About a month ago, we lowered our cell phone bill from $50/month to $10/month, ended up with a much better phone, and still get the same amount of phone service that we’ve always had. I’m thrilled with the new plan, and want to share the story with you all in case any of you are looking for a less expensive phone option.
Until December, we had a basic (no data) phone plan from Verizon that was costing us $50/month after taxes and fees. I had heard from several readers about their own phone plans that were significantly cheaper than that, so I started shopping around in the fall to see what we could get that would give us good coverage in our area, enough minutes and/or texts to meet our needs, and save us some money.
We ended up switching to Airvoice Wireless, and so far, so good. The coverage map looked good for our area, even though we’re in a small town, and we’ve had great coverage everywhere we’ve used the phone this past month. I talked with them about device compatibility, and they mentioned that their service works with AT&T devices. So we’re using a first generation iPhone that we had previously been using as a wi-fi pocket computer (we bought it from a friend a few years ago when he upgraded to a newer version). The iPhone is a lot better than the KinOne we had been using with our Verizon plan (that was the phone we got for free when we signed up with Verizon).
Switching to Airvoice Wireless was easy and quick. We ordered a SIM card from their website for five bucks. That arrived in a few days, and we installed it in our phone. Then we ported our number from Verizon and signed up for the $10 plan from Airvoice. It gives us 250 voice minutes and 250 texts per month. Every time we use the phone, a display pops up immediately and lets us know how much we’ve just used and how much our our ten dollars is remaining. We have six days to go and we have a little over three dollars left, so it’s working out just perfectly – we’ll have a little bit of cushion left when we start the next cycle (there’s no roll over of credit – we just pay another ten dollars when our month is up).
No contract, no added fees, and ten dollars a month to use the same amount of minutes that we’ve always used. And we never even come close to 250 texts in a month, although we could use that instead of voice minutes if we find ourselves getting close to going over our limit at the end of the month (texts are two cents each).
So far, we’re thrilled with the new plan. I know it’s not a good fit for everyone, but if you’re in an area where they have good coverage, you can stay below 250 minutes and 250 texts per month, and you have access to an AT&T phone that’s no longer in a contract, I would say it’s perfect.
Anyone else using Airvoice, I’d love to hear your thoughts, especially if you’ve been with them for a while. The other plans we considered were Page Plus and Pure Talk, so I’d also be interested to hear from readers who are using either of those plans.
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