As low as $2.30 Per Month

As low as 5.3¢ Per Minute

As Low as 41.1¢ Monthly Fee

Always 120 Days Re-Upping

I am a big fan and a customer of PagePlus. Here are the pros and cons I could think of:

Pros

• Per minute cost is the lowest of any prepaid carrier, as low as 5.3¢.

• Minimum monthly cost, for low volume users, is as low as $2.30 per month. Only T-Mobile has a lower minimum monthly cost (once you become "Gold" on T-Mobile prepaid, by spending $100, future refills (including the $10 refill) last 365 days).

• Coverage is the best of any prepaid carrier (equal to the coverage on Verizon's own prepaid service); far better coverage than AT&T, T-Mobile, Virgin, Boost, or Tracfone GSM.

• Coverage is better than all postpaid carriers other than Verizon.

• No taxes, E-911 fees, or garbage fees (there is a 50¢ per month service charge).

• Expiration time of 120 days applies even to their lowest cost cards.

• Roaming off Verizon allowed, albeit at extra cost, so your phone will work on any CDMA network in the U.S. (many prepaid carriers don't allow roaming at all, or they limit roaming).

• Online account management of multiple phone numbers from one PagePlus login.

• Low cost unlimited plan ($33/month) which includes voice, texts, and 20MB of data (3G if your phone supports it). Additional data cost $0.60/MB.

• Low cost high-volume plan ($25/month) which includes 1200 voice minutes, 1200 text or MMS messages, and 50MB of data (3G if your phone supports it). Additional data cost $0.60/MB.

• 3G and 2G data is available for $1.20/MB (not cheap but the few other carriers that offer 3G data at all charge much more for it).

• Low speed QNC data available at no cost. This is an unofficial feature and is not supported by all handsets, and is not guaranteed to be available forever. Press for a Google Search of PagePlus & QNC. QNC is fine for text based e-mail, but is really too slow for web browsing.

• Low $6-10 start-up cost (actually it's possible to get started for free).

• Automatic refills available to protect against account expiration.

• Phone number porting available at no cost.

• Smart Phones are supported on all plans, with 3G data.

• Wide availability of low-cost handsets, both new and used, including handsets sold for use on Verizon InPulse service.

• Verizon back-door numbers for voice mail access work with PagePlus.

• Verizon e-mail to text messaging works with PagePlus.

• Excellent, U.S. based, customer service, though lately it's been overwhelmed due to the popularity of the PagePlus unlimited and 1200/1200/50MB plans.

• Retail dealers available in many areas.

Cons

• Roaming costs 59¢ per minute so it isn't a suitable carrier if you spend a lot of time outside Verizon's network footprint. On the other hand, at least you have coverage, unlike many prepaid carriers that don't allow roaming at all.

• 50¢ per month service charge, while many prepaid carriers have no service charges (though most have much higher minimums).

• The maximum period for automatic refills is 30 days so you can't have it automatically add $10 every 120 days (there is a workaround though).

• If your account expires you lose your accumulated money, though customer service has been known to restore all or part of it on a case by case basis.

• No mobile to mobile free calls to or from Verizon's regular customers, all calls are charged (calls from Verizon customers to PagePlus customers are NOT considered mobile to mobile, and the Verizon customer has minutes deducted during peak periods).

• No free off-peak calls, all calls are charged.

• No Blackberry server support. Blackberry devices will work as a smart phone, but the Blackberry specific features will not work.

• No high usage or unlimited data plans (other than unofficial QNC data).

• No official support for international roaming, though there have been reports that it sometimes works in Canada and China (does not work in Mexico).

• No subsidized or free handsets with contract or contract renewal.

• Automatic refills are at full retail price, you can't set up automatic refills with refills purchased at a discount.

• If you port in a number to a temporary PagePlus number you lose the balance on the temporary PagePlus number so be careful not to have too much of a balance prior to porting

• You can't transfer balances from one phone number to another, even if the subscriber dies.

