With a prepaid plan, a cell phone owner can buy a finite amount of minutes up front as opposed to signing a contract with a monthly subscription rate. Carriers are increasingly targeting prepaid plans towards teens and consumers with poor credit in order to boost subscriber growth.

 

Expiration dates range from 30 to 90 days, and when the expiration date is up, customers can roll leftover minutes onto the next card they purchase.

 

under most prepaid policies, once the policy expires, remaining minutes are lost and the phone number is reassigned to another user.

 

the per-minute cost of prepay plans gets lower when the consumers buys a bigger block of time. For example, a $20 prepaid card works out to an average per-minute charge of 30 cents while a $40 prepaid card works out to an average per-minute of 25 cents

 

What those users may not immediately understand is that the minutes they add to their phone "expire" if left unused after a period of time--a period that varies from six months to as little as 30 days, depending on the service. If you 're planning to buy a prepaid cellular phone, activate it with a minimal number of minutes, and then store it in your car 's glovebox until an emergency arises, you 'd better also plan to replenish your minutes on a periodic basis--whether or not you actually use your phone.

Some services allow you to roll over any unused old minutes, as long as you add new minutes before your old ones expire. Many services also always allow you to call 911, even if all your airtime minutes have expired. In any event, if you 're thinking of buying a prepaid cell phone, look carefully at the fine print. Because of airtime expiration policies, you may still end up paying the equivalent of a monthly fee, even if you never "use" the time you buy.

 

On some of their higher denomination cards, such as the one for $94.99, the minutes last for 365 days, so that would be less hassle than having to buy more minutes every 60 days.

 

Prepaid will allow you to avoid Start of Service Fees and a credit check. Typically people who have prepaid either don't want to be locked into a contract or don't have good enough credit to have postpaid (monthly paid service fee) wireless (nearly every wireless company will run a credit check before offering you service). With prepaid service you buy a prepaid card or you call in and use a credit card to buy minutes. The minutes come in blocks. The larger the block, the lower the per minute cost. Then you have a certain period of time in which you can use those minutes (usually 30-60 days) before they disappear. Once they are gone, if you haven't used all of your minutes. Because of this you will undoubtedly end up paying more on a per minute basis then if you had postpaid wireless so prepaid is definitely not going to help you financially. To give you an example, usually the lowest prepaid card is going to cost you $25 and will give you 30-50 minutes locally. Compare this with postpaid and most companies will give you upwards of 100 minutes per month for the same cost and may throw in additional off peak minutes. Also, postpaid services come with lots of features like caller ID, call waiting, etc. Most prepaid plans do not include any features at all.

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