Prepaid Tips:What to
Look for in a Prepaid Service

Here are our prepaid tips on what to consider before selecting your prepaid cell phone and plan:

• Consider a prepaid cellular company with off-network roaming.
Generally, the more roaming partners the company has in place, the broader your service coverage should be.
• For the best reception, shop phones with dual, tri or quad bands. In the past, most prepaid services used a single high frequency band. While high frequencies generally tend to travel further, they also have trouble penetrating cars and houses.

  Because of this problem, many prepaid providers (especially major carriers) are offering phones with dual or more bands.

• Refill your minutes before they expire - There's few things worse than having an important phone conversation, and running out of minutes.

  Thankfully, most carriers send an alert to your phone when your minute allotment is running out. When this happens, refill your minutes right away.

• Read the fine print - It may look like two or more carriers have virtually the same plan - but look again. You'll likely find your answer in the small print.

  For instance, while the three major carriers' prepaid plans all charge a dollar for daily access, we found that T-Mobile charges the fee every time you call each day. Which means, if you call three times in a day, you're charged $3, not $1.