Tell me about non-contract cell phones...

[Bob001]

The three or four major cell providers mostly work on long-term contracts, although they also offer prepaid services. There are also numerous secondary providers that use the major networks, but sell their own services at a discount, mostly billed monthly without long-term contracts.

Here's a dozen with generally good reputations:
Mint SIM
Ting
Republic Wireless
Cricket Wireless
US Mobile
Virgin Mobile
Boost Mobile
Straight Talk Wireless
Scratch Wireless
GoSmart Mobile
Consumer Cellular
FreedomPoP
https://www.thesimpledollar.com/best-cheap-cell-phone-plans/

Consumer Cellular in particular seems to be marketed to the gray-haired, make-it-easy set. (They also market a "GrandPad" tablet.) Anybody have any experience with any of them?

 

[kellyb]

I've used Cricket since the late 90's or so. Never had a reason to switch.

 

[Venom]

I use Straight Talk but I admit I know very little about it other than the bill and current "bonus" 4 GB I enjoy, bringing my monthly data plan to 8 GB, most of which I don't even use. Sometimes I will have a YouTube video play while I drive, if only to bleed my plan a bit and make it worth it.

 

[Myriad]

I use Tracfone. Not even a monthly plan/bill, just prepaid blocs of minutes that also add 90 service days at a time. Deciding what size bloc to buy to keep the minutes in balance with the days is a stupid guessing game, but it costs less to play than the equivalently stupid guessing games with other companies' service plans.

 

[Andy_Ross]

In the UK I use GiffGaff.
£7.50 a month gets me 2gig of data, 250 minutes of calls and unlimited texts. Calls to other giffgaff numbers are free and don't count against your call time.

Some months I go for the £10 bag that gets 3gig data, unlimited calls and texts.

They have incremental bags up to £25 a month for unlimited everything


https://www.giffgaff.com/sim-only-plans

 

[Genesius]

Ting here.

Absolutely love it. Basic rate is $6/month, goes up from there depending on usage. Separate charges depending on actual voice, text, and data usage.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Most of the major carriers have a no-contract option too, though you can probably get a better deal through the budget lines listed above.

Sometimes the networks will hold back on certain less common features and reserve those only for people who buy contracts (or locked phones), like wifi calling or unlimited data plans.

There's really no downside to trying one of these out. If it's not a good fit, there's no contract so you just move along. Assuming you have an unlocked phone, it's just a matter of inconvenience as you transfer the number from one carrier to another.

Most of the smaller companies use the larger companies networks. Cricket is AT&T. I don't think there is a difference in network quality between the name brand and budget piggybackers.

 

[Delvo]

I've been using Verizon's pay-as-you-go or whatever they call it for years. I keep thinking sooner or later they'll terminate this kind of service, because every time I've checked their website, they've made it harder & harder to find any sign that this option even exists. But it's still running for now.

I pay around $30 every 3 months, which covers more text messages & phone calls than I almost ever actually use, and if I were to need to use more, I could just add more. For someone who used these things more, a standard monthly plan would get more economical than this, but I've never calculated where the crossover line is, but I guess it must be below the lowest monthly plan out there.

The drawback is the lack of a real data service along with text & calls. It only works with non-smart phones, so any web surfing I think of while I'm out has to wait til I'm back home, or I need to take a laptop/tablet out with me and find a Wi-Fi hotspot. And sometimes even that doesn't work quite like it's supposed to, for functions that were designed with phones in mind. (Technically, a tablet runs smartphone software so this shouldn't be an issue because anything your phone could do a tablet could do, but I recently ran into an example where the app must have been designed to detect whether it was running on a phone or tablet, and turned off an important function in tablets even though the tablet was otherwise capable of doing it.)

The lack of prepaid service for smartphones isn't because of impossibility, though; they could start offering it any time they want, so maybe the next time I'm shopping for a new one I'll find out that they have.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

I am stuck on a J5 right now, the first carrier-provided phone I've had to endure in a long time. Previously, I always went to ebay and carefully found a phone of the model I wanted with the proper protocols for the network I wanted. Later you could do this more safely with Amazon or other outlets. Having a phone without carrier-packed features and unblockable background apps makes a huge difference of its own.

That said, I've used Virgin, Boost, and Cricket at various times with these phones and never noticed much difference as an end user. As I understand it, they are just purchasing bandwidth from the major networks at reduced bulk rates and sitting on a narrow margin that creates. Customer service is the big difference maker, really. That's an area the major networks tend to have a very poor reputation about.

 

[Trebuchet]

I not only have an expensive contract from Verizon, I just reinstated my land line number. From the cable company, as if I'm not already into them for enough.

It's nice to be old and not-poor.

ETA: When the cable guy was here this morning, he was having trouble connecting to Verizon to use his phone. That, I guess, is we had him in. Thing of it is, when people who have other carriers visit us they get nothing at all. Pretty much crappy Verizon or nothing.

 

[Elvis666]

Been using Republic Wireless for years at $10 a month. Business model built on accessing every wifi hotspot you pass. I have no data when not in range of one, but don't really care, since it works great at home. But my plan is grandfathered from the early days of the company and not available to new subscribers.