I was looking for a cell phone for my husband who does not like cell phones. For an emergency or quick communication...maybe 1 call per week. The Verizon plan dings $.99 per day from the account. I don't understand how it works. They have a $30 plan which is supposed to last 60 days. There is no way it can last 60 days if $.99 is taken off each day. With no phone calls made, the account runs out in 31 days!! Their website says "*99¢ daily access will be charged and deducted from your account even on days you do not make or receive calls." and it says "$30-$74.99 expires in 60 days" Can you explain how $30 lasts 60 days?
IMHO, Verizon's Inpulse is a rip-off. For sporadic use, consider Tracfone or equivalent. Dave Markson has a great website on prepay: http://www.cellguru.net/ and he has a whole bunch of prepay plans described that are one heck of a lot cheaper than Inpulse. See his prepay comparison chart. If you want CDMA, there is Page Plus: http://store.yahoo.com/pagepluscellular/ I've used prepay for years (AT&T system, TDMA, Beyond Wireless) but as the coverage declined, I switched to a Family Share plan. Although it costs twice waht I was paying with prepay, I'd never go back. Not worrying about how much each call is costing me, especially with free m-m calls, is worth the extra $$. Lena
I agree, IN-Pulse is a ripoff. Consider Cingular's version of pre-pay. the $.99 access fee is ONLY charged when you make a call. But I would consider Tracfone though, you can get a guarenteed 1yr service card for $99.99 or so for 150 mins I believe. If this is for emergency only or very sporadic use, this one card will last you the entire year and comes out to $8.34 per month as long as you don't need to add another card. Plus knowing you don't have to worry about adding more mins every 60 days or the phone will turn off is very nice.
Definitely give TracFone a look. Their CDMA phones (Nokia 2126, for example) are activated on Verizon in most areas and when travelling, they will roam on other networks.
Tracfone CDMA phones activate on Verizon in most areas and are definitely cheaper. ALLTEL simple freedom are also worth a look into.
However... If a Simple Freedom phone is purchased and activated in a Verizon service area, not all of the services will work, as I discovered during the Summer of '04. TracFone is the better value. I still believe it is worth the additional cost, just for the off-network roaming coverage they provide.
SMS sent from the phone to another mobile number, worked perfectly. E-mail sent to Simple Freedom phones using their @text.simplefreedom.net addressing syntax, goes through fine. However, from a Simple Freedom phone originally activated in a Verizon service area, e-mail sent from the phone to an Internet address, does not go through and the customer is charged the messaging fee for those failed messages. That portion of the service not working, was confirmed by Alltel, after the fact, and I did not have any success obtaining any credit from Alltel for the failed messages. Ed
That's interesting, thanks Ed. I guess most people would never notice, though, since I don't know of a lot of people that send sms to email addresses. Andy