You need to add a minimum of $10 every 120 days or you will lose all of your accumulated minutes. Don't forget! They don't remind you! You can check your replenishment date on-line, or call them and ask when your 120 days is up. You can also sign up for automatic refills (but at full price, no discounts on refill cards).

PagePlus
For as low as $2.30/month you can get Page Plus Cellular (http://www.pagepluscellular.com). You can use any old CDMA or CDMA/AMPS phone that was previously on Verizon (try e-Bay or craigslist or freecycle), or they'll sell you a used phone for a low price. You can also activate Verizon InPulse prepaid phones.

You must be in an area with native Verizon coverage in order to get the normal rates on PagePlus. If you're not in a Verizon native coverage area then you'll be charged high roaming charges for every call placed or received. You can check PagePlus coverage here.

You have to spend $9.20 every four months to keep the phone active (so it would cost you $2.30/month minimum). This is slightly more than 7-11 SpeakOut, and much more than T-Mobile (after the first year of T-Mobile). $9.20 is the discounted cost of the PagePlus $10 refill card.
 

If you want a low cost per minute then buy the 1400 minute card ($73.60 or 5.3¢/minute), then every four months buy the 100 minute card ($9.22 or 9.2¢/minute) to keep the line active. As long as you top up with a $10 card (which costs less than $10) every four months, you keep all your minutes for a cost of $2.31 per month. You may want to sign up for automatic refills of the $10 card to keep your account active, and buy discounted 1400 minute cards as needed.

BIS & BES (BlackBerry Internet Service and BlackBerry Enterprise Server)

There is no access to the Blackberry servers. Regular, non-Blackberry, smart phones will work fine. Blackberry phones will work as a basic smart phone and web browser on PagePlus, but with no access to the Blackberry services.

1200 Minutes, 1200 Messages (Text and MMS) , and 50MB of Data for $24.60*/month
PagePlus now offers a hybrid prepaid plan with 1200 Minutes, 1200 Messages (Text and MMS) , and 50MB of Data for $24.60*/month . This is an excellent deal. If you roam onto non-Verizon networks you will pay 59¢/minute to roam, so don't be using this service in Alaska or other places where Verizon isn't the carrier. See http://www.pagepluscellular.com/Plans/Talk%20n%20Text%201200.aspx for details. Note that MMS does not come out of the 50MB data allocation (unlike on the unlimited plan where MMS is not included as part of the unlimited text messages). There are no extra garbage fees or taxes like on some other carriers' prepaid hybrid plans.

*24.60 is the net price if you pay with $50 refills ($56 face value) bought for $47.05 from CallingMart with the coupon code "ca3p-1207." Note that it is more expensive to refill with the $80 cards ($84 face value) because the $50 cards have a larger percentage bonus. CallingMart periodically offers coupon codes with 8% discounts (versus the 3% discount using "ca3p-1207") which brings the price down even further. These 8% coupon codes appear near holidays like Easter, Thanksgiving, XMAS, and Valentines day. Click for a Google Search for Coupon Codes.

Unlimited Minutes, Texts, and 20MB of Data for $33.56*/month
PagePlus now offers a hybrid unlimited prepaid plan. For $33.46*/month (inclusive, no extra fees) you get unlimited voice minutes, unlimited text messages, and 20MB of data. This is an excellent deal. If you roam onto non-Verizon networks you will pay 59¢/minute to roam, so don't be using this service in Alaska or other places where Verizon isn't the carrier. See http://www.pagepluscellular.com/Plans/Unlimited%20Talk%20n%20Text.aspx for details. Note that MMS comes out of the 20MB data allocation. There are no extra garbage fees or taxes like on some other carriers' prepaid hybrid plans.

*$33.56 is the net price if you pay with $50 refills ($56 face value) bought for $47.05 from CallingMart with the coupon code "ca3p-1207." Note that it is more expensive to refill with the $80 cards ($84 face value) because the $50 cards have a larger percentage bonus. CallingMart periodically offers coupon codes with 8% discounts (versus the 3% discount using "ca3p-1207") which brings the price down even further. These 8% coupon codes appear near holidays like Easter, Thanksgiving, XMAS, and Valentines day. Click for a Google Search for Coupon Codes.

