Cell Phone Plans - When Minutes Count

Whether a consumer is new to the world of cell phone plans, or simply trying to choose the best plan to control their costs, understand the involved minutes are crucial. Matching the number of "free minutes" in a cell phone plan for individual use is the primary factor in avoiding extra fees and ensuring that the monthly bill is no higher than necessary.

If there are too few minutes in a given cell phone plan, the user can often exceed the plan limit and pay a high per minute rate for the extra time. If all the available minutes are not used, however, a plan with fewer minutes, and potentially a lower monthly fee, users could save significantly.

Being able to really understand and cell phone plans comparison, consumers need to understand the common terminology in all the important minutes as described in the plan.

• Anytime Minutes: The minutes preferably in a cell phone plan cost nothing beyond the monthly fee. They include all calls received or placed Monday to Friday during the day time is generally considered peak hours. The hours included in this time frame may vary slightly due to so read the details of the plan can be important.

Every minute spent in excess of the allotment of anytime minutes is generally much more expensive. For example, given an allocation of 500 anytime minutes monthly fee may be $ 39.99, which from an average of just 8 cents per minute. Minutes, which exceed the level, but could run as high as $ 0.35 or $ 0.40 per minute. In addition, some plans charge roaming and long distance charges on minutes, which exceeds the level that can be charged at anytime minutes within the same plane.

It is important to remember that anytime minutes include minutes used to both make and receive calls in most cell phone plans in the U.S. There are some exceptions with specific plans, which offer "free incoming" and free calls between a core group of frequently called numbers.

• Evening and Weekend Minutes: If a cell phone plan includes night and weekend minutes, there is no additional cost for this protocol and that they do not consume anytime minutes. In many cell phone plans, these night and weekend minutes unlimited, while others offer a fixed amount of time. These minutes used outside of the busiest times, usually from 9 to 7, and all day Saturday and Sunday. Again, the specific hours included as night and weekend minutes are defined in the plan.

• Shared Minutes: Many families have a cell phone plan. Shared minutes allow them to use a common pool of anytime minutes. In many cases, more economical and probably more effective than having and monitoring of separate plans for each. Shared minutes are also used by businesses that can use a comprehensive plan for additional staff.

• Roll-Over Minutes: Mobile phone use from month to month can vary somewhat, of course. A cell phone plan that allows for roll-over minutes has the advantage of rolling over any minutes not used throughout the month. There are still limits, however, how long it rolled over minutes, will continue to be available, so know the plan details are important to avoid losing unused minutes.

• Mobile-to-Mobile Minutes: Mobile to mobile minutes include calls within the same network, for example, a call from a Sprint customer to another Sprint customer. Although it is unlikely that any one user's call will be within the same network, it may still be significant savings when you sign up with one cell, which offers a large customer base and contains many of the people, a single call often.

A twist on mobile-to-mobile concept offers free calls to a selected group of numbers identified by the user. Some T-Mobile plans for example, allows users to identify five frequently called numbers and allows free calls within this group. The five numbers may change monthly and may be different for different members of a family that shares minutes before a cell phone plan.

Although there are a lot of minute details of fees for cell phone plans, knowing this information can do much to control the monthly cost of such benefits when the rules of the specific policy followed to get the most out of "free" calling.