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The Best of Everything Cellular
Mountain Wireless chooses The Best cellular plans and services.
We consulted the Our Choice Page of recommendations and picked one of each
type of cellular plans as "The Best"
and why. If you're looking for someone to
tell you what's best among cellular offerings,
this is the place. The T-Mobile Prepaid plan we previously rated as the best cellular
deal is still shown, below.
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The Best Cellular Coverage |
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VERIZON WIRELESS has an advantage because there are so many
areas in the country where there is only
CDMA coverage, and the majority of that coverage
is supplied by Verizon and their roaming
partners. They don't cover everywhere, but
more of it. |
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The Best International Coverage |
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AT&T gives you more options to use your phone
in other countries. GSM technology is more
universally available and AT&T allows
you to roam on most GSM networks, although
roaming may not be cheap. |
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| The Best Unlimited Plan |
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SPRINT offers an "Everything" plan which
offers Unlimited voice, text, broadband for
the same $99 charge that other carriers charge
for much more limited features. |
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| The Best Cheap Unlimited Plan |
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CRICKET and METRO PCS both offer a basic plan for only $30 a month
that includes unlimited voice calls and text. |
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| The Best Walkie-Talkie Plan |
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NEXTEL still dominates this market ("Push
To Talk") although a few other carriers
have tried. Nextel's "Direct Connect"
works faster and more reliably than the others. |
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| The Best Mobile to Mobile Plan |
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ALLTEL'S "My Circle" gives you the next
best thing to Unlimited with the ability
to make Unlimited calls to and from your
choice of numbers on any wired or wireless
network. If Alltel doesn't serve your area,
T-MOBILE'S "My Favs" does the same deal,
but limits it to five numbers. |
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| The Best Glove Box Phone |
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SPEAKOUT phones, only available at 7-Eleven stores,
come ready to use. You could leave it in
the glove box and activate it for the first
time only when needed, but it would be safer
to activate the phone in advance to make
sure it works. Then, you'll only need to
refill it once a year for $25, provided you
take it out and use it for one call every
4 months. Making the call is a good idea
just to check the battery. If you can't remember
to check it, get T-Mobile Prepaid. |
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| The Best Prepaid Phone |
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TRACFONE works in more places than any other prepaid
phone and their promotions include almost
free phones and double your minutes for life. |
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| The Best Multi-Function Phone |
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We give the "G-Phone" a slight
edge over the iPhone. The G1 Android with
Google is currently available from T-MOBILE with some clever improvements over the iPhone,
but even more important, the G-phone is cheaper
both to buy and to use. |
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| The Best Email Phone |
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The BLACKBERRY available from several online discount Retailers. You can be in touch 24/7, and a lot of
Blackberry users are. |
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| The Best Simple Plan |
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JITTERBUG is not only an easy-to-use phone, it's backed
up by personal service with an "Operator"
who can help complete your calls, update
your phone's features and explain how your
service works. |
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| The Best 3G Network |
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VERIZON WIRELESS'S 3G network covers more of the US by a wide margin. |
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| The Best Roaming Plan |
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SPRINT phones find more places to work than any
other phone. Sprint has roaming agreements
with more carriers than anyone. Sprint's
own network isn't the best, but their phones
work almost everywhere. |
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| The Best Low-Cost Plan |
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T-MOBILE PREPAID, more details, below. |
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T-MOBILE PREPAID is our choice for the best value in a modest
priced cellular plan. You can buy T-Mobile
Prepaid phones new in many places like pharmacies
and discount stores, or you can bring your
own GSM phone.
- Benefits:
- Once you have spent $100 in refills you achieve
"Gold Rewards" status which gives
you a 365-day expiration on your minutes.
- Your per-minute rate is only .10 per minute
and Texts are .05 received, .10 sent.
- You can send and receive email (sent as text
messages) with an address of (your 10-digit-number)@tmomail.net.
- You get Free access to a handful of useful
web sites such as news, sports, weather,
horoscopes, etc. Yes, free, they don't use minutes.
- T-Mobile To Go coverage is almost the same as T-Mobile's regular
plans, which is very good. Check their prepaid coverage viewer.
