What is the least expensive cell phone plan available in Ontario?

[Ladybug2011]

DD is starting high school in September and is starting to pressure us for a cell phone. Right now she claims that she is one of two kids in her grade 8 class without a cell phone. At what age do you give your kid a cell phone? Both DH and I have phones from our work so we haven't had the need to look into cell phone plans until now. I guess she will just need Talk and Text for now.

[kmontgom]

Wind mobile is $35 for unlimited calls and text (if in wind zone). My wife uses pc mobile pay as you go and gets 2 months for $25 dollars.

[Ladybug2011]

Thanks. PC Mobile sounds like a good deal, I'll look into it. Everything else I've looked into seems like it is $35 or more for 1 month.

Wind mobile is $35 for unlimited calls and text (if in wind zone). My wife uses pc mobile pay as you go and gets 2 months for $25 dollars.

[xlxo]

To clarify...

• is she asking for a "cellphone" or a "smartphone"? What phones does her friends have?
• after getting the phone... who's paying for the monthly plan?
• think of all calls she can make with a roll of quarters each month... assuming a payphone is nearby.
• look at her other things..... does she drop a lot of them? Is she likely going to damage the phone prior to the 3yr contract?
• what carrier does her friends use? cheap carriers may offer poor coverage at home, school, the mall, or where she works. Do you want to pay more so you have a reliable connection when you want to talk to her?

[Natalka]

Get pay as you go - we did 7-Eleven Speakout for our son in high school.
They have value plans, and promos.

http://www.speakout7eleven.ca/

[barbis9]

I have pay as you go with Telus and I purchase a $100 card which is good for a year. Be careful though as data will eat up a lot of time, I have it restricted on mine and use it only for texts and calls. Also see if your carrier offers a family plan - that maybe cheaper in the long run as cellphones get expensive.

xlxo post above is great. In addition to the plan, what is the actual cost of the phone? My LG android cost $99 at Best Buy and I loaded it with prepaid cards from Telus who has excellent customer service.

[Ladybug2011]

To clarify...

• is she asking for a "cellphone" or a "smartphone"? What phones does her friends have?
• after getting the phone... who's paying for the monthly plan?
• think of all calls she can make with a roll of quarters each month... assuming a payphone is nearby.
• look at her other things..... does she drop a lot of them? Is she likely going to damage the phone prior to the 3yr contract?
• what carrier does her friends use? cheap carriers may offer poor coverage at home, school, the mall, or where she works. Do you want to pay more so you have a reliable connection when you want to talk to her?

Yeah, lots to consider.

Thanks everyone for the responses so far.

[Jasminebed]

You can purchase a smart phone for as little as $100, plus a $5 or $10 sim card. Telus, virgin and President's choice all offer good pay as you go options. President's choice, you have more limitations on where to buy top up cards... either online via credit card, or at Loblaws, no frills, etc. The others you can buy at almost every corner store.

Don't purchase any data, but she can use the smart features anywhere wifi is available.

You are probably looking at increasing her allowance as she enters highschool, so make her responsible for budgeting and purchasing her time and plans. Worse thing that can happen is she runs out before 30 days is up, or she loses the phone and asks for a new one. Buy a case, these things are fragile!

I have been a telus customer for many many years, about 11 all told I think. First 4 were pay as you go. Customer service is excellent, even as pay as you go you get offered an upgrade after a couple of years, and the one and only time I lost (well, my kid) my pay as you go phone, they gave me a steep discount to purchase a replacement and waived the activation fee.

There are a lot of models supported, you might even be able to purchase a used phone from someone that upgraded for her.

Another big plus with telus is that cards can be purchased for as little as $10. So if she wants to add a little from chore or gift money to download some tunes or ringtones, she can do just that out of her own pocket.

It's a great opportunity to help her learn about making purchasing decisions.

And she will have the opportunity to call home or reach you for a lift home etc.

[anisa]

as an adult I use pay as you go, $100 card from Rogers is valid for one year, or until the money runs out.

For communication purposes with a kid, I think that is perfect. It keeps her from gabbing and texting without limits

Does she also need a device for school for looking things up in class? For that we got our daughter an ipod touch 5th gen. It is the only touch screen device out there that is palm size, which is so much more convenient for students. no phone capabilities of course, but if her main concern is having a device for class, and you aren't convinced she actually needs a cell phone, then it is a good option.

[Midnightly]

we have a virgin pay as you go.. $100 will last us a year we also take advantage of the free wifi hot spots (for shaw users) everywhere in my area very little of this town isnt covered lol and use an app for free texting to others with the app

[ashp]

Pay as you go for a great option because it is cheap and teens and kids mostly use cell phones to text now a days, I rarely use to talk on my cellphone in highshool.
Also, there is a great app for texting called text plus, that many people use today. You do need access to wifi to text on the apply, however I think you may have to have a smartphone to download the app. So I'm not 100% sure about that. Something to further look into.
I'm now older and a smartphone is more convenient for me now because I can use to check my email and access quick documents using data mostly anywhere, so it all depends on the situation.
Something else to think about is, whether you want your daughter to have the same phone for the next couple of years, thus it would make more sense to buy a better phone for the long run. Buying phones every 2 or 3 years is expensive, especially when you have good functional phones lying around. The upgrades do help but sometimes you do have to pay out of pocket for new phones depending on the company or your plan.

[lilo0003]

Our oldest started high school this past September andreported he was the only kid without a phone in grade 9. My rule was no phoneuntil 14 so he was lucky that his birthday was 2 weeks after schoolstarted. His phone was his birthday gift. He pays part of the monthly cost and so decided against the iPhone as theplans were crazy. He chose the Nexus 5 its a Google phone and he said lots offriends had it, he has been very happy with it. As for text plus that was howhe survived grade school but apparently it has lots of ads and he said it wasannoying. He has no data and the bill is 38.00 a month with Virgin mobile. He pays$20 of that and the rest is ours to pay. So far I have been happy with the service and I am sure some day Rogers willfinally push me to the edge and I will move my cell over as well.

[toban]

Koodo and SpeakOut have good prepaid plans. SpeakOut uses Rogers towers

https://www.koodomobile.com/prepaid-plans

https://www.speakout7eleven.ca/prepaid-cell-phone-rates