Better than Verizon for 150 minutes or less per month
Written: Aug 23 '06 (Updated Aug 27 '06)
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TracFone has performed well for me. The refurbished Motorola V60i has been a good phone, the online experience has been hassle-free, and their coverage area in rural northern New England is excellent.
After researching coverage areas for pre-paid phone plans, I found that TracFone was far superior to other services. The Motorola v60i is a dual-band CDMA/TDMA phone that roams on multiple networks, and it is only available by mail order I believe. Many of the TracFone phones sold in stores are "nationwide" GSM phones which is a different cellular technology. The catch with GSM phones is that the network is more limited. In fact, the TracFone coverage area maps (see: http://www.cellguru.net/tracfone.htm) are for their GSM phones. That's not a problem if you are in major metro areas or along interstate highways. But up here in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont GSM coverage is spotty. My TracFone V60i has roamed well beyond the official TracFone coverage area in the wilds of New Hampshire, the coast of Maine, the mountains of Colorado and elsewhere. I used to have Verizon and I checked coverage of both phones simultaneously on a trip throughout northern VT and NH. Surprisingly TracFone CDMA/TDMA coverage was clearly superior to Verizon CDMA/TDMA coverage, probably because TracFone roams on non-Verizon networks.
CDMA phone calls are billed at 1 TracFone unit per minute of calling within a decent size home area, and 2 units per minute when outside this area (e.g., ~40 cents/minute). All GSM phone calls anywhere are billed at 1 unit per minute. Other prepaid plans are cheaper, but to me it's worth it to pay to 18-25 cents per unit for excellent CDMA/TDMA coverage. I use about 100 units per month, costing me about $20. Tracfone also has easy 1 year renewal times (extendable to 730 days out), and they offer number portability, and good voicemail, caller ID, etc. services. I haven't had to use their customer support line and their web site is only mediocre, but on the plus side their automated online services have worked without a hitch.
When I first purchase my TracFone, the home area was basically what they indicated on their web site -- about 1/3 of NH. After a month or two when I was entering codes for new minutes, the Tracfone web site had me enter another code and voila my home area now extends well into Massachusetts and Maine! (I have no idea why.)
Tracfone often has promotions for getting extra minutes when buying minutes, and they also include a coupon book with the phone of mediocre promotions. Adding minutes using the web and credit card is easy, and I love no longer hassling with a monthly bill.
My only gripes are: a fairly short battery life for the reconditioned v60i phone and somewhat pricey minutes- even in large bundles. Even though I was able to easily port my old Verizon cell phone number to TracFone, officially the phone still shows the initial number I was assigned by TracFone. This hasn't been a problem, however.
Recommended:
Yes
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About the Author
Location: Concord, NH
Reviews written: 11
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me: New Hampster'ite and former environmental science professor now working in the energy efficiency field.
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