Cheap cellphone plans for 1-to-1 calling?

December 23, 2008 4:30 PM

90% of my calls are to one friend in another state here in the U.S.A. I might also consider buying this friend a cellphone as a gift and paying the bills. What's the cheapest option for doing mostly 1-to-1 calls: a "family plan", or maybe prepaid?

Total call times and numbers of calls may be large: a few calls a day, 10-30 minutes per call. I'm in Western WA and the friend is in FL, so I'm not in an area covered by Cricket or Metro PCS, which I know are cheap. I can afford an initial outlay because I'm not doing this out of desperation, just out of a desire to not waste money over the long run.

The goal is to keep the monthly charges at a minimum.

I don't care about features very much at all, doesn't have to be a smartphone or have data or SMS. Just calling with decent quality and coverage.

posted by Stoatfarm to Shopping (12 answers total)

T-mobile has their myFaves program, where you get unlimited calls to 5 phone numbers of your choice, on any service. Cingular has unlimited mobile-to-mobile calls - I think you both have to be in the Cingular network for this to apply. Both are $39.99/mo before tax and whatnot.

My family has a personal cell phone for family-only calls (CA calling VA). For two Cingular phones in the same network, it runs us around $50 a month.

At about 90 minutes worth of calls a day, prepaid is going to be really expensive. You probably want to look into a monthly plan.
posted by Xere at 4:43 PM on December 23, 2008

If this has to be a mobile phone, I think you're going to find that a plan is cheaper. As far as I know, all Verizon to Verizon cell phone calls are free. That's what's been showing up on our bill to friends with Verizon. Might be something to look into. They also provide family plans with free unlimited calls to the other phones on the plan. It's 10 bucks to add a line, I think.
posted by theantikitty at 4:52 PM on December 23, 2008

AT&T has pre-paid mobile plans which are $1 per day of use and 10 cents per min, but unlimited free minutes to other AT&T mobiles and obviously no $1 per day when you don't use the phone. A $100 top up expires after 1 year. I find this option optimal since I have many friends on AT&T and don't live in the U.S. continuously. Yes, $1 per day is $30 per month if you are really calling every day, and more if you make other calls or texts, but most other phones cost more per month. I'd still search out all the workable minor mobile carriers. A pre-paid offers the advantage that your friend can't run up some huge phone bill. Also, GSM networks, like AT&T, have vastly more phone options and maybe cheaper cheap ebay phones.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:53 PM on December 23, 2008

Response by poster: Yes, has to be a mobile phone, sorry to have left that out. Thanks jeffburdges & theantikitty!
posted by Stoatfarm at 4:56 PM on December 23, 2008

So yes pre-paid AT&T is only $30 per month if you really only make calls to & from AT&T phones, but I bet you can beat that price on some smaller mobile carrier.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:57 PM on December 23, 2008

All T-Mobile to T-Mobile calls are also free, you don't need myFaves (which costs an extra few dollars a month).
posted by meta_eli at 7:42 PM on December 23, 2008

IIRC T-Mobile to T-Mobile calls are "free" if you have the mobile-to-mobile add-on to your account for $6.99/mo or whatever it costs.
posted by eatcake at 8:30 PM on December 23, 2008

T-Mobile prepaid offers a $1 per day "Pay by the Day" plan that includes unlimited calls to other T-Mobile phones. You won't get charged for days you don't use the phone.
posted by toxic at 9:45 PM on December 23, 2008 [1 favorite]

I use Boost Mobile. Unlimited calls, no nonsense, something like $30/month. No contracts, no automatic billing, quit whenever, although their billing gets weird sometimes.
posted by quarantine at 9:49 PM on December 23, 2008

My wife and I added her mother onto our bill. Cost us about $10 a month to have the additional line. We're on a relatively cheap family plan with AT&T; while our particular plan is a holdover from Cingular, and while they are also pushing the "pick 5" type plans pretty hard, I don't think it's impossible to get the old-school family plan that just gives you shared minutes and unlimited in-network mobile to mobile. Her mom calls us a lot. With the rollover minutes, we've never even come close to using all of our time.
posted by caution live frogs at 5:41 AM on December 24, 2008

prepaidgsm.net has outdated but useful information.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:39 AM on December 24, 2008

i love my t-mobile fave 5 plan. it's super easy and i've found i hardly speak to more than 2 or 3 people regularly though when i do it's friends in other states and can take hours. thankfully with fave 5 you can change the contacts monthly and it costs nothing to talk to them. i pay a little extra for text messaging, all in all it's $55 a month. i highly reccommend it, as when i had a regular plan i was spending way too much money and now i don't have to worry about it.
posted by big open mouth at 7:51 PM on December 26, 2008