emergency phone $3/month!

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.sprintpcs (More info?)

My mother-in-law decided she wanted a phone for emergency only use. I
called Sprint and planned to use an add-a phone for $20/month. It turns
out that in order to add her to my wife or my plan, we need to switch to a
current plan which are more expensive for less minutes. (Doh!)

So, I planned on getting my mother-in-law her own account... then I came
across Prepaid plans.

My memory of prepaid plans were rip-offs for those with bad credit. You had
to buy minutes in $30+ increments and they expired after 30 days. Same
minimum outlay, more expensive minutes!

Well, times have changed... I got my mother-in-law a phone with AT&T ( a
few vendors had similar deals almost as good. All with the exception of a
company that catered to teens were good deals).

$99.00 phone (includes $10 credit, so $89)
Can buy minutes for $10, 25cpm, 90 day expiration (web page said 30 days,
but now looks like 90!)
Can buy minutes for $100, 15cpm 365 day expiration.
Unused minutes roll forward if balanced bumped before expiration.

Wow!.. so as long as I put $10/quarter into my mother-in-laws account, she
pays $3.33/month (+85 for phone). WOW!

I considered switching my wife to a prepaid plan, but since she uses ~150
minutes/month (comes out to 16cpm), there isn't a big benefit over a
standard plan.

I just thought I would mention this to others.. we'll be switching my
grandfather (currently on a add-a phone with my brother) to this plan.

BTW, other vendors (including Sprint/Virgin Mobile ) has similar deals. I
went with AT&T because they had web access and I could manager her account
from the web.

Robert