Extremely Low Cost Emergency Phone for Outgoing Calls Only

If you need an extremely low recurring cost cellular phone, only to use for very urgent or emergency calls, use ARN.

As low as 83¢ Per Month

As low as 25¢ Per Minute

Always  0¢ Monthly Fee

Always 1 Year Re-Upping

Absolute Lowest Monthly Cost—Outgoing Calls Only—American Roaming Network (ARN)

When you try to use an unactivated CDMA cellular phone that is also unregistered to a specific carrier you will automatically be connected to the American Roaming Network (ARN). You then are able to place calls using a credit card, at a very high price ($1.99/minute plus a $2.99 per call setup fee). However ARN has recently began selling prepaid minutes for a much lower price, offering prepaid minutes for $1 each with a $10 card, 33¢ each with a $20 card, and 25¢ each with a $30 card. Each card is good for one year. Note that you do not use minutes for calls to 911, and you do not need to purchase any airtime to use any phone to call 911.

You need a CDMA or CDMA/AMPS phone that is unregistered to a specific carrier. You can't just use a phone that used to be on Verizon or Sprint or Alltel but is out of contract (you won't get connected to ARN because the phone is still registered to the carrier even though it is no longer activated). The American Roaming Network web site states: "ARN works from most unregistered CDMA, TDMA and AMPS mobile phones." Since most TDMA and most metropolitan area AMPS is now gone, only a CDMA or CDMA/AMPS phone is practical. GSM phones will not work.

This service is for outgoing calls only. You do not get a phone number. No one can call you. This is truly a service for absolute emergencies. On the plus side, since it uses CDMA and AMPS, and will work on any network, you will have far more coverage with this phone than you will with a phone on the AT&T or T-Mobile GSM networks, or the Sprint CDMA network. If you do get a prepaid plan on the AT&T or T-Mobile network you might consider one of these prepaid cards and phones for the many areas of the U.S. where there is no GSM coverage. Actually, even if you have a regular postpaid account on AT&T or T-Mobile, and travel in rural areas, it makes sense to carry an emergency phone on ARN because it provides far better coverage than AT&T or T-Mobile.

Obtaining an unregistered phone can be difficult. One source is http://www.emergencycellphones.com. Be sure to order the CDMA/AMPS model (V120e) and not one of the older TDMA/AMPS models. There may be other sources for these unregistered phones as well. I don't know if you can get an existing phone unregistered.

You buy minutes from http://www.americanroaming.com/buyprepaid.php. You can buy a $10/10 minute card which lasts for one year, so it's $10/year. You used to also be able to pay at the time of the call with your credit card at $1.99/minute plus a $2.99 per call set-up fee, and I suspect that this still works as well, but probably you don't want to do that since the first minute would cost $5 per call!

Remember, you'll have no phone number, and can only make outgoing calls.

Ironically, it can actually be cheaper to use ARN when roaming, than to use PagePlus, because you can get ARN minutes for as low as 25¢ each, while roaming on PagePlus is 59¢ per minute.

Network: Nearly all CDMA and AMPS networks.

Monthly Fee: None.

Minimum cost: 83¢ Month ($10 every year).

Per-minute cost: 25¢-$1.

Data: Not available

Re-upping: $10 minimum every year.

Handsets: You must use an unregistered CDMA or CDMA/AMPS handset. You cannot use a handset that was previously registered to a specific carrier unless you can get it unregistered.

Pros: Low start-up cost, extremely low minimum cost per month, excellent coverage.

Cons: No incoming calls, high per-minute cost, obtaining a handset is a pain.

Bottom Line: If $2.31/month on PagePlus is too expensive, then ARN offers a lower minimum monthly cost alternative