Can anyone tell me how do American cell phone plans work?
December 15th, 2009 by admin
In Europe, you buy a phone and then a SIM card. To recharge, you buy cards which give you more units for your cell phone. Is it the same in the States? I am only talking about prepaid plans. Do you buy the cell phone and SIM at the same time? And do you pay monthly? Do you "buy" minutes? If yes, how? Any other information would be great. I’ really want to understand the system/process. Thanks.
In the US, prepaid phones do not use SIM cards. They use "refill cards". Buy a refill card and call the company, then type in the code on the card.
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In the US, prepaid phones do not use SIM cards. They use "refill cards". Buy a refill card and call the company, then type in the code on the card.
References :
I am in Canada, and for our current GSM provider (Rogers), you can buy a prepaid sim card to use in your on unlocked or network locked phone, or a prepaid phone that comes with a prepay SIM installed.
You can buy minutes cards from Rogers or participating retailers. Sometimes they are sealed scratch off cards, other times they have a POS machine that spits them out in register paper as purchased. Those come with a PIN you enter into the phone by calling an automated operator.
You can also load minutes with a credit card on the phone or their website.
For the CDMA providers, which don’t use a SIM card, you just buy a phone set up for prepay service. You might be able to get an "unencumbered" phone put on prepay. Purchasing minutes would be the same with GSM providers.
And, yes, all providers offer post pay monthly accounts, based on minutes/data usage within certain rules.
References :
I have Rogers Pay-As-You-Go prepay, using as SIM taken from a broken prepay phone, in a network locked former monthly account phone, and for voice, it works fine.
for prepaid service it’s pretty much the same way. but each company tries to make it a little better by doing it a little differently. Try iwireless.com, they’ve got great coverage and the best prices and tons of phones to choose from for prepaid service!
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I’ve been selling cellular phones and plans for years now!