(NBC) Pay as you go phone ?

Edwards Finance > Phones

Q. We're two weeks away from shipping No. 1 son off to college, and this being the 21st century, we're interested in staying in touch at all times. My wife has proposed one of those "pay as you go" phones and charged me with selecting one.The idea, of course, is we can always reach him, or vice versa, but he won't be running up any crazy bills on us. Anyone have any experience with that? 1) In general, does the pay-as-you-go concept work for a low-volume user? 2) Any tips on companies - Tracfone, TMobile, NetOne -- you've found particularly good and user-friendly, or not?

A. That leaves my domain of personal experience, but here are a couple of tools/websites that might be helpful. Earlier this year I bought my youngest son (the only one who really thought his life would be improved with one) an unlocked new cell phone and loaded $100. worth of TMobile minutes on it. For $100, you get 1,000 minutes, but it's only local calling. I told him I was done spending money on his cell phone for a year-it was about $350 total, for the phone, minutes, SIM card. Next year, I'll spend another $100. which makes it an insanely cheap $8/month for a cell phone. The missus, the kid and I are all on T-Mobile pay as you go. For people who want to make occasional (and relatively short) calls, or who simply want the accessibility, it makes infinitely more sense than a plan. Buy a phone for $30 to $70, and get 10 to 60 free minutes. Minutes roll over if you refill before they expire. Spend more than $100 on minutes and the minutes will be good for a year, and roll over. Buy the phone, spend $100 and your kid will get 1000+ minutes that won't expire for a year, all for less than $180, which is about five months of local service on a landline. You can refill them for him online or over the phone with a credit card. Not sure what Susan was talking about -- the minutes are *absolutely* good for long-distance calls (even says so on the page she indicated). Not good for people who chat while they drive. As long as he understands it's for calling home and not dicking around, he'll be fine. Don't lose the phone after you put all those minutes on it. Despite being Canadians, my wife and I both have Cingular PAYG phones for when we're in the US -- I've got a New York number (so it's local for my editor and publisher), while she's got a Bellingham number (friends there). The reason it works so well is that calling is free between the Cingular phones, regardless of long distance. So we put a minimum of time on when we're in the US and we can keep in touch when separated (she tends to lose me in Powells...). She'll call my New York number from her Bellingham number, we'll spend five minutes on the phone trying to find each other ("No, I said the GOLD room, not the ROSE room!") and at the end of it, the call is free for both of us... Anyway, what I would recommend is to buy two Cingular PAYG phones (about $25 each at WalMart et al, with $10 worth of airtime included) -- one for him and one for you guys. Maintain a minimum balance on your phone and your calls to him will be free (and no charge to him either), and he can maintain what balance he needs for talking to you (charge free), ordering pizza, and making midnight phone calls to friends to get him out of jail. The only issue with those pay as you go is the quality of the service. My friend has one here and it sounds like she's underwater when she calls me on it. It's annoying and sometimes I truly can't understand what she's saying. And she's only 30 miles away I can't imagine what it would be if she was 200 miles away. If you have a cell phone plan, ask the provider if you can add a cell phone for 9.99 and have unlimited talking between anyone on the same network. Most of the providers have that now. Yeah I know it doesn't solve the problem of the child using it for other things but you just gotta make them clear on that part.

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