Unlimited Texting for $16.39/month
For heavy texters that don't make a lot of calls, PagePlus now offers unlimited texting for $16.39./month. The retail price is $19.95/month, but since standard replenishment cards can be used to pay the monthly charge, the net cost is $16.39 if you pay the fee with $50 refill cards ($56 value) bought at an 8% discount from callingmart.com.

On-Line Account Management

PagePlus offers (finally) on-line account management. It's a nice application that lets you manage multiple accounts without logging in and out for each number. You can check your balance, expiration date, buy prepaid cards, and enter PIN numbers for cards. It's still better to buy your air time from a reseller that offers a discount like http://www.callingmart.com. It looks like automatic re-upping is coming soon.

Automatic Refills
You can now set up your PagePlus account for automatic refills so you won't ever have your account deactivated for failure to add money every 120 days. You'll be charged the full cost of the refill card, which is about 8% more than you can buy the refill cards for on-line from callingmart.com but it may be worth the extra cost to avoid the hassle of manual refills. You set up automatic refills on-line. Unfortunately, you can't just add money automatically every 120 days. The minimum amount you can add under the auto-refill program is $10 per month. What you could do is to enable auto refill for monthly refills and make the start date the day before your current expiration, which at least protects your balance. Then, disable auto refill, and then re-start it the day before your next expiration date. I guess PagePlus doesn't want to encourage the use of "glove box phones" with only the absolute minimum added to the account every 120 days.

Porting Your Existing Phone Number to PagePlus
Obtain a PagePlus phone and activate it. You'll get a new phone number, but it'll only be temporary. Call customer service and they will port your existing number to your phone (you'll need the standard information to port the number, including your existing account number, telephone pass code, etc.).

After your number is ported your temporary phone number will show a balance of $0.00 when you log into your PagePlus account. Don't panic. You need to "add another phone" with the number that you ported over to see your balance. Then you can delete the phone with the temporary number. Also, porting your number extends the expiration date to 120 days from the date you port even though technically you're not adding any money to your account.

Balance Announcement Suppression
You can suppress the balance announcement by calling PagePlus customer service at (800) 550-2436 and requesting that they turn it off.

Coverage

The PagePlus coverage map has now been updated and can now be viewed (including zooming) at http://www.pagepluscellular.com/Why%20Page%20Plus/Coverage%20Map.aspx. Since it's basically Verizon coverage, with roaming, you get far better coverage, for both voice and 3G data, than on any other carrier.

This map is not quite accurate as some of the areas they claim are roaming are not subject to roaming charges even though they are on CDMA networks other than Verizon. The roaming indicator is not always a reliable indicator that you will be charged roaming charges (though it if it shows that you aren't roaming then you definitely aren't being charged roaming charges). If you have to double dialing you will incur roaming charges (for received calls you won't know if you're being charged or not).

The best  thing about PagePlus is that the coverage is excellent because they use Verizon's network (see the January 2009 Consumer Reports), plus they allow roaming onto most other CDMA and AMPS networks. In the U.S., CDMA coverage (especially on Verizon) is far superior to that of GSM. If you're getting a phone because you want coverage in emergencies, especially out in the boonies, you should get PagePlus rather than a service that uses the GSM networks or the 1900 MHz CDMA PCS network. Also, coverage will be enhanced if you use an older handset that still has AMPS capability. While Verizon has turned off their AMPS service, many of the smaller rural carriers have not. You'll be roaming at extra cost, but you'll have coverage you wouldn't otherwise have. For example, we spent some time up in southern Oregon recently and were in several areas outside major cities where AMPS was all that was available (up around Crater Lake) and the coverage maps from the carriers verified this.

