Prepaid Cellular Phone Plan: The Good and Bad Side

August 29th, 2008 by Alice Sy


by Alice Sy

A prepaid cellular phone plan has the same features to other kinds of phone plans available in the market, except for the one and only factor which is the manner of paying the bills. A post paid plan requires you to pay after using phone services. In a prepaid plan, however, you get to pay in advance for the phone service before using it.

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.

The consumer purchases a set amount of prepaid credit in which he uses until his balance reaches zero. After that, he can no longer use the phone services. Prepaid cellular phone plans thus give a psychological impact to consumers in a way that they limit their consumption with the amount of prepaid credit they have, making them save money in the process.

The prepaid cellular phone plan is easier on the wallet and is also free of hassles. In addition, prepaid plans require no commitment to consumers unlike in post paid plans. The consumer is not required to pay a set amount of cash in set time intervals unlike in post paid plans. Instead, the consumer only pays how much he plans to use. Post paid plans have penalties wherein the consumer has to pay when a consumer fails to meet the terms of the contract. Prepaid plans, on the other hand, have no contracts and no financial obligations.

A prepaid cellular phone plan limits expenditures and prevents debts. The consumer is required to pay how much he plans to use before availing phone services. There are mobile phone service providers which sell prepaid cards for the consumers to use. They are easy to obtain and only require one time payments in stores and shops.

With a prepaid cellular phone plan, there are no additional headaches in using a cell phone. All you have to do is buy a mobile phone and then load it with prepaid credit. The minutes of calls and the number of messages you can send on your phone depends on how much you loaded it.

Prepaid credit can be purchased in various places offline. They can also be purchased 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.

Although a prepaid cellular phone plan may sound very appealing, you should give it a long thought before choosing this over the post paid plan. In the long run, post paid plans give much bigger savings when you are the type who makes frequent calls. This is because the post paid plan has lower call rates than prepaid plans. Weigh matters first before choosing among the two.

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