which cell phone/plan for emergency use only?

    My wife wants a cell phone out in her car so that if the car breaks
down during commuting, she can call to be towed.  She already has an old
cell phone under the seat that can call 911 in an emergency.

   I realized I had an old "new in box" Tracfone that I bought at Kmart
for 8 bucks several years back.  I was on the verge of buying a 1 year,
$100 card to activate it, but then paused.  I found myself wondering, is
there a better option?

   I have since found that T-Mobile offers a similar year of service for
about $100 as well.

   Then I heard about AT&T Gophone's service, which is evidently $2 for
each day you use your phone.  I can't seem to find real details, or an
example bill anywhere to look at, but it certainly does seem to be
saying unlimited voice use of the phone for $2, only on the days that
the phone is used.

   This would seem to imply that if she only uses the phone for 1 day a
year, that it would only cost us $2.  That seems too good to be true,
doesn't it?  I'm wondering if they tack on some 911 fee, universal
service charge, plus lots of other taxes and fees or something like that.

   I'm wondering what the catch is.  Anyone have some firsthand
information they can share?  I'd like to make a decision in the next
couple of days, so that she can have an emergency cell phone to use once
the snow and sleet are falling.


                                                 Thanks!

 

No firsthand experience here but after reading the description of the
service, it does seem like there is some risk involved.

They consider the phone "in use" if either outbound or inbound calls are
made, including voicemail.

So I'd guess if someone called the number and it got handed off to vm, you
just spent $2.

Plus it's a credit system, you have to pre-pay to have money on account for
the $2 charges, although I don't see if there is a minimum to start.

Interesting idea though.

-bruce
bje@ripco.com

 

I'll 2nd Page Plus.  I just set up my wife and daughter with
a pair of PP phones. (BTW: There is an active community of
PP users on Facebook.).
In may case I dropped Sprint, ported the number to PP for
my wife to use, then got a new number for my daughter. I
then loaded up the phones with $25.00 (400 minutes). Counting
my own phone, I spent $50.00 for 3 cell phones last month.
PP is awesome.

 On 11/20/2011 6:56 PM, Gordon wrote:

   Thanks, everybody, for the help and suggestions with this.

   Ok, I'm definitely going with Page Plus Cellular - they have good
coverage in my area.

   I think I should restrict choices to a "dumb" phone instead of a
smart phone.  My wife values simplicity, and I'm guessing that in an
emergency, she would rather have ease of use.  Long talk time would
probably mean good battery, too.

   I should probably also limit choices to flip phone - seems to be the
only way to guarantee that no keys are hit on accident.  Considering the
issues we had once with a refurb Gophone, I should probably limit my
choices to new as well.

   So, can anyone point me to a new "dumb" flip phone with at least 4
hours of talk time that will definitely work with Page Plus cellular?


                                                   Thanks!

 

Pageplus now only sells new phones.  But, the down side of this
is that the selection is now about 3 phones.  You can also check
with My Supply World or Kitty Wireless (they sell PP compatible
phones) to see if they have a better selection.