While coverage is never guaranteed, in terms of total area covered, PagePlus will cover far, far more area than any other prepaid plan. Do not underestimate the advantages of excellent coverage. I spend a lot of time up in the Sierra's, and on several secondary, but still major state highways through the Sierra's, there is no AT&T or T-Mobile coverage, including California 88 (Carson Pass), and Nevada 431 (Mount Rose Pass) which both are the routes to major ski areas. Sprint postpaid users roam onto Verizon or Golden State Cellular, and Verizon users have either native coverage or roam onto Golden State Cellular. I've experienced similar situations in Oregon, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. PagePlus also has coverage everywhere Verizon, or other CDMA and AMPS carriers, have coverage. If you never leave the urban core then you can get by with the T-Mobile or AT&T GSM networks, but if you travel the back roads, you wand the CDMA and AMPS networks. While it's harder and harder to find a CDMA phone that includes AMPS, there are still rural areas with operating AMPS systems, so it may be worthwhile to get an older phone like a Motorola V325i in order to get AMPS coverage.

Start-Up Costs
Start-up costs are very low (under $6) because you don't have to buy a SIM card, and you can use any old Verizon phone. If you need a phone, PagePlus will sell you a refurbished phone. You can buy a new Verizon InPulse phone at Target or Best Buy, like the Samsung SCH-U350, for as little as $20 (regular price), a phone that includes Bluetooth, a camera, two displays, speakerphone, etc. (remember, DO NOT LET THE STORE ACTIVATE THE PHONE ON VERIZON INPULSE). If you sign up for Howard Forums and make at least ten posts (that are not just garbage posts) then you can get free activation. See the PagePlus forum on Howard Forums.

Per-Minute Costs
Per minute cost ranges from 5.3¢ to 12.0¢ depending on the amount of refill card and where you purchase it. PagePlus uses the Verizon network, so Verizon must have a network in your area, or you'll get charged extra for roaming for every call. They have a 50¢/month fee. PagePlus is the cheapest prepaid plan for heavy users by a wide margin (about 50% more minutes than Tracfone on the Tracfone "Double Minutes For Life" plan, but without paying that $50 per phone for the plan).

Voice Mail and Texting Uses Verizon's Systems

Because PagePlus uses Verizon's network, you can access the PagePlus voice mail and texting systems the same way you access Verizon's systems. This means that all the local "back-door" voice mail numbers work for PagePlus so you can check your voice mail from a land line without using up any prepaid minutes which is a very nice feature (it's a nice feature for Verizon's regular customers as well!). Click here for a  list of numbers. It's possible that not every number on the list works, so you may need to try more than one. Send messages to PagePlus phones using the 10 digit number xxxyyyzzzz@vtext.com, or use https://text.vzw.com/customer_site/jsp/messaging_lo.jsp to send a text message.
 

PagePlus Payment System

Note: The PagePlus costs I have listed are based on buying discounted refills from http://www.callingmart.com. If you buy the refills elsewhere then the prices will be higher. Search for a coupon code for CallingMart, as you can usually save another 3-8%, so the $80 card that they normally charge $77.60 for, will cost you only $$73.60-$75.27. Use "ca3p-1207" for 3% off, then select Google Checkout and the additional discount will show up. It's very fast. You buy the refill and immediately get your PIN. You call 1-877-359-6695 from a landline, or #737 on your phone, and enter the PIN number. Sign up for the CallingMart group on Facebook and you'll be notified of the periodic 8% discounts offered by Callngmart for PagePlus.

You need to add a minimum of $10 every 120 days or you will lose all of your accumulated minutes. Don't forget! They don't remind you! You can check your replenishment date on-line, or call them and ask when your 120 days is up. You can also sign up for automatic refills (but at full price, no discounts on refill cards).

Payment System
PagePlus has now introduced a much more complex payment system, which has increased the cost of everything other than voice calls. They now keep track of the value of the cards you buy, and they use up the cards first-in-first out. Each value of card now has a per-minute cost associated with  it (12¢, 9¢, 8¢ or 6¢).  $10 cards have a value of $10 (100 10¢ minutes). $25 cards have a value of $27 (300 9¢ minutes). $50 cards have a value of $56 (700  8¢ minutes). $80 cards have a value of  $84 (1400 6¢ minutes). The price per minute has not changed from the old payment system. However no matter what value card you buy, text messages are now charged at the full 8¢, the monthly fee is charged at the full 50¢ and roaming fees are charged at the full 59¢ per minute. When your dollar and cents balance is announced prior to each call you now have no idea how many minutes the balance will pay for since the minutes could be 12¢, 9¢, 8¢, or 6¢ minutes. Too bad about this, since with the old system you paid for the monthly fee, voice-mail, and roaming, with highly discounted "PagePlus money."

