TRACFONE - Superb Pay-As-You-Go Cell Phone Service

Up until October 2005, I was a Verizon wireless customer, generally satisfied with the service and calling plan. I initially used the cell phone a lot, maintaining close communication with my stockbroker for multiple daily trades. My usage was fairly heavy, particularly during fast market days.

After having less than optimal results with trading stock futures (read: lost too much money!), my number of calls dwindled down considerably. The adequate calling plan I had was now overkill. And my excess minutes didn't carry over at the time, so I was wasting valuable minutes by not engaging in worthless conversations like most cell phone users.

Then, as luck (bad) would have it, something happened that forced a decision with my cell phone service: I was struck by a car while crossing a street at night last October. When I saw the headlights the first time, they seemed much further away. When I saw them the second time, they were approximately one foot away from me.

After literally flying on my own, with some help from the car, I landed on the pavement. Besides my brand new glasses being destroyed, my Motorola cell phone was rendered useless. But hey! I survived being hit by a car with minimal injuries sustained. I was fifty-eight last year and managed to squeak through yet another close call.

Okay. What does this have to do with a review of cell phone service? A lot. I had to make a decision as to what service I would subscribe to, particularly with the life-changing events such as no need for brokerage calls.

I set about doing what a cell-phone-using-man has to do: I Googled cell phone plans; zeroing in those that offered the best comparisons. My mind went numb shortly after perusing the confusing jumble of cell phone providers' plans. It was much worse than trying to decide on what large screen TV to buy. That process requires a degree in Video Engineering. The cell phone research requires a degree in Wireless Engineering.

The "first domino" to be considered is what do you need out of a cell phone plan? Do you make a lot of calls? Do you need it for business purposes? Will it be a business expense? In my situation, I only needed it now for emergency purposes while traveling. That was the easy part of my research.

Now that I determined that I don't need a lot of minutes each month, the difficult thing was reviewing the multitude of plans out there. To make matters worse, each provider has a variety of plans to choose from. So the comparison chart I looked at was now dissolving into a maze of confusion.

But, I finally found something that suited my needs: the "pay as you go" method. Now I really latched onto a plan that sounded good! I used the CNET web site for this and eventually found TRACFONE, a nationwide, prepaid wireless phone company.

When I compared TRACFONE to other plans, I discovered a number of things that would save me tons of money:

·There's no monthly plan fee
·There are no federal fees, surcharges, state surcharges, etc. These really had a tendency to jack up my other cell phone bill
·You can easily buy the minutes you want by either their web site or prepaid calling cards (Wal-Mart sells these).
·The minutes carry over when the expiration period arrives.
·The more minutes you buy, the cheaper they are.
·There are excellent plans that include either new or refurbished phones bundled with minutes.

As I was only going to use my cell phone for urgent calls or emergencies, I only bought 300 minutes for the year. That worked out, at the time, to about .40 a minute but included a refurbished Motorola phone that has worked perfectly since then. If I had purchased the thousand minute plan, the cost per minute would have been cut in half. A year later, I have used slightly more than half of my minutes.

A cell phone is only as good as the reception it gets and the availability in remote areas. I have never had a problem connecting to a node while traveling. That includes the Adirondack Mountain area, Northern Michigan, Seattle, Portland, Oregon, Delaware, etc. And the best part is not only did it connect quickly to a node, but also the clarity was crystal-clear.

I saved over $300 per year by going with TRACFONE compared to my traditional cell phone provider. If you are looking for a high quality but cheap cell phone service, look no further. That is, unless you are a teenager doing a lot of text messaging and downloading music all the time…