Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Prepaid Cellular Phone Plan: It's Pros and Cons

By Alice Sy

A prepaid cellular phone plan is similar to other kinds of phone plans available in the market. The main difference is the manner of paying the bills. In a post paid plan, you can use the phone service before you pay for your consumption. In a prepaid plan, on the other hand, you get to pay ahead and then use the phone service.

The reason why users buy a prepaid cellular phone plan is to save money and limit their credit. It also offers no hassle and little commitment to the buyer. On the other hand, if you take advantage of the traditional plan, you are bound to the plan carrier for a year or so since you are going to sign a contract. If you fail to meet the terms of the contract or break it, you have to pay for the penalty.

Another advantage of availing prepaid cellular phone plan is that you don't have to fall for a debt. In other cases, you don't even need a credit card to use its services. Virgin Mobile Phone, for example, offers prepaid phone cards in their Virgin Megastores. So, all you have to do is get if off the rack, give your cash to the cashier, and in minutes, enjoy making calls.

How to use a prepaid cellular phone plan? It's simple. All you have to do is buy a cell phone. Then, set your prepaid plan and the amount of service you wish to enjoy. For some plans, you pay for the number of minutes you want to use up - say between 30 to 1000 minutes.

A prepaid cellular phone plan doesn't let you fall into a debt. The consumer is forced to pay ahead before availing phone services. There are phone service companies which sell convenient prepaid cards to numerous outlets. These outlets can easily be reached by consumers, such as malls and convenient stores.

Prepaid cellular phone plan cards are available in the internet. You can purchase services at a carrier's website. You can also buy them at carrier stores. You can have them in monthly rates, also called autoplay. Here, your credit card is immediately charged a certain amount every month. Whenever you call, the per-minute charge is immediately deducted to the amount charged on your account until there will be no more service.

Prepaid cards can be purchased in various places offline. They can also be bought online in carrier websites and carrier stores. Prepaid cards have expiration dates when you load them into your phone. You have a number of days or weeks to use the load depending on the amount of the prepaid card you purchased.

Plus, prepaid cellular phone plans have expiration date. For example, if you haven't consumed the entire service in 30 days, the carrier will eat it up after the due date. So, it is wiser to think and weigh matters first before choosing the best cellular phone plan you want to use.

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