* Since the $25, $50, and $80 card have bonus dollars associated with them, the actual costs for the monthly fee, text messages and roaming are slightly less than the amount that is deducted from your account.

They've added the "bonus" to make the price per minute come out to a whole number, even though it makes some of the pricing a little strange because the bonus on the $50 card is higher (both in absolute and relative terms) than the bonus on the $80 card. So texting and monthly fees are actually a little lower on the $25 and $50 cards than on the $80 card, but calls are cheaper on the $80 card.

Activation

You can activate a phone directly with PagePlus, on-line, for $10 with 100 minutes, at https://www.pagepluscellular.com/Online%20Store/Activate.aspx. However this is not as good a deal as activating through a dealer. You can activate it with 100 minutes for about $6 (see http://www.uglyeric.com/activation.html*).

It doesn't take long to get the activation, usually less than one hour. There is no need to buy a SIM card, everything is done electronically, so you are spared the time and trouble of buying a physical SIM card.

ESN changes (switching phones) need to go through a dealer and are not free. I've used http://www.uglyeric.com/esn-change.html* and he charges $5.99 for an ESN change. Even without "rush service" I don't think that it's ever taken more than an hour for the ESN change to go through.

*I have no affiliation with http://www.uglyeric.com I'm just a satisfied customer.

You need to add a minimum of $10 every 120 days or you will lose all of your accumulated minutes. Don't forget! They don't remind you! You can check your replenishment date on-line, or call them and ask when your 120 days is up. You can also sign up for automatic refills (but at full price, no discounts on refill cards).

Roaming
PagePlus operates on Verizon's network. In rural areas, where you are roaming onto other carriers, you may pay more per minute for roaming. Roaming costs 59¢ per minute. You'll know if you're roaming when calling out because you'll hear the message "Please re-dial the 10 digit number you're trying to call."  If you are receiving a call while roaming you'll have no indication that you are going to be charged 59¢/minute.

From my experience on PagePlus you don't get charged the roaming fee on certain non-Verizon networks. For example, Golden State Cellular which covers parts of central California, including Yosemite, Sonora, etc., appears to be considered "native" coverage (they are what's called a Verizon "affiliate" because Verizon owns a significant portion of the company). However when we were in Wyoming (Yellowstone) there were areas where they would have been charged roaming. Verizon appears to be swallowing up as many of the rural CDMA carriers as they can, which is beneficial to both the customers of the rural carrier and Verizon or PagePlus customers traveling through those areas.

Don't sign up for PagePlus unless Verizon has a network, or a network affiliate, in the area you live and travel to the most.

Officially there is no roaming outside the U.S., i.e. the phone doesn't (officially) work in Canada or Mexico, or any other CDMA country, even though regular Verizon service can roam in other CDMA countries. PagePlus does sometimes, kind of, work in Canada. Often you can receive calls but not make calls. Sometimes you can make calls, but only to Canadian numbers. Sometimes everything works. You'll always be paying 59¢/minute roaming charges. Bottom line is not to depend on PagePlus for Canadian service. T-Mobile prepaid and Verizon InPulse prepaid do work in Canada. There was also a report from someone that they were able to use their PagePlus phone in China. This is not all that weird since in most countries with CDMA networks that Verizon is able to roam onto (China, India, Korea, Taiwan, Israel, etc), a PagePlus phone would likely be recognized as a Verizon phone, and would register on the foreign network. I know that on Verizon you used to have to explicitly ask for international roaming to be enabled, but maybe they stopped doing this.
 

Network: Verizon (roaming on other CDMA/AMPS networks at extra cost)

Monthly Fee: 50¢ (no fee on unlimited plan)

Minimum cost: $2.30 Month ($9.20 every four months) or $27.60/year.

