Re-activation After I-Wireless Intentional Expiration?

by Andrew
(Virginia)

There are long intervals of time, when we would not be using i-wireless phone service; e.g., 180 days or longer each year. After such a long period following an expiration of service date, what, if any, complications may be involved in reactivating service?

How would such i-wireless planned expiration-reactivation "costs" compare to other prepaid services such as Straight Talk? For example, would there be additional fees? Could the same cellphone still be used? Would a new phone number be required at the time of each reactivation? Thanks in advance for help with this matter.

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Hi Andrew,

On I-Wireless's website they say that your account "may" be "deactivated" if you haven't added any money to your account in the past 90 days, even if you have airtime in your account. Also if your airtime balance is zero for more than 60 days, your account may also be deactivated. Once it's been deactivated, you will probably have to get a new number when you activate it again. There is, however, no activation fee. I haven't been through this process myself so I don't know exactly how it goes.

In comparison to Straight Talk, Tracfone etc. They send you a notice a few days after your airtime expires that you still have a chance to keep your number if you add airtime again. I don't remember the exact number of days you have but it's less than a month. If it's a GSM Straight Talk phone, the SIM card will be marked as unregistered and they may have to send you a new SIM card to reactivate. I'm not sure what happens with the CDMA handset (such as the R355C) when the account expires.

One good thing about plans like Tracfone, and GoPhone is that you can buy airtime cards that would be good for a full year which should cover your period of inactivity.

Regards,
sb (admin)