Do prepaid smartphone plans make any sense?

My wife and I both have prepaid cell phones. For us, it's more cost effective because we have a landline and internet already. We normally don't send or receive a lot of calls or text messages, and don't have smart phones.

I do believe that our carrier ( Telus, but I'm sure Rogers and Bell are much the same ) is doing all in their power to make it as cost prohibitive as possible in order to get you locked into a contract. Not only do they overcharge you for minutes ( $.30 local, $.40 long distance ), they will simply take whatever balance is left in your account if you should go past the imposed time limitations without adding extra credit. When you access your account to add minutes, they pitch you a line about how you could benefit from doing automatic top ups with your credit card, and amazingly enough they will lower your per minute costs if you do so. This would be an unwritten contract, but still a contract.

I've complained to Telus that, as a prepaid customer I'm treated as second class. Yet, I'm their easiest customer to service. Since I prepay for minutes, they never have to chase me for money owed, but they don't offer to pay me interest either. I can add credits to my account over the phone or online, and never have to deal with a live CSR, except for a specific issue.

I've had to contact Telus, and ask them to stop calling my cell with their offer of free phones, $.15/minute calls, cheap long distance and data plans, as long as I sign up for three years. If I wanted to be locked into a contract, I'd have done so by now.

In the US, companies like Net10 and Tracfone offer handsets for $10 and airtime for a dime a minute or less for calls to any of about 60 countries with no long distance surcharges - call display is included, too. Tracfone, in particular have a neat program where they will give you up to three additional 'virtual numbers' homed in Mexico and/or Canada that people in those countries can call and reach you in the US (Tracfones don't work outside the US).

More interesting is that they offer low cost 'time extension' programs that will automaticaly bill you $6.95 in any month when your minutes would otherwise have expired.

Even better is that airtime is available in combinations of various numbers of minutes and time, ranging from minutes only to time only. Time added to an account does not reset the expiry to the number of days purchased, but rather EXTENDS the expiry by the number of days purchased. So if you purchased three one year cards with no minutes, activating them all at the same time would push back the expiry date of your minutes BY three years from whatever it happened to be beforehand - and their phones constantly show the remaining number of minutes and the expiry date right on the display - no buttons required to find out what is left in the account.

I use a Trackfone when I travel to the US. I forward my Rogers number to the local, Canadian number for my Tracfone and I shut my Blackberry off because I refuse to pay 'Robbers Wireless' $1.45 a minute and $0.75 per text, or for their hugely overpriced roaming plans. The Bluetooth in the Tracfone is synced to my car, so essentially the process is completely seamless for people calling me and for operation when I am driving.

The raw cost is $100/year which buys me 1,050 minutes because of ongoing promotions and the fact that my $10 phone came with 'double minutes' - I could have bought a 'semi-smart' phone with TRIPLE minutes, which would have reduced my per-minute cost by 33%, but it wasn't available when I got involved with them.

Clearly Tracfone can make money in this service configuration, but here in Canada, the carriers continue to rip consumers off.

If you DO want to use prepaid service in Canada, President's Choice and Petro Canada run the most cost-effective prepaid plans in the country. The second tier providers (Wind, Public, Mobilicity) offer amazing deals for postpaid users who don't need wide area coverage. The incumbents (Bell, Rogers, Telus) and their 'value brands (Virgin, Solo, Koodo, Chatr, Fido and so on) contiinue to rip subscribers in Canada off much more than do the rest.

It would be nice if the Canadian carriers' feet were held to the fire to force them in line with those of our closest neighbours, at least. Perhaps the market ought to be opened to companies like Tracfone - but if they do allow these companies into the country, let me know up front so I can dump my shares in Rogers beforehand.

I'll never have a contract agian your stuck paying for a service even if your life changes. Once we had moved to an aera where the service was not usable and a second time My wife was in the hospital for several months and money became tight.
With a contract you have to buy out of a contract or pay for it reguardless of how your situation changes prepaid allows you to stop service by simply not buying more time or change vendors by changing your sim card. As more people see these advantages we will see better options in Canada much like they have in the US.

I have been on prepaid the last few years. Koodo (Telus) has low cost old phones and cheap prepaid plans. Personally, I use Rogers. I dropped two hun for a LG smartie. I text and tweet. I have Google maps. I can cloud if I so desire. Phone calls can be pricey but I don't actually call that much. Long distance is a definite no no. I see no reason to go back on a plan.

The "FREE" Smartphones offered by Telus, Bell, Rogers, et al are anything BUT free. You have to commit to a 3 year contract with a minimum data package of $50/mo; add Voice Mail and Caller ID ($12/mo) and the total becomes $62/mo. Add HST ($7.44/mo) for a total of $69.44/mo X 36 mo for a GRAND TOTAL of $2,499.84 each - so much for the "FREE PHONES".

Our solution? My wife and I purchased our NEW, UNLOCKED, MOTOROLA ATRIX 2 SMART PHONES on EBAY at a cost of $305 US each. We purchased a SIM card from Virgin Mobile ($5.00 each) and kept our prepaid account at $10/mo + 10 cents/min. We purchased the phones last December. Our monthly cost averages $22.40 each, not $69.44 quoted by both Telus and Bell (FYI - Virgin uses the Bell Network).

The downside, if you call it that, is we can't cruise the internet while at the park or in a car. But you can link into the FREE WI-FI offered by Starbucks, McDonalds or Blenz if there is a sudden need, in addition to most better hotels and motels. My wife and I spend 4 weeks in Spain this past June and there was more free Wi-Fi areas offered there than in Vancouver. Every hotel, motel and most restaurants we patronized offered free Wi-Fi so we were in constant touch with friends or relatives here. What Telus, Bell, et al are offering is simply a scam (or an IQ test to determine how gullible the public actually is).

thanks for sharing this blog .....)