subject: Prepaid Mobiles: Free Yourself From Long-term Contracts [print this page] Mobile phones are nowadays available to each person, but not everyone has a clear control of their spending. Especially if on a contract, you can discover that your bills can sometimes be very high without any forewarning. Some people have unexpectedly been charged thousands.
Prepaid phones are often the answer, allowing you to control your expenses precisely. While years ago prepaid mobiles tended to imply having ugly handsets, nowadays you can find all sorts of phones going together with prepaid, which is also known as pay as you go. All kinds of people, and nit only youngsters, use prepaid nowadays.
Most European carriers have been offering prepaid mobile for a long time, while the United States and the rest of the world caught up in the last few years. Nowadays there are very few mobile operators left that do not have a series of prepaid plans amongst their offering.
Concerning the devices, almost all phones can nowadays be bought with conjunction with a prepaid card, and most operators will throw in a discount or give you a complimentary entry-level phone just for the pleasure of having you as a new customer.
Of course, the discounts on mobile devices available with a monthly subscription are bigger, but buyer beware: very often you will end up paying more in the long term by being locked into an expensive one or two year contract, so it is better to pay a bit more upfront and then enjoy the comfort of lower and totally flexible mobile phone expenses.
If you believe that recharging the credit on prepaid mobiles is inconvenient, think again. Nowadays you can recharge your credit over the Internet, or directly using your prepaid handset. Failing that, you can of course always buy a charge card from a store.
Don't worry about not being reachable if your phone is out of credit though, you will still be reachable by inbound calls. Prepaid mobile just means that to call or text, you will have to have credit on the card.
Another advantage of prepaid cards is that they are often full of convenient options: Your phone use may include texting a lot, making international calls, calling only on weekends, or surfing the Internet. Don't worry, in all these cases there are cheap bolt-ons to your standard prepaid tariffs.
Because of the options, prepaid can be the right solution for you whatever your stage in life. Teenagers, the elderly, people who travel professionally, big families who need to stay in touch, couples, people who mainly phone in the evenings, all these categories can benefit from prepaid phones.
