P.Schuman wrote:
> wonder which prepaid you are using ?
> We have our son on Virgin Mobile right now....
> but he's starting to eat up the minutes :)
> It seemed the best at 90 day interval for adding funds.

Virgin is one of the worst prepaid plans in terms of cost. Also, there
is no roaming, which limits you to Sprint's native coverage which is
downright horrible in many parts of the country (including much of
California). When you have Sprint postpaid coverage you are allowed to
roam on other carriers which often makes up for Sprint's own limited
coverage, but you don't get this with Virgin.

T-Mobile is 10¢/minute with an $100 card, which gets you "Gold" status,
which means a one year expiration on air time, even on future purchases
of less than $100. The down side is that the T-Mobile network is not all
that great in many areas.

PagePlus is probably the best option with 120 day expiration and it's on
the Verizon network which has the best coverage in the U.S. by a large
margin. Roaming is extra, but in most areas of the country you won't be
roaming. AMPS roaming is also available. It does not work in Canada or
Mexico. 1400 minutes cost $80 (5.7¢/minute). 700 minutes are $50
(7.1¢/minute). 300 minutes are $25 (8.3¢/minute). These rates are
relatively new, and they have come down significantly from a few months ago.

I have my two kids on PagePlus and there are several benefits:

1) If they do get into a gabfest (which they haven't yet) it's at least
limited to whatever money they have on their account, plus unlike a
postpaid account the per minute cost doesn't sky-rocket when you go over
your monthly allocation.

2) Coverage is excellent. In my area, Sprint and T-Mobile coverage are
awful, AT&T is adequate, but Verizon is excellent. My daughter often
lets her friends use her phone to call their parents when her friend's
phones have no coverage.

3) Low per-minute cost

4) They can use my old phones from my Verizon account. Of course they
may not be too pleased about that when some kids at school have iPhones,
but tough luck. I don't want them taking a $400 piece of electronics to
school.

5) Longer expiration time than many prepaid services.

You can use any CDMA/AMPS phone that works on Verizon (I think I read
that Alltel phones also work). I know that you used to be able to use
Verizon InPulse phones on PagePlus, but I don't know if this still
works. You can buy a refurb phone from PagePlus, or find a Tri-Mode
CDMA/AMPS phone on craigslist or eBay. I recommend the Motorola V325i.

"http://www.pagepluscellular.com/"