AT&T GoPhone Review
GoPhoneThe GoPhone prepaid cell phone service (once known as Cingular GoPhone) is offered by one of the main wireless carriers in the USA: namely AT&T. It's phones can be a smidgen higher in costs, however, you have the option of adding more services and features, for a fee.
CoveragePrepaid coverage is pretty good, especially in the eastern half of the United States and on the west coast. Coverage gets spotty in most of the western half of the U.S. which is not uncommon for a lot of carriers. There are two kinds of GoPhone plans, Pay As You Go, and Pick Your Plan, and each plan has their own coverage map.Pay As You Go Coverage MapHere is the Pay As You Go GoPhone coverage map.
Pick Your Plan Coverage MapAnd here is the Pick Your Plan Coverage Map, which you'll notice covers a bit more area. You'll see why below.
In any case, just put in your zip code in the GoPhone coverage viewer yourself to see how you'll fare. Rates and PlansAs mentioned above, there are two kinds of Go Phone plans: "Pay As You Go", and "Pick Your Plan", but only the "Pay As You Go" plan is like a prepaid plan. The "Pick Your Plan" is really a standard monthly cell phone plan but without a 2 year contract and no rebate on the phone purchase.
Pay As You Go -- Simple PlanCalls cost 25 cents per minute. Text messages cost 5 cents to receive and send. International text messages cost 20 cents to send and 5 cents to receive.Refill cards are available in denominations of:
Under this plan $100 gets you 400 minutes for the entire year. A pretty good deal. Pay as You Go -- Unlimited Mobile PlanCalls cost 10 cents a minute. Calls to other AT&T mobiles are free. There is a access charge of $1.00 on the days that you use your phone. This is at least better than some companies which charge a daily access fee whether or not you use the phone. Still, if you talk every day, then you have to add about $365 to your yearly costs.You use the same airtime refill cards as for the Simple Plan. Depending on whether you know how long you will keep your prepaid phone service and how many minutes you tend to use or just in terms of convenience, it's slightly cheaper and more convenient to purchase the $100 airtime cards with a one-year period.
PhonesIt's tough to keep up with all the different models coming out, I know there are some reasonable phones available online such as inexpensive Motorola or Nokia flip phones.There's even a free GoPhone, currently a Samsung A117 basic flip phone. There is also a pretty good selection of camera phones ranging from the basic to full-featured. They also have phones with music players and FM radios.
Standard FeaturesBasic Voice Mail, Caller ID, Call Forwarding, Three-Way Calling, Call Waiting, Nationwide Long Distance, and International Calling. (The international rates are not bad.)
Customer ServiceFrom personal experience, while the staff are helpful, the wait is usually long at a retail location. While it's great that there's high demand, you may be better off ordering online.Thanks for reading this review.
|