Per-minute cost: 5.3-12.0¢, depending on how large of a refill you buy, and where you buy it.

Re-upping: $10 (minimum) every 120 days (a $10 card costs as little as $9.20). All value cards add another 120 days. Of course you don’t lose any time you haven’t used during those 120 days as long as you re-up in time.

Handsets: You can use any out-of-contract Verizon handset, or PagePlus or UglyEric will sell you a used handset for a low price. You can also use a Verizon InPulse prepaid handset in most cases (try activating the handset using the ESN printed on the outside of the package, without opening the package first. If the reseller can't activate it, return the handset to the store unopened). 

Look on craigslist, freecycle, and eBay for inexpensive (or free) used Verizon phones, or ask friends and relatives if they have any old Verizon phones.

For a smart phone with a slide-out keyboard (but no touch screen), check out HTC SMT5800 for $160 at Amazon. I have two of these, but I got them for "free" with my Verizon postpaid account, then after activating them on Verizon, deactivated them, activated them on PagePlus, and went back to my old V325i. These are a great alternative to carrying both an MP3 player and a phone. With a Bluetooth stereo headset the music quality is awesome. Amusingly, PagePlus charges only $1.20/MB for data while Verizon charges $1.99/MB for data. Also, there is a Micro-SD slot on these phones so you can put in an 8GB card and have lots of storage. Supposedly there is a Micro-SD Wi-Fi card coming out soon, so you could add Wi-Fi to this phone as well. My daughter got my wife's upgrade phone on her PagePlus account, and I kept the other for data access and music. They record video (supposedly a necessary application for the YouTube generation). One annoyance is the lack of a standard 3.5mm headphone/headset jack. To use standard headphones/headsets you must purchase an adapter that plugs into the USB11 jack (same adapter sold at T-Mobile stores for the Android G1 from HTC).

For an inexpensive phone for texting, check out the Verizon Blitz, sold at Best Buy and Target. This handset often goes on sale; I've seen it for $70 at Target, and $80 at Best Buy. Just make sure that they don't activate it on InPulse at the time of purchase. This phone does not do video recording.

HTC SMT5800 $105	Pantech Blitz for InPulse $70-$100	Samsung Intensity $100-120

Pros: Low per minute cost, low start-up costs, excellent coverage. Relatively low texting cost. Easy to set up without the need to buy a SIM card or go to a store; in 15 minutes you can be up and running. Good online account management (finally) that lets you manage multiple lines. Relatively low cost data.

Cons: More than 3x the minimum monthly cost of T-Mobile ($2.30 versus 74¢ (after the first year of T-Mobile)), 50¢/month fee, Must add minutes three times per year as opposed to up to one year on T-Mobile and 7-11 SpeakOut. Acquiring a phone can be problematic, but since Verizon InPulse phones work on PagePlus, you can buy a phone at Target or Best Buy (prior to opening the package, try activating the phone on PagePlus using the ESN printed on the package so if it doesn't work you can return the phone unopened for a refund). Annoying announcement of remaining balance before each call (but you can call customer service and they'll remove it for you).

You need to add a minimum of $10 every 120 days or you will lose all of your accumulated minutes. Don't forget! They don't remind you! You can check your replenishment date on-line, or call them and ask when your 120 days is up. You can also sign up for automatic refills (but at full price, no discounts on refill cards).

Where to Buy Service: Online at http://www.pagepluscellular.com (refurbished phones and airtime). Also check eBay and http://www.uglyeric.com/activation.html. Remember, you can use any Verizon phone, and just buy an activation with 100 minutes for $3-6.
 

