Tracfone question

[steve88]

But it is then really a wi-fi phone and not a cell phone, right? In other words, fine if you are at home or Starbucks, but not it you are in the car or whatever.

Since some folks are on a limited plan or pay as you go the alternative is what I do. I use wifi phone. I use cell phone only on emergency.

 

[TromboneAl]

But it is then really a wi-fi phone and not a cell phone, right? In other words, fine if you are at home or Starbucks, but not it you are in the car or whatever.

That's correct. I set up my iPod touch for wifi calling, used it once, found it worked fine, and never used it again.

 

[FUEGO]

Which plan? Beyond Talk?

I guess it is beyond talk. 300 minutes, unlimited texting and data*. Grandfathered in last year at $25/mo ($27 after all taxes and fees). Currently the low end plan is $35/mo IIRC.

* data is unlimited for the first few gigabytes. After that they throttle your bandwidth to 256 kbps until the next month on your plan starts. Not too big a deal on 3g since you sip data through a straw anyway.

 

[travelover]

I'm in a similar position with Virgin, only I have $235 in credit. I thought maybe I could get a smart phone and burn off the credit using remote web access, but they appear to have a firewall between the so called "Paylo" prepaid text / voice and the "Beyond Talk" smart phone service. Any phone with Android capability seems to fall into the other service category and my credit is unusable.

Just as a follow up to my own comment, I found a way to harvest credits that I'll never use on my Virgin account. I used the credit to buy a smartphone from Virgin on line, then immediately resold it on eBay. As luck would have it I bought it on sale, then resold it after the price at Virgin has jumped back up, so was able to clear a small profit after fees.

 

[Texas Proud]

Just as a follow up to my own comment, I found a way to harvest credits that I'll never use on my Virgin account. I used the credit to buy a smartphone from Virgin on line, then immediately resold it on eBay. As luck would have it I bought it on sale, then resold it after the price at Virgin has jumped back up, so was able to clear a small profit after fees.

That is interesting.... when I tried to do that a few years ago they would not let me buy another phone with the credits... I guess they have changed tactics...