Using Prepaid Phones on Cross Country Trips

All cell phone carriers have limited service areas the enable their services to be used as their customers travel across the country. Unfortunately, not all carriers provide service in all areas of the country. This creates issues for customers that are traveling out of their local service area, and often results in steep "roaming" fees for travelers who do not pay attention to whether or not they are in their carrier's network..

Most providers charge their customers extended rates when they travel outside of their local calling area even when it is still an area covered by the provider. For the customer this could mean as much as a $0.59 per minute roaming fee on calls placed or received when they travel beyond their designated area. Some phones will have a visual symbol that tells the caller they are about to make a call in such as area, but most of the time the symbol is not noticed by the user....or the user doesn't even know what the symbol means!

Another issue when traveling abroad on a contracted phone is that you could enter an area that is not covered by the service area. This could result in dropped calls and the loss of ability to make or receive calls. In addition without service, any services such as GPS would be unavailable as well resulting in a potentially lost driver on the road, late arrivals at important appointments, and other headaches.

For this reason it is sometimes recommended that you purchase a refurbished cell phone and sign up for a third party prepaid phone service when you make long, cross country trips. This is not to say that you should drop your local service provider and only use the prepaid phone but that you purchase a prepaid phone to have with you when you are traveling into places that may be out of your provider’s local service area.

Prepaid providers usually lease tower signal from all of the major providers across the country which enables their users to have some signal in most of the areas that cell phone towers are present across the country. One primary advantage to prepaid cell phone users is that there is typically no local calling area that they have to worry about. Most of these services charge the same flat per minute rate no matter where they are and excessive roaming charges never apply. In addition having these phones just for the purpose of having short term coverage to be able to make calls in the event of losing service on their primary cell phone could be a real life saver in the event of an emergency. Finally, having the minutes on this used cell phone paid for means there would be no surprises on their monthly bill.

You can stop by your local retailer and buy a used or refurbished cell phone and have it connected to any third party prepaid provider relatively easily. Some quick searches online or discussions with local providers will give you all the information that you need. Safe travels!