Many of us have or want a new cell phone but the question is should we go with prepaid coverage or sign up with a contracted provider? With the fast growing competition between service providers, the features available and the rates charges for the features are changing faster than ever before. Although for some of us, our credit scores may prevent us from getting the newest contracted plan available out there so we are stuck getting a prepaid plan. But it that really such a bad thing?

Contracted Cell Phones

Some of the benefits of signing up for a contracted cell phone include things like getting a brand new phone at sharply discounted (sometimes as low as free) rates, having no interruption of service from month to month, have customer support that is available around the clock, and have typically lower rates than that of a prepaid phone.

Some of the major downfalls to having a contracted cell phone include:

• Being locked into a plan that you usually cannot change for two years
• You cannot change phones without paying the full retail price on the phone
• You can’t take advantage of new rate plans and feature changes without paying a additional fee or extending the contract for another two years
• And, the overwhelming termination fees if your decide to cancel your service before the minimum time frame.

Prepaid Cell Phones

The primary drawback to prepaid cell phones is that the per-minute fees for their services are typically more than the estimated per minute costs for contracted phones. The only other problem with prepaid phones it that typically prepaid phone service comes with an older model used phone when you buy them from a retail outlet. After that, it is all good news for prepaid phones. If you don’t use the cell phone as primary source of communication, then owning refurbished cell phones has many advantages. For example, you can purchase a handful of minutes at a time and they are good to use for up to ninety days. This way you are not paying for minutes each month that you just don’t need. In addition, you can change your phone at any time regardless of how long you have had your current phone. The best advantage to prepaid service is that you have no long-term contracts to deal with. You can have service for your phone for as little as a month or renew each month for as long as you would like to have a phone.

Personal Opinion

Over the years I have owned both prepaid and contracted phones from a variety of providers. Personally I see more advantages coming to prepaid phones than with contracted service. This is especially proven with the latest feature to prepaid plans allowing for unlimited minutes for as little as $60 a month! If you are in the market for a prepaid service provider start by shopping for used AT&T phones (or whatever service you want) and then looking around at various service providers for more information.