Cellular One

Quick Facts

Why You’ll Love Them: You can get a lot of minutes on their National plans (free roaming and national long distance); think nearly 2000 for sixty bucks. Beat that with a stick. They offer specific plans for the West (Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Nevada, and California) where you can get free roaming for those states (roaming and long distance charges do apply outside of those states). They offer share plans to split the minutes between family members, unlimited mobile to mobile calling, and the choice of ten numbers to get free calling to. Also, it’s part of AT&T, so you get AT&T’s customer service with the package. While they’ve got a very small network, their partners (AT&T) have a huge one, and their network map is thoroughly impressive.

Why You Won’t: Fees? Fees, fees? To the tune of an activation fee, first and second month’s cost on the first bill, prepay plans without minute bundles, so just a cost per minute fee, no included long distance or roaming on prepay (so more fees for that!) and a $200 cancellation fee. They have decent phones, including one touch phone that’s outrageously priced, but very, very limited selection. They may offer 2000 minutes, but that doesn’t include messaging or data. Their add-on messaging plans include only text messaging; you can get picture messaging on a data plan, but no video messaging is mentioned. Data plans start at 35$ per month, added on to a regular plan.