Pay as you go cell phones - prepaid
Pay as you go, or prepaid cell phones can be a great alternative if you don't use too many minutes each month, or simply don't want a contract. When the month is over, or your minutes run out, you simply decide if you want to start another month or not. It gives one a lot of flexibility.
There are several types of prepaid phone services. The original, and still most popular is the kind where you buy a set number of minutes, such as 100 or 1000 and have a set period of time to use them. There are no free nights or weekends with these plans, but you often pay a very low rate per minute if you just use a few minutes. In most cases, rates are around 10 cents a minute, and some companies give you up to a year to use the minutes if you buy a 500 or 1000 minute card. So, think about it, if you use a phone just for emergencies or basic calling a few minutes a day, your cell phone could cost as little as $4 a month! Most people today use more minutes than this, so there are new plans that may be beneficial.
Some new plans are more like prepaid plans with traditional features such as free nights and weekends, or even text messaging or internet features available. These plans are often higher per month, but may make sense if you use a lot of minutes each month.
Wal-Mart's prepaid plans are very affordable for people that use between 500 and 1000 minutes a month, but the best deal for heavy users by far these days is Boost Mobile, which gives people unlimited talk text and web for $50 a month, and even less as you go along. It is amazing anyone has a traditional cell phone which usually costs $100 or more a month for the same service.
Another huge advantage to prepaid plans is that there can't be any overage. It is a dirty little secret, but cell phone companies make more on overage than they do on all their plans and services combined. Often, a company makes little on the actual plan, but cleans up if you go a couple hundred minutes or more over in a month which may cost $100 or more extra. With a prepaid phone, one never has that problem. A couple companies have been proactive and started hybrid plans which make you pay in advance before the month starts, but still force you to have a contract. This is probably the future of cell phones for the big carriers, because people are just so annoyed at having to pay for overage or stuff they don't want.
In any case, I think the traditional plans eventually will have to change dramatically or prepaid will simply become the norm. Considering these plans are cheaper, have no overage, and no contracts in most cases, why would anyone want a traditional plan?