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These days, having a cell phone has become an essential part of life. Most of us can benefit a great deal from having a cellphone to help us conduct our personal lives, and most businesses require their officers to have a cell phone so that they (the officers) can be available in any emergencies. So it is important to choose the right cellphone plan in order to avoid paying too much for services you don’t need, or for overage charges if you use your phone more than you thought you would. Because of the large variety of network services in the US, it is essential to research and assess the carrier offers before deciding on a cell phone plan.

Before you decide to buy a cell phone, you may want to decide first whether you want a prepaid cell phone service or a traditional cell phone plan. Prepaid cell phone service has several advantages, such as the fact that there is no credit check. You just pay up front for the service and immediately you have your phone. Some cell phone carriers even offer a free cellular phone when you purchase prepaid cell phone service from them. On the other hand, prepaid plans have more expensive per minute charges than regular cell plans.

If you decide to get a regular cell phone plan, there are many options to choose from. How many minutes do you need? Will you be calling mostly in the evenings or weekends? Until recently, you also had to worry about whether most of your calls were local or long distance. The good news however is that the major carriers have now gone almost exclusively to national plans where a call across the country is the same as a call to your next door neighbor. In other words, minutes are minutes wherever you are calling. Calls outside the country (even to Canada or Mexico) can still be very expensive however. If you plan on making calls outside the US, make sure to ask about plan add-ons for this to keep costs low.

Most carriers also have family plans, where minutes can be shared across two or more phones. This is advantageous for family use and small businesses. In addition, for family plans, it is cheaper to call the other cell phones included in one billing. There are usually discounts for the airtime usage of family members using this cell phone plan..

In order to make full and effective use of your cell phone, you may want to set some guidelines in your usage. If you want your cell phone for your business, you may need to make sure you turn it off when you need privacy. Being available at all times may not do well for you. Reserve sometime for yourself and never allow people to disturb you during this time. If your business partners know they could reach you even late at night and on weekends, they will be annoyed if you suddenly change this behavior. Having a cell phone and being available all the time may not be healthy, thus, you have to be careful not to allow people to disturb you when you need to be alone with or without your cell phone.