Are you sick of expensive cell phone service with extremely long contract lengths? Well so am I. With my contract for Verizon ending soon, I thought I’d take a look at some pay as you go services. What I found was that pay as you go services have tons of advantages with only one downside: you have to pay full price for your phone.
Prepaid services tend to be cheaper in the long run. When you sign a lengthy contract with a carrier the price per month takes into account the amount you saved on your phone when signing the contract. Sure you can save a couple hundred dollars initially but you’ll end up paying it all back with expensive monthly rates. My Verizon bill is nearing $100/month with only a single phone registered to it. On top of that I have limited monthly internet, minutes, and text messages. For that price I shouldn’t have to worry about how many minutes I use each month.
Prepaid services make you pay for your phone in full, but only charge $50 or so per month for unlimited data, text, and calls. If you have a phone that’s unlocked (UnlockUnit.com to help with that) you can even bring it with you to the prepaid service.
Cell phone carriers have custom Android versions on their cell phones that slow down update intervals. Often adding un-needed software slows down how fast your phone is updated. When Google updates Android it can take your cell phone carrier many months to push the update to you. They have to submit their revisions to Google who have to approve it for use. This process is avoided entirely with pay as you go services.
There are two downsides to pay as you go, but they’re pretty minor. The first was already discussed – you need to purchase a phone at full price. However, if you have an unlocked phone or buy a cheaper phone, it’s not an issue. Go to this page to find out more information about unlocking your phone. The second is that you won’t be getting 4g service. However, 3g is plenty fast for 99% of users. Unless you’re tethering to use the service as your main internet connection or routinely download large files, this won’t affect you. 3g is more than fast enough to load websites at high speeds and download small files.
The benefits of prepaid services clearly outweigh the negatives. You can get a quality service at half the price with a better package – often unlimited. There are no fees and surcharges on your bill; the price advertised is the price you will pay.