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For the last couple of years, I've had a Virgin Mobile prepaid phone. I use my mobile seldom enough that this makes sense for me: this way the minimum expense is $20/90 days, and I'm probably averaging about twice that.
The phone needs replacing (it's old, the 7 key doesn't work well, and one of the built-in function keys is also getting less and less sensitive). As far as I can tell, my options are to get another Virgin phone; switch to T-Mobile, in which case I'd still need to buy a new phone; or look for a relatively inexpensive contract, rather than one that will cost me lots of money for zillions of minutes I won't use.
The main problem with Virgin is that the Sprint network doesn't give me a good signal at home, and no matter how often I tell people to try the landline first, sometimes I miss calls because they don't. The secondary problem is that it's a US-only network, but T-Mobile would charge me fairly high for calls in Canada, so I I wouldn't use it much, if at all, while up there (which is only a couple of weeks a year anyhow).
T-Mobile claims decent signal strength to my apartment, though less once I get into Inwood Hill Park, but I have no idea of whether that's true. Since I'm between two ridges, one of them a city park, with a river and then a cliff to the north, I suspect nobody has really good signal here.
If you've had really good, or really bad (or really weird) experience with T-Mobile, or have opinions for or against the phones Sprint or T-Mobile is currently offering for prepaid, please pass them along. Ditto if you like your mobile phone company and they have a contract that seems to suit my needs.
The phone needs replacing (it's old, the 7 key doesn't work well, and one of the built-in function keys is also getting less and less sensitive). As far as I can tell, my options are to get another Virgin phone; switch to T-Mobile, in which case I'd still need to buy a new phone; or look for a relatively inexpensive contract, rather than one that will cost me lots of money for zillions of minutes I won't use.
The main problem with Virgin is that the Sprint network doesn't give me a good signal at home, and no matter how often I tell people to try the landline first, sometimes I miss calls because they don't. The secondary problem is that it's a US-only network, but T-Mobile would charge me fairly high for calls in Canada, so I I wouldn't use it much, if at all, while up there (which is only a couple of weeks a year anyhow).
T-Mobile claims decent signal strength to my apartment, though less once I get into Inwood Hill Park, but I have no idea of whether that's true. Since I'm between two ridges, one of them a city park, with a river and then a cliff to the north, I suspect nobody has really good signal here.
If you've had really good, or really bad (or really weird) experience with T-Mobile, or have opinions for or against the phones Sprint or T-Mobile is currently offering for prepaid, please pass them along. Ditto if you like your mobile phone company and they have a contract that seems to suit my needs.
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The other problem with the fixed prepaid plan is that the phone does not roam so it wasn't useful in some out-of-the-way places I visited while traveling in the U.S.