can use their service?

crackerjack · Post by **crackerjack** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 10:11 am

jongasse wrote:Alltel or US Cellular do not provide service in the regions I need.

Can you give me a zip code where I can check out their plans?

However, you are bang on target about what I am looking for though.

try the alltel forums at howardforums.com

cell14 · Post by **cell14** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 11:33 am

Will I get coverage if I buy an Alltel prepaid card in a region where they say they do not support?

Can you give me a zip code where I can check out their plans?

Did you read my posting ? Which zip code do you want, one from the area there Verizon took over and Alltel is completely gone, or one from the area where AT&Tea is the boss and where Alltel prepaid plans ( and CDMA service) will be eliminated in the next couple of months or so or one in the ATN area where the Alltel name exists, but the old Alltel plans are gone ?
Just forget this route.

grm · Post by **grm** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 10:09 pm

jongasse wrote:
grm wrote:Check out Straight Talk, cheapest is $30 a month 1000 min talk 1000 text the use Verizon and AT&t service I also like Net10 but my favorite is ST. I know this is not in your price range but might be the only source.
Would they allow me to use an unlocked GSM phone that I already have?

Would they require me to buy a phone from them before I can use their service?

i don't think you can byod go to their homepage and look under phones, i bought 3 reconditioned phones for $30 each and got a $30 1000min card with them all total i got the phone free. straighttalk.com

jongasse · Post by **jongasse** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 10:40 pm

I am not interested in monthly plans over $15.

From what I was able to find so far - NET10 does attract me.

However - do they require me to buy a phone from them first?

Question is also whether they allow calling out to toll free numbers for free?

mjplus2000 · Post by **mjplus2000** » Wed Jan 11, 2012 6:06 pm

The refurbished phones on their site aren't badly priced. I've been looking into Tracfone. Does anyone have any experience with their service? Just need talk and text(no data).

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Wed Jan 11, 2012 10:10 pm

mjplus2000 wrote: I've been looking into Tracfone. Does anyone have any experience with their service?

I use TracFone as my cell back-up to MJ. Works great for me, as good if not better than the T-Mobile service I dropped it for TracFone.

They have various plans. Since I use it only for MJ back-up and car use, I use a basic plan. If you plan on using it a lot, it's probably not the cheapest option out there. I originally went with a 60 minute for $20 plan that only had to be renewed every 3 months. The phone I bought at WalMart doubled any subsequent minutes I bought so I was getting 120 at a shot. Any unused minutes do carry-over.

Last year I changed and got a 400 minute/one year "card" (doubled to 800 with a 200 bonus for 1,000 minutes) for $100 off of their web-site. My year is up at the end of March and I still have about 650 minutes left.

Not sure what I will do this year since I will have quite a few minutes left, but you either have to buy more, or the phone gets shut off regardless of the unused minutes you have left. I did notice their web-site has a few phones for $50 or so that will triple any minutes you buy.

They charge half a minute or less per text. Thought it was a half minute, but somehow I recently ended up with .3 at the end of my remaining minutes.

mjplus2000 · Post by **mjplus2000** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 12:26 pm

nailgunner wrote:
Not sure what I will do this year since I will have quite a few minutes left, but you either have to buy more, or the phone gets shut off regardless of the unused minutes you have left. I did notice their web-site has a few phones for $50 or so that will triple any minutes you buy.

They charge half a minute or less per text. Thought it was a half minute, but somehow I recently ended up with .3 at the end of my remaining minutes.

This was my only concern with them. Right now I have over 3000 rollover minutes that I will never get to use because I'm on a plan. It's a joke. I use about 150 minutes a month and my wife uses even less. We text, but never use the web or email. The triple minute plan looks pretty promising, but what happens when you've built up all these minutes and your service is about to run out? Like Nailgunner said, Buy more minutes? Doesn't make much sense, but in the long run I think it's worth it. Right now, between the 2 of us, we're spending well over $100 a month. And that's the cheapest plan I can get with my contract. Couldn't get much worse that's for sure. With the triple minute deal it looks like I could probably get away with $50 a month between the two of us(maybe even less). Now I have to get out of my contract early and port the two numbers over at the same time. That's where it gets ugly.

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 2:47 pm

mjplus2000 wrote:what happens when you've built up all these minutes and your service is about to run out? Like Nailgunner said, Buy more minutes? Doesn't make much sense, but in the long run I think it's worth it.

The nice thing about pre-paids like TracFone is that you have all kinds of options. They have monthly automatic plans that I'm pretty sure you can sign up for or drop at any time. Or you can buy various minute packages for various time frames.

