Google Voice and prepaid cell phones

I've had Google Vocie for about a year now. I haven't done much with it since I only have one phone number. I chose a phone number that was local for my parents. My parents live int he country and use a land line. My mom has a Tracfone for emergencies. Though now she started using it for long distance calls because it is cheaper than the land line long distance. So, to be nice I made my number a local number for them so they don't have to burn up minutes calling me.

My Sprint contract ends this week. Witht he new job and moving I am no longer in a Sprint area. I can use my phone in roaming but that sucks up battery life. The only contract companies in my area are Verizon and US Cell. Verizon is expensive and US Cell doesn't have much for phone selection. I was going to switch to US Cell. However, my mom suggested I look at Tracfone. I didn't know much about prepaid phone services. The last couple of weeks I have been doing my research.

Prepaid was intriguing to me. I don't use my cell phone that much. I communicate mainly using the internet (email, facebook, skype). 6 years ago I chose Sprint because they had features other companies didn't, like no roaming costs and nights starting at 7pm. Because of that I don't use up many minutes. I probably used about 200 minutes a month, a little over 100 of those would be during no charge times. I maybe used 70 of the 500 minutes a month. Many of those are just from checking voicemail. Since I couldn't use my phone at work I would check voice mail right after work. So I really don't need a contract plan.

I checked out some of the prepaids out there. My mom suggests Tracfone because that is what she uses. I checked out some others. Amazingly most are owned by the same company. Tracfone, Smart Talk, and Net10 are owned by the same company. All three are at my local Walmart. They target different phone users. I think Smart Talk is aimed at people that want data. I think Net10 is aimed at the person who talks alot and texts. Tracfone is aimed at low to mild users - which I am.

Prepaid can be a little confusing at first. There are three things you need to buy to get started - a phone, service time, and minutes. I think many people that say they had bad experience from prepaid don't realize service days and minutes are seperate, even though the most common way of getting them is from a card that contains both. The phone tells you how much of each you have left on the main screen. You can go online and purchase each sperately. When you run out of service days you loose your phone number.

My Sprint bill was $40 a month for the minimum plan that has 7pm nights. That's $480 a year. I bought a Tracfone with double minutes for life and a 1 year card with 400 minutes (800 once doubled) for $170. Somehow I got 200 bonus minutes so I am starting with 1000 minutes - I am thinking from a promotion I didn't know about. I am going to guess the minutes will last me 10 months. So this is going to save me a bunch of money.

What really surprised me is the features prepaid supports. I bought the most expensive phone in my area - the LG 290c. It was only $50. But it has all the features I am looking for. It is a slider phone, has a 1.3mp camera, very nice LCD, Bluetooth, and data support. don;t go on LG's site and look up the phone, you won't find it. It's only used by Tracfone so Tracfone supports it. Text messages cost .33 minutes per message. That's not too mad. I do text but probably 10 messages a month. Data is expensive. I have that a shot to see how it works with prepaid. There are too many charges. There is a .5 connecting charge, then at regular intervals more time comes off. I downloaded a ringtone just to see how many minutes that would eat up. In lesst than 5 minutes or real time I ate up 12 phone minutes. I immediately locked data usage. I didn't want someone to use that by accident if I lent my phone out.

For a $50 phone I am amazed. I read reviews on the phones Tracfone supports before I bought one. The LGs they use seem to have the best reviews. This on in particular doesn't have a bad review. The sound quality is great and features are good. However, I think I have a defective unit. I tried out the hand free headset. When I unplugged the headset the phone still thinks it is plugged in. So now I get to find out how support for a prepaid works. From what I can tell they are either going to send me a replacement or I go exchange it with Walmart. If I do the exchange I am going to need to purchase the new phone first, have Tracfone port hte phone number tot he new phone, then give Walmart the defective one and a rebate.

Checking voicemail does use minutes. This is where Google Voice is going to be handy. When I got this Tracfone instead of giving all my friends the new number I gave them both my Google Voice and cell phone number. I told them to make Google Voice the default and my cell a secondary number. This way when I call I am identified. But when they call me they go through Google. This means Google will take the voice message, not Tracfone. I can use my email or any internet connection to check my voice mail messages. This should considerably reduce the minutes I use up. As long as Google Voice stays around I think I am going to like this setup.