Cell Phone Contracts Vs. Pay As You Go Plans
Cellular Phones are an every day part of life. Some people use cell phones for business, business & personal use and some people only use a cell phone in case of emergency. Some of the main cell phone providers are AT &T, Sprint/Nextel, and Verizon Wireless. Cell Phone providers mainly supply their services through contract only. There are a select few companies that provide “Pay as You Go” plans. It is important to decide what kind of plan best suits your needs and fits your budget.
Having past experience with both Contract cell phone services and Pay as You Go plans, I can share some valuable insight on the economics of choosing a contract or pre pay service.
Sprint/Nextel provides contract only wireless services. The very basic plan will run you about $40 per month. The basic service will give the customer about 700 minutes per month including weekends. In general, the basic plan seems to be a good deal economically and would work out well for the person whom doesn’t use the phone every day and limits their calls to local calling areas. Many times a phone will come free or with a discount for new customers.
Verizon Wireless offers both contract services and pay as you go plans. Most cell phone contracts range from 1-2 years with no obligation to renew after the expiration of contract. Verizon Wireless offers a basic plan which includes 450 minutes for $39.99. The basic plan does include weekends and long distance. Again, basic plans are qualified for those who don’t exhaust the phone every day or for extended periods of time. All cell phone monthly plans include tax and other applicable charges.
AT &T offers calling plans similar to that of Sprint and Verizon. The main inequity with basic calling plans are that some do include long distance and weekend calling options and some don’t. In addition, almost all of the major carriers offer family plans through a contract.
Pay as you go is an option for people who rarely exhaust the cell phone. Basically, pay as you go best suits someone who has the phone for occasional or emergency use. Remember, with many pay as you go services if you don’t use the minutes within 60 days they can not be carried over, you will lose the unused minutes.
Verizon offers pay as you go services in addition to contract service. The minimum amount of minutes you can purchase through Verizon is $15. For $15 you receive approximately 3 hours of calling time, and the plan does not distinguish between long distance or local calling. Therefore, if you expend a cell phone every day, the pay as you go option could end up being more costly than entering into a cell phone contract. Also, every time a voice mail message is left the time is subtracted from your minutes.
Virgin Wireless is strictly a “pay as you go” plan. The minimum amount you must employ to add minutes is $20. Virgin Wireless charges roughly a flat rate of $0.30 per minute for local calls and anywhere from $0.45-$0.50 per minute outside of the calling status. Roaming charges may apply. Sending text messages cost a little less than if you actually placed a call, about $0.20 per message.
In conclusion, it seems without a doubt entering into a cell phone contract is the way to go. Contracted cell phone services will actually place you a grand amount of money as opposed to pre-paid cell phone services. In addition, the customer has a choice of several phone styles and colors to chose from. Pre-pay plans offer only very standard phone styles to determine from.
In order to enter into a cell phone contract through one of the major carriers, you will need to enjoy out some paperwork and the company will run a credit check. If your credit has some blemishes, the company may still approve the account provided a security deposit is received. The deposit is normally returned to the customer after one year of paying the contract as agreed.
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Filed under Small Business Cell Phone by on Dec 31st, 2010. 
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