In your case you could buy whatever block of minutes gets you closest to your 150 minute a month requirement. If you have a lot of rollover minutes left you can buy less minutes for the next month/3 month reload.

In my case I have leftover minutes with what is close to their lowest package. 1,000 minutes for the year was more than enough. Probably 100 of the 400 minutes I have used was calling my own MagicJack trying to get my GoogleVoice issue fixed (which just started working fine again last week after about 3 months, it had to be something on MJ's end that just fixed itself since nothing I did worked) Regardless, it still works out to only about $8.50 a month.

You will do much better than $50 a month combined. If you both needed 150 minutes a month (1,800 a year), it would be about $25 a month if you both went with a triple minute phone. The annual 400 minute card is $100, and a 3 month 200 minute card is $40. 600 minutes tripled gets you your 1,800 annual minutes. And the $280 total is a tad less than $25 a month.

mjplus2000 · Post by **mjplus2000** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 3:23 pm

nailgunner wrote:
You will do much better than $50 a month combined. If you both needed 150 minutes a month (1,800 a year), it would be about $25 a month if you both went with a triple minute phone. The annual 400 minute card is $100, and a 3 month 200 minute card is $40. 600 minutes tripled gets you your 1,800 annual minutes. And the $280 total is a tad less than $25 a month.

Thanks for doing the math for me. You really can't beat that deal. The triple minute phones look pretty decent too. I only have a few months left on my contract. Almost tempted to port the numbers now and deal with At&t on the early cancellation fees. Maybe I can sell all my unused minutes back to them and break even(yeah right). Are the minutes only good for 1 phone or would both phones on my account share the minutes?

lymon · Post by **lymon** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 3:35 pm

Page Plus Cellular http://www.pagepluscellular.com/Plans.aspx has some very decent prices. It uses the Verizon network and you can bring your own Verizon phone to be activated on Page Plus or buy one directly from them. You could probably find a used Verizon phone for cheap, possibly free if you have any friends with Verizon service that have upgraded and tossed the old phone in a drawer

I have been using them for a second cell phone for years with no problems.

There is a $12 a month plan with 250 minutes and 250 texts as well as several options available.

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 4:00 pm

mjplus2000 wrote: Are the minutes only good for 1 phone or would both phones on my account share the minutes?

I believe only good for 1 phone. Also, I ported my T-mobile number into them in about a day or so.

mjplus2000 · Post by **mjplus2000** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 4:13 pm

lymon wrote: There is a $12 a month plan with 250 minutes and 250 texts as well as several options available.

This looks pretty good. $24 for 2 phones and that gets you 500 minutes a month talk time and 500 texts. I'm not sure I'm gonna beat that. Porting's only $9. Might be worth the cancellation fee just to do it now. At&t wants $150 to get out of our family plan. I'm sure if I tried hard enough I could get that down some. Has anyone ever successfully canceled mid-contract without paying an early cancellation fee?

Just checked porting again and this time it said no cost. Will check that further.

lymon · Post by **lymon** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 4:30 pm

mjplus2000 wrote:
lymon wrote: There is a $12 a month plan with 250 minutes and 250 texts as well as several options available.
This looks pretty good. $24 for 2 phones and that gets you 500 minutes a month talk time and 500 texts. I'm not sure I'm gonna beat that. Porting's only $9. Might be worth the cancellation fee just to do it now. At&t wants $150 to get out of our family plan. I'm sure if I tried hard enough I could get that down some. Has anyone ever successfully canceled mid-contract without paying an early cancellation fee?

I canceled a Verizon contract without a fee after they made some relatively minor change to the terms of their service. Watch your bills for changes in terms or service, then insist that they let you out of the contract. Other than that, I kind of doubt that they will let you slide for free.

mjplus2000 · Post by **mjplus2000** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 5:15 pm

It's funny you say that because I was just looking at my last 2 bills. The only thing I noticed was some telecom charge. was $0.02 in November and $0.04 in December. That was the only change I could see. Not sure if that is considered a change to the TOS. I'll keep checking every month.

cell14 · Post by **cell14** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 8:00 pm

In my case I have leftover minutes with what is close to their lowest package. 1,000 minutes for the year was more than enough

I generally dislike MVNOs.
I have as my second cell phone a former Alltel prepaid, now Verizon. I was able to keep my Alltel plan, although it has been a heroic battle- Verizon plans are almost twice as expensive.
The advantage of Verizon prepaid is that it has essentially the same coverage as the post paid plans, something very rare with other providers.
I buy the 100$ plus tax refill card which means 106 or now 107 $ (because Verizon charges higher sales tax