- Refills are easy to find. You can buy them
from T-mobile online or at their stores. Discounts can
be had from online retailers like cheapphonecards.com, and from some retailers like Target, although
Target's cards need extra steps to be activated
toward your account, and "stacked"
to achieve Gold Rewards level.
- Refills can be as little as $10, and with
"Gold Rewards" that could reset
your existing minutes for another 365 days.
- Buying Direct from T-Mobile:
- Visit the T-Mobile web page. Click on Plans > Prepaid.
- Choose from among their phones and purchase
a T-Mobile To Go "Prepaid Starter Kit".
- After receiving your phone, activate it and
choose from a range of local phone numbers.
Be careful, in some markets they aren't too
detailed on what numbers are local to you.
This isn't important If you don't plan on
many incoming calls. The entire process is
handled right on your new phone.
- Add $100 to your account. This gives you
"Gold Rewards" status and your
new minutes won't expire for a year. Mark
your calendar for next year. If you run out
of minutes you can refill with whatever amount
you'd like, you're still "Gold,"
and your refill resets your account for another
year. Your per-minute cost will rise with
smaller refill amounts, but this isn't significant.
Your $100 refill will give you about 83 minutes
a month, but you can use more or less and
your rate stays the same. If, after one year,
you haven't used all your minutes, you can
refill with as little as $10 and your minutes
are good for another year. Discount refills
are also available from cheapphonecards.com.
- Using an Existing Phone:
This could mean an T-Mobile phone you already
own, a phone you acquire from a friend or
buy on eBay, or any "Unlocked" GSM 850/1900 MHz phone.
- Visit the T-Mobile web page. Click on Plans > Prepaid.
- Choose and purchase a "T-Mobile SIM
Activation Kit".
- After receiving your SIM, insert it into
your phone, activate it and choose from a
range of local phone numbers. Be careful,
in some markets they aren't too detailed
on what numbers are local to you. This isn't
important If you don't plan on many incoming
calls. The entire process is handled right
on your phone.
- Add $100 to your account. This gives you
"Gold Rewards" status and your
new minutes won't expire for a year. Mark
your calendar for next year. If you run out
of minutes you can refill with whatever amount
you'd like, you're still "Gold,"
and your refill resets your account for another
year. Your per-minute cost will rise with smaller
refill amounts, but this isn't significant.
Your $100 refill will give you about 83 minutes
a month, but you can use more or less and
your rate stays the same. If, after one year,
you haven't used all your minutes, you can
refill with as little as $10 and your minutes
are good for another year.
- Expiration:
Once you have achieved Gold Rewards level,
your minutes are good for one full year,
regardless. Those minutes do disappear at
the end of that last day, (Midnight Central
Time)...Poof! If you should pass the expiration
date without refilling, here are your options:
- Call T-Mobile To Go customer service (877-778-2106)
within 48 hours and you can get all minutes
back with your refill.
- Refill within 90 days and you can keep your
Gold Rewards status and keep the the phone
number, but your minutes are lost.
- After 90 days past expiration, you must enter
as a new customer and you'll need another
$100 to once again achieve Gold Rewards.
- Additional Tips:
- T-Mobile Prepaid phones are also available
at retailers like Target, Wal-Mart, Walgreens
and others, often on sale.
- You cannot activate an existing phone by
just getting a new SIM from places like eBay.
The SIM must be "activated" and
can have some minutes already available.
With an inactive SIM, you may need to buy
an "Activation Kit."
- T-Mobile SIM Activation Kits are available
online or at T-Mobile stores. prices range
from $5 to $8.
- You can change your phone number once every
6 months. This is helpful if you buy a card
that was "activated" somewhere
else, even if the seller says otherwise.
- When calculating among different refill amounts,
T-Mobile always rounds up your per-minute
total to your advantage. If your previous
fill was $100 and your new refill is $10,
the calculated per-minute rate is between
the amounts, pro-rated on the number of remaining
minutes...a good deal!
- T-Mobile also offers a per-day prepaid plan
that allows "Unlimited" calling
during certain periods.
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