PagePlus Who?

Since I've decided to dump T-Mobile (seven months and counting till the contract is over), I've been on the lookout for alternative cell phone providers in preparation for the "big move" to (hopefully) better coverage (keep the ol' fingers crossed). When I prepared this article, I had done some googling (still funny to use Google as a verb, no?) and I had come up with some less than mainstream alternatives. In fact, I thought I had found them all.

Apparently, there is at least one more out there. I can't even take credit for finding it! I had posted my experience over at this cell phone forum, and today another user suggested these folks known as PagePlus. I decided to check out the site.

They're basically a prepaid phone site. They're kind of barebones, but they seem to be priced accordingly. The phones seem to be all refurbs, and start at $29 which is more than some competitors like Tracfone that I see advertised in many local pharmacies.

The service, which always gets more of the cash than the phone has some twists. You don't buy minutes, but rather add cash to the phone. After a monthly fee of fifty cents (I pay double that for the EZ Pass I only occasionally use), you just pay for the minutes you use at twelve cents a minute. A good point is that even with the cheapest $10 card, the minutes don't expire for 120 days (while most of their competition expires in a month). Also, as long as you add more minutes to the phone before the expiration date, they just roll over so you can keep accumulating them.

After crunching some numbers, if one were to buy four of the cheapest $10 cards, subtracting the monthly fee, that leaves $34 worth of airtime, which would yield 283 minutes for the year. while that is only 23 minutes a month, realize that it's only costing $3.33/month- and the minutes roll over.

While I don't think this minimalistic plan would suit my needs, for those in search of the truly most inexpensive and basic cell phone service out there, this PagePlus may be just the ticket.

Jonas