What are the benefits of going Contract over prepaid. Why get a phone with a mobile carrier and sign up for a contract instead of straying away from the commitment.
I been battling with this question for days with customers. I know its better service and phones, but what else? What makes it worth it to go contract ??
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Nothing imho. Just cheaper/better phones. If u go with T-Mobile prepaid, u can choose any unlocked phone that works with them and use it. Now if you got a 9900 though it would be well over $500.
For some it maybe do to credit issues. Most big carrier check your credit before given you a contract. Dad credit then prepaid is the way to go. On contract you get better options on phones a well.
Contract phones are cheaper up front.
My first cell phone was a track phone after having it for awhile I found you lost minutes you paid for but didn't use if you didn't buy another block of minutes before this date. Turned out I was using it more than I thought and was cheaper to get a contract than to keep buying minutes.
I haven't looked into it since then. Is it more reasonable now?
In my own opinion, I think there are advantages to both. If you go on a contract, you often pay little or nothing of the phone's original price upfront; but if you don't go on a contract (or pay-as-you-go), you'll have to pay the full price of the phone (which could be up to $600). But at least then, if you're not stuck on a contract, you could "upgrade" your phone at any time when you want a new one; but again, you'd probably have to pay full price. Under contract, you pay for your phone monthly (or however your billing is set up); and the first month's payment will be a little higher because you just purchased a new phone and I believe some of the phone's price is incorporated within your next bill (though I can only speak for Rogers customers).
I can only speak for Rogers, but when you're within a contract, you're often protected when something happens to your phone. You probably have a set of guarantees and/or options available. For instance, with Rogers, I can upgrade my phone within my contract by paying the difference and choosing from 7 or 8 models available (I was just told this yesterday); but I would have to wait a long time if I wanted an easier upgrading plan (i.e. 2 more years or so).
If you just do pay-as-you-go, you simply buy the services as you use them and as you see fit; and you can buy the phone cards when you need them. In the end, I think it's just whatever you feel is best for you at the time. Good luck making a decision - there are advantages and disadvantages to both! :)
I can speak from my experience in India. We don't have a huge contract phone market.
No one likes being tied down to a service provider and want flexibility.
We buy our own phones and pay almost one third the amount for the same services as US carriers offer.
So in a way our repeat monthly cost is much lower.
Also whenever we want to buy a new phone we can sell our old phone in the secondary market for good value. So our upgrade costs the same amount as the US upgrade on contract.
I've been on crackberry long enough and seeing from the responses the upgrade cost on contract for a US customer is roughly the same as the difference which I would pay when I sell my phone in the secondary market and buy a new phone.
So basically US customers are not getting anything for free. The subsidesed phones are paid for along with depreciation in their monthly plans.
I think the OP is referring to prepaid through a carrier.
To answer your question though, I think Tracfone is still the same. (My mom has one lol)
It's a lot cheaper. I pay $39.99 for 1.000 minutes + unlimited texts + unlimited data. There's no way you get anything near that with prepaid.