Net10 wireless plans

Intro

You should consider switching your cell phone plan to a Net10 plan.

Why?

Perhaps you want to add another art class for your kids into the budget.

Net10 is an attractive option for a prepaid cell phone plan with low effective monthly costs.

The airtime cost is fixed at 10 cents per minute, no matter how many minutes you buy at a time. However, the service periods for the various airtime cards do vary.

This service is provided by Tracfone Wireless (itself a subsidiary of another company).

Coverage

Since their service is provided by Tracfone, the coverage maps are basically the same. Coverage is probably the same as for single-rate Tracfones. In any case, since Tracfone tends to have good coverage, you should expect the same level of coverage.

Airtime

The whole point of Net10 is that it costs 10 cents per minute, but while the per-minute rate is almost always the same, the different airtime cards have different service periods.

You should base your airtime purchases on how many minutes you tend to use within the service period.

Phones

There used to be only a few basic handsets available, but there is now quite a good selection of phones you can choose from, including three camera phones.

Basic phones

Currently, the range of models offered starts with a reconditioned . . .

Nokia 1100 (or Nokia 1112)

These cost $19.99.

Nokia 1600

Costs $29.99 but available with a $30 card bundle.

Motorola V176

This phone adds a color display and nicer looks

Motorola W370

This has the same stylish features as the W375 but doesn't have a camera. So if you've already got a nice digital camera that you carry around with you, this may be a better buy.

You can move up to three different . . .

Camera Phones

The camera phones all offer VGA-resolution pictures, good enough for emailing but not printing except as wallet-size cards.

Motorola C261

Pretty good looking handset with nice big speaker which makes the handsfree speaker phone function fairly well.

Motorola W375

Stylish flip phone from the designer of the Razr.

LG 225

Compact black flip phone would fit easily in a pocket or handbag.

300 minutes of airtime included

300 minutes of airtime is included with any phone.

The prices for these phones are higher than for the same phones on Tracfone's website. So to get the lower cost of the Net10 calls you have to pay a little more for the phones themselves. Still, in the end it's a good deal if you talk for at least five minutes a day. But when you have to factor the value of those included minutes into the price of the phones, you see that the Net10 phones are really a good deal.

This also which makes the reconditioned Nokia 1100 a bargain at $19.99 since the effective rate for those first 300 minutes is only 6.7 cents per minute rather than the usual 10 cents per minute. Plus you get the phone to use those minutes.

You can find deals on Net10 and other prepaid cell phones here.

Text messages

Text messages cost 5 cents a minute. The Net10 website has a handy page to send text messages to Net10 users.

Switching from Tracfone

Have you ever wonder whether you could convert a Tracfone handset into a Net 10 handset. After all, they're basically the same company, so it seems a reasonable thing to be able to do.

I already had a Tracfone handset, and it seemed a waste to put my Tracfone handset out to pasture if I could keep using it.

Now officially, Tracfone doesn't offer to port your Tracfone number to another carrier, because they basically can't. The number is really owned by whatever local cell phone carrier they're using. Still, since Tracfone and Net10 are under the same company, it looked like it might be possible to at least transfer the number in this case.

Calling Net 10 customer service

So I called up customer service. After navigating through a few menu options, I finally reached a real person who proceeded to tell me that while I could certainly port my number, I would need to buy a new handset. The support person said that it was a "different company" -- a somewhat strange thing to say since they were part of Tracfone. This was puzzling, but I accepted her statement.

Still I wasn't convinced. I went to Net10's website again, and clicked on the activate link. I noticed that the activation procedure looked almost exactly the same as with Tracfone.

So, a couple of days later, I called up their customer service again. This time, the customer rep told me that I could indeed convert my Tracfone handset into a Net 10 handset. All I had to do was provide my serial number and they would be able to switch it over!

SO WHICH IS IT? I don't know.

So my advice to you is . . .

My advice: when switching, just get a new phone and ask customer service to try and transfer the number. If you can't just tell your friends your new number.

Thanks for reading this Net10 review.

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