) and I also have some minutes extra at the end of the year. But I do not see it as a problem because sooner or later I will have a situation when i can use them up. It provides me A. a back up cell phone B.coverage where t- mobile does not C.spare phone for visiting relatives D. spare minutes when my 1500 t-mobile minutes are up.
BTW there is a way to receive incoming text messages for free- get an overseas prepaid phone for as little as 10 Euros per year and all your incoming text messages globally will be free.

mjplus2000 · Post by **mjplus2000** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 8:35 pm

May be a stupid question, but I can't seem to find the answer on Pageplus faq's. Are mobile to mobile calls free and if not are carrier to carrier calls free or do you have to use your minutes?

cell14 · Post by **cell14** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 9:18 pm

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 7:35 pm Post subject:
May be a stupid question, but I can't seem to find the answer on Pageplus faq's. Are mobile to mobile calls free and if not are carrier to carrier calls free or do you have to use your minutes?

That depends on your plan. Some plans allow for free calls within the network.

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 9:42 pm

cell14 wrote:BTW there is a way to receive incoming text messages for free- get an overseas prepaid phone for as little as 10 Euros per year and all your incoming text messages globally will be free.

I use GoogleVoice for 99% of my texting which costs exactly nothing.

cell14 · Post by **cell14** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 10:32 pm

I use GoogleVoice for 99% of my texting which costs exactly nothing.

Yeah, if you are at home. I use texting only minimally, only on my prepaid every blue moon. On my main cell phone it is disconnected .

mjplus2000 · Post by **mjplus2000** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 10:55 pm

cell14 wrote: That depends on your plan. Some plans allow for free calls within the network.

Thanks so much for the info.

donschjr · Post by **donschjr** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 8:44 pm

mjplus2000 wrote:May be a stupid question, but I can't seem to find the answer on Pageplus faq's. Are mobile to mobile calls free and if not are carrier to carrier calls free or do you have to use your minutes?

All minutes are billed, incoming, outgoing, mobile to mobile it's all the same. I've been a customer for a couple years and been quite happy.

mjplus2000 · Post by **mjplus2000** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 8:52 pm

donschjr wrote:All minutes are billed, incoming, outgoing, mobile to mobile it's all the same. I've been a customer for a couple years and been quite happy.

Thank you!

Still a great deal. The 12 is looking real good. Even if I happened to go over, the per minute rate is still low.

VaHam · Post by **VaHam** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 11:30 pm

The wife and I have been on PagePlus for a year or so now and love it. We were both on their $29.95 1200 plan until this month when I switched to the $12 250 plan........left the wife on 1200

I am sure you can all guess why!

Most any phone which has been on Verizon will work on PagePlus so if you have a phone laying around which also has WiFi you can make good use of it to make calls via that when available. I am almost always around a WiFi link so I use that most of the time except when driving.

kedwards · Post by **kedwards** » Tue Feb 21, 2012 7:58 am

lymon wrote:Page Plus Cellular http://www.pagepluscellular.com/Plans.aspx has some very decent prices. It uses the Verizon network and you can bring your own Verizon phone to be activated on Page Plus or buy one directly from them. You could probably find a used Verizon phone for cheap, possibly free if you have any friends with Verizon service that have upgraded and tossed the old phone in a drawer

I have been using them for a second cell phone for years with no problems.

There is a $12 a month plan with 250 minutes and 250 texts as well as several options available.

Thanks for the heads-up on Page Plus Cellular. I am a very light cell phone user, but recently ported my Tracfone number to Page Plus. I am using The 12 plan, and like having Data available, if needed. I usually have the Data service turned off, and use WFi.

I bought a year-old LG Ally for cheap on eBay. I had been using an LG Ally for WiFi only, for the last year.

Keith

mjplus2000 · Post by **mjplus2000** » Tue Feb 21, 2012 9:51 am

They don't force you to buy a data plan like the big boys?

kedwards · Post by **kedwards** » Tue Feb 21, 2012 11:36 am

mjplus2000 wrote:They don't force you to buy a data plan like the big boys?

They have various plans, including the $10 voice-only plan (good for 120 days). They also have a text-addon to the voice plan, but The 12 is cheaper, for my expected usage.
http://www.pagepluscellular.com/Plans.aspx

The 12 plan comes with 10 MB of Data for a month, and $.20 per MB above that (?). I like to have it available, but I am used to seeking out WiFi hot spots. I will have to monitor how I use it.

Keith

ertooso · Post by **ertooso** » Thu Feb 20, 2020 3:21 pm

I've never heard of such an offering from any cellular service.

Please let us know if you find something even close to what you are looking for.

(edit to add: I can find plenty of plans with free incoming - for 40-50 per month, just nothing for 15.)