Prepaid AT&T
Most people have had a cell phone for a while, but not all of them know about Prepaid AT&T. A prepaid mobile phone or prepaid wireless card is an alternative to post-paid mobile phone plans, in which you enter a long-term billing arrangement with a telecom company or mobile network operator.
Prepaid AT&T is the pay-as-you-go alternative offered by AT&T. Choosing a Go-Phone option (another name for "Prepaid") is good for those sick of their standard mobile phone service, so let's discuss the details of prepaid cellphones and AT&T.
Why Choose Prepaid AT&T?
Are you tired of renewing your contract? Do you want a bit more freedom and control over how you pay? Would you like to try a new cell phone carrier without the commitment?
If any of those options appeal to you, then you should try a prepaid AT&T cell phone.
How Do Prepaid Phones Work?
Prepaid phones work just like regular phones, except you have no contract. You are using the same network as the folks with contracts. You buy a phone, activate it and buy some minutes.
Sometimes, minutes come with the phone when you buy it. As long as you keep buying minutes before you run out of minutes, you keep your phone number and plan. In addition, you can roll your unused minutes into the next plan period and you have unlimited talk to other AT&T customers.
Although you do not have a contract with the "Go" phone option, you still have to decide on a plan. AT&T Prepaid plans have several options, including Pay As You Go and Pick Your Plan.
AT&T Pay As You Go
With Pay As You Go, there is pay per day, a simple plan and an unlimited feature simple plan. The pay per day plans require you to pay a flat fee per day. Depending on the fee, you may pay per minute or not.
Higher priced plans have unlimited minutes. These plans only charge you on the days you use your phone.
The Simple Plan is a flat rate plan that charges per minute. The unlimited feature simple plan has the highest price, but you get unlimited talk, text and features. If you do not pay the plan fee before you use up your minutes or after 30 days, whichever come sooner, you revert to the simple plan.
With Pick Your Plan, you are paying monthly much like you do with a contract. You have a set price, a certain number of anytime minutes and a set cost per minute once you use up your anytime minutes. In some cases you get night and weekend minutes and mobile to mobile minutes. There is even an unlimited talk plan.
You are not obligated to continue the plan at any time, and you can change the plan level each month if you want. If you run out of minutes, you can choose to not use your phone until your next payment date, or you can add minutes to your plan.
Can I Get Advanced Features with My Prepaid AT&T Phone?
All prepaid AT&T phones come with features like voice mail, call forwarding, call waiting, international calling, caller ID, three-way calling and nationwide long distance. These features do use your airtime minutes, like most phones. Enhanced features require certain phone models, and include unlimited nights and weekends, text, picture and video messaging, instant messaging, international text, picture and video messaging, ringtones, games, graphics and data.
How Much Does the Phone Cost?
The prepaid phones are not expensive. The phones aren’t free, but they start at just under $20. They range from simple phones to more advanced phones with touch screens and keyboards. The more advanced phones cost less than $100.
As you can see, the phones may be much cheaper than some of the phones that require a contract. The only disadvantage to the prepaid plan is that the selection of phones is smaller.
How Much Does This Cost?
The prepaid AT&T plan requires you to have a balance in your account. Your account is debited per your plan as described above. You can add funds to your "Pay As You Go" account by buying prepaid refill cards, by paying online or by calling customer service from your phone.
The refill cards come in specified denominations and have an expiration period. For the "Pick Your Plan" accounts, you pay monthly by credit card, debit card or check. Pick Your Plan monthly fees start at just under $30.
Advanced features are charged with usage at various rates. For instance, there is a per message rate for text messaging. Airtime is used when voicemail is accessed. There are advanced feature packages where you can pay for a certain amount of usage to save money. This is helpful for text messaging, where you can pay a flat fee for 200 or 500 text messages.
Do I Ever Lose My Minutes?
You cannot lose your minutes as long as you refill your account before your balance runs out. If you do not come close to using your entire balance in a month, as long as you pay monthly, your remaining balance and your unused minutes keep rolling over. Some of the refill cards do have an expiration date, so you want to be mindful of this.
For instance, if you buy a $60 refill card with a 90 day expiration date, you would lose the remaining balance if you do not use $60 worth of minutes or features within the 90 days.
What's the Catch?
There is no catch with an AT&T prepaid plan. Depending on your phone usage, these kinds of plans can save you money. If you mostly talk and text, the unlimited plan can be quite a value.