PlatinumTel Review5 Cents Per MinutePlatinumTel offers a great prepaid plan based on the Sprint network. Their pay-as-you-go plan costs just 5 cents per minute for calls, 2 cents for texts, and 10 cents per megabyte of data.
You can get a free messaging phone with a $100 airtime purchase on the Pay As You Go Plan or you can get $50 airtime when you purchase select phones including an Android phone for $80. But before we get ahead of ourselves lets take a look at their coverage. Sprint-based CoverageYou can use the PlatinumTel Coverage Tool to see if you are in an area that qualifies for service. The company doesn’t officially say anywhere on their site which of the major phone companies’ networks is providing their network coverage. However, a little bit of sleuthing (actually just checking the html source of the coverage locator page) should convince you that their coverage is provided by Sprint! That’s pretty good news, because in many areas, Sprint actually has the best coverage. In certain cities it even has 4G coverage which would come in handy if you wanted to sign up for one of their monthly plans.
However what makes PlatinumTel unique is that you can get low per-minute rates without having to sign up for a monthly plan. PlatinumTel Pay As You Go Plan2 x 5 x 10 Real PayGo PlanThe PlatinumTel Real PayGo plan is not only easy to use but designed to be simple to remember as the 2 x 5 x 10 plan. Calls cost 5 cents per minute, text messages cost 2 cents each to send and data costs 10 cents per megabyte and picture messages costs 10 cents each. This is without any additional packages.Don't Call 411One thing you don’t want to do is call 411 directory assistance, because that costs $1.49 plus the airtime used during the call. (If you need a number just call one of the free directory assistance services like 1-800-FREE-411 or 1-800-GOOG-411.) I don’t think PlatinumTel really wants you to call 411 directly, but they probably have to make it available and are informing you of the cost if you do call.Real PayGo RefillsYou can refill your airtime online in bundles of $10, $20, $30, $50, and $100. The great thing is that the rates don’t change depending on the refill card as they can with Gophone, T-Mobile prepaid, or Tracfone plans.$10 and $20 RefillsThe $10 and $20 refills are good for a full 90 days. So it’s possible on this plan to pay just $10 every 90 days (almost three months) if you just use your cell phone for emergencies. That can work out to just over $40 a year! Of course, most people will use the phones more than that.$30 and $50 RefillsThe $30 and $50 airtime refills are good for a full 180 days. That means you could get up to 600 or 1000 minutes of calls (if you don’t text) that can last you almost half a year.$100 Airtime and Free Touchscreen Phone OfferWhen you buy $100 worth of airtime that airtime is good for a whole year. If you’re a new customer, you can get a free touch screen Samsung M800 phone. Other companies offer free (usually refurbished) phones with airtime bundles before, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen someone offer a free touchscreen phone before. Granted this is not an iPhone or and Android phone, but it’s still cool.Monthly PlansHybrid PlansStarting at $30 per month ( or $20 every 15 days)If you use your cell phone quite a lot, especially in the evenings, you can opt for one of their monthly plans which offer a daytime rate of 10 cents per minute but unlimited nights and weekends.Text messages are not included in the monthly plan cost, but you can buy SMS add-ons. A $5 SMS add-on gives you up to 400 text messages (1.25 cents per text). A $10 add-on gives your 1000 text messages (1 cent per text). Picture messages cost 20 cents each. Similarly, you also have to buy data add-ons if you want to use the mobile web. In exchange for incurring a monthly cost of at least $30 a month and slightly higher per-minute daytime rate, you get the advantage of unlimited night and weekends. Unlimited PlansUnlimited Talk and Text Only $50The unlimited talk and text plan costs $50 per month. Net10’s plan costs the same but also includes unlimited mobile web. The Straight Talk unlimited plan actually costs $5 less. Still, it’s cheaper than the GoPhone plan which cost $60 for talk and text and $75 for adding unlimited web access.Add Unlimited Data for $10 MoreWith PlatinumTel you can add unlimited 3G mobile web for $10 more bringing to total to $60 per month. You should of course make sure you’re in an area with 3g coverage and that you purchase a 3G phone.Android PlanPlatinumTel offers two Android plans. For $60 a month you get unlimited talk and text and 200 MB of data. For $75 a month, you get unlimited talk, text and data. Presumably, this difference is because, you are going to use a lot more data if you have an Android phone since you will not only be surfing the web but also running lots of apps. By now, you should have a good idea of which plan you might want, so it’s time to check out the . . .3G AvailableIf you have a 3G phone, you can download mobile content at 3G speed. On the unlimited and Android plans, 3G is automatically enabled. On the Real PayGo plan you have to activate it either by calling up PlatinumTel or via your online account with them. Of course, once you activate that option, you will be using data at a faster clip.PlatinumTel PhonesPlatinumTel offers phones ranging from cool texting phones to Android-powered phones capable of running apps and high quality video.For Android phones, you have the HTC Hero and Samsung M910 Intercept for $79.99 each and the Sanyo Zio for 139.99. For orders over $100, you can save 15% using the promo code PT100GIMME15 You can order these phone directly from PlatinumTel, and they will ship them via UPS in the continental US and via USPS in Hawai and Puerto Rico. (There’s no coverage in Alaska.) Customer ServicePlatinumTel is headquartered in Chicago and has distributors across the U.S. One of their unique point is that their customer support is . . .Based in the USA I haven’t called their direct customer service myself, however I am encouraged that they also do online customer service via the Get Satisfaction website. The CS staff answer questions there, and they even respond to customer requests. For example, after a few people requested it, PlatinumTel even decided to enable a new feature, tethering. Responsive - Got Tethering EnabledTethering allows you to connect your PC to the internet using your cell phone connection. PlatinumTel like most cell phone companies these days, initially blocked tethering. These carriers do this, because they don’t want to lose the opportunity to charge you for yet another service.After a few requests on their customer forum, PlatinumTel decided to enable tethering on a trial basis. This means you can now connect your laptop to the internet via your cell phone. For a prepaid provider, it’s not such big deal of course since you are using up your airtime that you've bought. Still I was impressed that they made this change to satisfy their customers. Get One?If you have good coverage in your area, you can certainly give PlatinumTel a try. The free messagin phone offer is pretty cool and the airtime rates are low.
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PlatinumTel great for calling cell phones in UK
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