Where to Buy Phones: PagePlus sells some refurbished tri-mode CDMA/AMPS phones for $30-50. You can buy any used unactivated Verizon phone and use it on PagePlus (check http://freecycle.org, http://craigslist.org, and http://ebay.com.  UglyEric has a wide selection of refurbished phones. Cell Hut sells some new Verizon phones without a contract, but they are quite expensive. I prefer the Motorola V325i which is widely sold on eBay. Sellers on eBay sells some Verizon phones without any contract, including the very nice HTC SMT5800 for about $105 (though the headphone jack is a pain). I like the SMT5800 because you can do e-mail and web if you really want to, without the expense of a full touch screen phone. The MicroSD slot makes it very usable as an MP3 player as well (I prefer using a Bluetooth stereo headset). While PagePlus and Verizon don't talk about it, you can also buy a new Verizon InPulse phone at Best Buy or Target and use it on PagePlus as long as you don't let the retailer activate the phone on Verizon InPulse at the time of sale. Wal-Mart insists on doing the activation in the electronics department (all the phones are locked up and they carry it to the register in electronics for you). The Samsung Intensity (QWERTY) on Inpulse is available at Best Buy for $120, and I've seen it at Wal-Mart, bundled with a Bluetooth headset, for $100.

Porting: To port your existing number, you need to first activate PagePlus with a temporary number, then do a number port by calling them. Don't put any more than the original $10 on the temporary number as you'll lose any balance when you port.

Examples of how much time you’d get for different monthly costs (non-discounted refills):
$2.50: 20 minutes ($10/100 minutes every four months (including 50¢/month fee))
$6.25: 71 minutes ($25/300 minute card every four months (including 50¢/month fee))
$25: 345 minutes ($100/1400 minute card every four months (including 50¢/month fee))

If you use more than the absolute minimum, then it's probably best to buy the $80 card to get the 5.4¢ minutes, then buy the $10 card every 120 days to keep the account active while you slowly deplete the 1400 minutes.

PagePlus offers a night & weekend activation option, but it’s quite expensive. You pay 99¢ a day for off-peak, and all peak calls cost 12¢/minute rather than the tiered rate structure they normally use. They neglect to mention what the actual hours are for nights. Forget it.

Data: Of the three carriers with the lowest minimum monthly cost, only PagePlus offers full data services (if you exclude SpeakOut's $50/MB data rate). PagePlus offers data at $1.20 per MB. This can get costly if you were tethering your notebook computer and using it extensively, but for occasional use from the handset it's not bad at all (cheaper than Verizon's pay-as-you-go data on Verizon's post-paid plans). For now, for some reason slow speed data (QNC) works on PagePlus at no charge (see http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1271960 for details). It's really nice to be able to access the web when necessary without signing up for a data plan as many carriers require when you have a smart phone, and it's great that a prepaid provider is allowing pay-as-you-go data.

You need to add a minimum of $10 every 120 days or you will lose all of your accumulated minutes. Don't forget! They don't remind you! You can check your replenishment date on-line, or call them and ask when your 120 days is up. You can also sign up for automatic refills (but at full price, no discounts on refill cards).

Bottom line: An amazingly good provider in coverage, service, and price, including relatively low-priced data and texting. So good you have to worry about how long before Verizon cuts them off.

Why You Might NOT Choose PagePlus over Standard Postpaid Service on Verizon

1. You have a very inexpensive grandfathered plan.

2. You do a lot of roaming in places where Verizon is not the carrier, i.e. Alaska or Southern Oregon.

3. You are signed up for data service with Verizon, for use on a smart phone where you need more than 50MB a month.

4. You want to do international roaming. While not possible in most of Europe (which is GSM only), a lot of Asia, as well as other parts of the Americas does have CDMA service using the same bands as the U.S. and a regular Verizon phone works just fine (though it's very expensive to roam).

5. You want access to the Blackberry servers.

6. You're on a family plan that is cheaper than a bunch of separate accounts on PagePlus.

7. You want to talk to other Verizon customers (mobile to mobile) without paying for each minute.

8. You want other Verizon customers to be able to talk to you without them using up their minutes (mobile to mobile).

9. You like the idea of a free or discounted phone every two years, even though the net cost of buying a handset at full price and using PagePlus would still be cheaper.

10. You get a big discount on Verizon postpaid service, i.e. 20% or more.
     

Why You Might NOT Choose PagePlus over T-Mobile Prepaid or AT&T Prepaid

1. You want to use the same GSM handset in Europe and Asia that you use in the U.S..