I'll be losing our $13 per month Cingular plan (Free phone + $160 per year + the occasional use minutes) and would like to keep expenses near this figure.

Cingular quoted me $60 for a phone, and $25 for 90 days of paid calling = about $170 the first year, less after that since the phone has been paid for.

I would double check the tracfone website to make sure that the target in your area carries them.
-renee

The quality of service provided by Cingular or any of the other companies is a local issue. There are certain places where friends' Cingular phones get a great signal and my Sprint phone doesn't get anything, and there are locations where it's the reverse. One thing you need to do with any provider is make sure they provide a good signal at your own house, place of work, and any other places you frequent. Insist on at least a few days' return privilege if the phone does not perform well in those locations. A phone that has a weak signal will keep dropping calls, and if that happens in a place where you frequently are, such as home or work, your frustration will be endless.

One other thing: Tracfone uses digital technology. One of the reasons I couldn't get a new phone and continue my bargain rate with Cingulair was because they no longer offer digital. What's with that?

I've been wondering how to reduce my cellphone bill (from Verizon). Tracfone's annual plan sounds great. Note that most markets now allow you to retain your phone number when you change carriers.

Tracfone leases time on Cingular and Verizon networks, so quality of phone service will be that of Cingular or Verizon dependant upon which is being used at the time and in your area. If I'm not mistaken, Cingular is TDMA at 1900 MHz and Verizon is CDMA at 800MHz. So for your area, check on the phone (datasheet or FCC sticker) to see which network is being used. Some phones may be dual mode.

Verizon probably has the overall best coverage in the US. Cingular merged with AT&T (no?) and their networks are merging (or merged already).

Hmmm, also, to be fair, I think that you should calculate an 'effective' cost per minute depending upon the (traditional or pre-paid) plan you're using. Use the monthly bill total including all the fees, divided by the actual minutes used (traditional).

The only problem with pre-pay cell phones is that their per-minute cost is high. They are good for someone who uses the phone relatively few minutes a month. Most people who have gotten used to regular monthly-billed cell phone plans have probably evolved into somewhat regular cell phone users, and this may make it hard for them to save anything with pre-pay. But it's easy enough to figure out, of course, by just taking several months of bills from your current carrier and adding up the minutes, and seeing how much that would cost with different pre-pay phones.