• Cheap Mobile Phones
• Nokia 5800 Deals
• Blackberry Curve 8900 Deals
• Samsung Jet Deals
• Nokia N97 Deals
• HTC Hero Deals
• cheap samsung tocco ultra
• Samsung Tocco Lite Deals
• Samsung Omnia 2 S8000
• Sony Ericsson Satio

Everyone is familiar with the basics of the standard plans most cell phone companies provide. Though standard plans differ between carriers, most involve a mandatory long-term contract of 1 or 2 years, a credit check and a minimum monthly fee for service. The monthly price includes a set allotment of minutes, either for personal use or on a family plan with two or more lines. You can always buy more minutes for a higher monthly fee. If you go over your allotment of minutes, most companies charge a premium rate for each additional minute used. However, if you don’t use all of your minutes, they normally do not roll over; you lose them and start over the following month.

Standard cell phone plans have their perks, however, over ‘pay as you go’ plans. Standard cell phone plans usually offer a high quality free phone with the plan or more expensive phones at deep discounts. They often include free weekends and evening calling; meaning calls made during these times do not count towards your allotted minutes. For a small fee you can add features too, like free calling to any other cell phone that uses the same service, or free calling to certain cell numbers on other services — friends or family members. Each carrier has their own combination of features to choose from. These plans can present so many options and contingencies that some people can find it confusing. But this type of plan is probably the way to go for anyone who uses a cell phone more than 90 minutes every month.

‘Pay as you go’ plans work completely differently. There is no monthly fee, contract or credit check. Instead, you can buy a phone card from a retailer, which is like giving the carrier money towards your account. A ‘pay as you go’ plan first requires that you buy a cell phone made to use with this type of plan. You can purchase pay as you go phones from many retailers, including online stores. The only stipulation is that the phone needs to be made for the carrier you will be using. If you want to use Virgin Mobile, for example, you’ll need a Virgin Mobile phone. Once you buy the phone, signing up is easy. Just call the carrier’s number listed in the phone manual. The representative will ask for the serial number off the phone, and then will assign it a cell number. Some carriers automatically credit your account with $10 for signing up with them, but if not, you can add money to your account with the phone card you purchased. Your account is recorded using the cell number, so you don’t even have to give the company your name.

Cell phone minutes are deducted from your available balance. If the balance reaches zero before 90 days have expired, you will need to buy another phone card to add more credit to the account before you can make additional calls. If, on the other hand, 90 days passes and you haven’t used all your credit, you will need to add money anyway to keep the phone active, but your existing balance accumulates. You don’t lose it if you don’t use it, unlike standard plans.