X Close Editor

Submitted by: PrepaidWirelessGuy

Title

Comment
This is a really good topic. The wireless industry refers to people with this type of usage activity as "glove box" users. i.e. When someone basically puts the phone in the glove box of their car, and only uses it for emergencies. This is definitely a very legitimate use of a wireless phone, and I have family members who do the same thing! I also understand why people get frustrated when they don't use their phone, and yet the money disappears after a period of time! To provide some perspective, however, prepaid carriers do have a fixed cost even if you never use your phone. These costs surround what's referred to as network carrying costs. Things like having a phone number on the account. A phone number is considered a resource that costs money. There's also a platform cost (usually calculated on a monthly basis) just to maintain the account with its status, balance, etc. The point here is that there's a cost for carriers that they need to recoup. Don't get me wrong, it's not as though they're just breaking even if you pay their minimum amount; they'll make money on it, though not anywhere near what they do on subscribers who use their phone more regularly. In other words, if all of their customers used their phones in this way, they wouldn't be able to stay in business! That said, you'll still want to minimize your average monthly cost to meet your personal needs and objectives, taking into consideration the expiration date. But no, you won't be able to have your minutes never expire; at least not that I'm aware of. What you'll want to do is check out the dollar value and expiration periods on the <a href="http://www.prepaid-wireless-guide.com/compare-payg.html">Compare PAYG</a> page. The less money you can add, with the longest expiration date, the lower your average monthly cost will be. The best rate I've seen lately is $10 for 90 days, which would give you an average monthly cost of $3.33/month. Now that's not a bad price for emergency/occasional use! I'd also recommend signing up for automatic topup using a credit/debit card. Basically, when your balance hits at or below a defined amount (ex. $5), it will automatically replenish to a preset amount that you usually get to choose (in this case you'll want it to be set at $10). Also, note that it's important to ensure that the account will also automatically be replenished when the funds expire. This is important, because some plans don't work this way, and funds expiring will take your account to zero without triggering the threshold balance (in this example $5). I'm sure there are others that work this way, however, I can say for certain that Boost Mobile works this way (at the time of writing this at least). I hope this helps!

Cancel Delete Delete & Ban

Updating Comments page...