I don't know much about all the prepaid options out there from all the providers.

I want to get my mom a phone for emergency purposes. She'll never use it unless she has too.

So the cheapest solution out there is what I'm looking for. It doesn't have to be Bell really.

I know they used to force you to use your minutes every month or you would lose them, so that's not what I want. I'd like to be able to put $10 on it and possibly have that last for months.

Do they have any SAF or other fees on prepaid?

I heard rogers has some phones on sale right now. I could get one and if I don't want to use it on rogers, unlock it.

i'd like to get some advice on this too - preferably for hspa vanilla phones

my parents have gone through a 3yr contract with bell and they'll have more leverage by staying with them than leaving

I did some reading, and it appears that they still expire your minutes if you don't use them. At least Bell, Rogers and Virgin do.

This is really frustrating. You either have to get the cheapest post paid plan, or a prepaid and have to top up every month even if you don't use it. So either way you're throwing money away if you don't use the phone very much.

7-11 speakout has 365 day expiry on minutes. that's the best for low usage users. you can get the effective cost down to just a few bucks a month

since I don't know what 7-11 speakout is, I'll assume that isn't available in new brunswick.

T-Mobile has good coverage in Brunswick. Check coverage here: http://coverage.t-mobile.com/

$10 card expires in 90 days. Four cards in a year yields around $3 per month. Minutes roll over and aren't wasted when you refill.
http://wiki.howardforums.com/index....e#T-Mobile_ToGo
http://wiki.howardforums.com/index....nd_Gold_Rewards

you're kidding me, right?

New Brunswick, Canada!!!

not Jersey. Geez. Know your geography. I'm posting in the Bell forum, which is a Canadian provider.

not sure why anyone would help you if you arent willing to do a 1 second google search.

Link

Sorry. I should have worded my response differently.

since I live where there aren't any 7-11s, and their website says the service isn't available in NB, that's not an option for me.

I stumbled to this thread via the new posts not aware it was in the Canadian section. I was thinking New Brunswick in New Jersey, haha.

Get a cheap virgin mobile prepaid phone wiith a $100 card top up, good for 365 days.
You can carry forward any balance when you add more mintues before the current balance expires.

hmm. so for the first year it would cost $100. When the 365 days roll around and I have unused minutes, how long does the forwarded balance last?

IE - I have $50 remaining after 365 days and I add a $10 topup. So I can forward the $50, and I have a $60 balance?

When does the $50 expire? The same time the $10 does? 30 days?

Yes the top up will bring all the balance forward to the new expiry date.

$100+ 365 days
$50 - $99 60 days
$25 -$49 60 days
$15 - $24 30 days
Starter credit $5 30 days.

ok.

So is virgin the only one that allows this? Does Bell?

Also, can I bring in an unlocked hspa phone to virgin and just buy a prepaid sim?

Bell owns Virgin Mobile Canada so it is the same company, but but Bell's prepaid options are not as good. Virgin also has free CD and VM.

Virgin does not have sim cards yet but they will after xmas, as they are moving to Bell's hpsa network and getting hspa phones (iphone for instance). How this will affect prepaid plans is not know at this time.