Kids & Cell Phones-2

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Is it safety? Is it security? Or is it just cool?

Continued from the first: Kids & Cell Phones-1

3. Prepaid phones.

Simple, you buy a phone and then buy minutes as you need them. Most will include roaming and nationwide coverage, ("Roaming" no additional fees for your current location, where ever that might be and "Nationwide Coverage" just means no long distance charges). These phones don't require any contracts, so this means you can cancel at any time without paying any cancellation fees, which can be anywhere from $140 to $190, depending on the contract length you signed up for originally.

These phones don't require a credit card or even a checking account. If you have the cash in hand, you walk away with a cell phone and a certain amount of usage time. It's just that simple.

3. Disposable phones. Yes, disposable! They're going to have many up sides. Just to name a few: They are setup the same as the prepaid phones, no possibility to get a LARGE phone bill at the end of the billing cycle. No roaming or long distance charges, some won't even work if you leave the activation area, (be careful on this one, mainly if you are getting one for emergency use). No contracts to deal with and no activation fees, or credit checks.

The bad side, no call waiting, voice mail, or SMS (Small Message Service) capabilities. And you'll pay a higher per minute charge, just like the prepaid phones. In a way, these are prepaid phones, just cheaper. And you probably won't be able to sale an old phone on eBay, even if it's in good condition.

They are soon to be introduced at a price of around $40, which gives you the cell phone and about 10 minutes of talk time. This also includes the charger and a headset.

These little phones can be recharged with time by either buying a scratch-off card that resembles a lottery ticket. After scratching the card, there is a PIN number, you enter it into the phone, and your minutes are updated. Parents will also have the ability to call in and update the minutes if need be. The minutes expire just like the prepaid phones, but they are saying it's set to every six months. If you update your minute balance, the phones won't expire. The current price per minute, $0.25 to $0.35, depending on the phone your purchased. And of course, the downside is with a regular cell plan, you would probably pay around $0.15 per minute or less.

These little phones are soon to be sold in department stores to convenient stores. No check or credit cards are need. If you have the cash, you can have a cell phone.

And when your done with the phone, you either throw it away, or recycle it. (You might want to recycle the battery at least! Depending on the type of battery, most States have laws that describe how to properly dispose of rechargeable batteries.

Things to keep in mind when buying a cell phone for a child: With most all of the newer phones, you can send and receive SMS (Small Message Service), which means the phone is also capable of sending and receiving email from the web. Some of the phones allow Internet access just like your home computer. Some phones will display graphics; this means "all" types of graphics. Some phones will take low-resolution pictures. These pictures can be sent to anyone that can receive a picture via SMS or the Internet. What if a picture was taken in the Physical Education dressing room at school and sent across campus and off through the Internet. Do you get picture?

There have been many complaints in school about this type of Hi-Tech bullying. You have to make your children understand the do's and don'ts of the new technology. Make sure your child isn't being bullied and make sure your child is being the bully. All this new technology needs to be monitored when children are at play. Just like your home computer, you must be careful where your children are going. One simple way of tracking who your children are calling, even on the prepaid phone models is to check the call history. Some phones allow you to set the call history at to save up to the last 999 phone calls made. Other phones may only go up to 100 or even less. You can check that history and see who they called, when, and for how long. You can see if it might have been late at night when they should be sleeping or if the call was made in the middle of a class at school, which could denote skipping classes, hey, you never know. But there are many ways to find out what your child is up to just by looking at the phone history. It tells you much more than just a bunch of numbers!

Just remember, most of these camera phones can send and receive pictures, inappropriate material can also be sent and received. Just be aware of this.

Most phones will access the web just like your home computer. This means graphics of all kinds can be viewed.

If the phone will send & receive text messages, SMS, it will have the ability to send & receive Email.

Many plans have free night and weekend minutes, but make sure your child understands the company definition of "night and weekend," Most start around 9 p.m. and end around 6 a.m. the next morning. And your weekend minutes begin around 9 p.m. on Friday and end around 6 a.m. on Monday. Incoming and outgoing text messages, incoming and outgoing calls, Web access, and special features such as downloading games, screen savers, and ring tones all costs money or costs part your cell minutes. Just make sure your child understands that before it becomes a co$tly argument. Most of the horror stories I've heard about where a child ran up $1000 or more in cell phone bills within one month is usually a case where the child thought they were on free minutes of some kind, but were not.

Cell companies have confusing plans for a reason, to get you to spend more and make it difficult to keep up with peak minutes used. Most services have free mobile-to-mobile calls. If you are on Verizon and you call someone else on Verizon, it costs you nothing off your peak cell minutes. This is free for peak and non-peak calls. (Check with your own carry to see if they offer this feature). Soon we'll be able to keep our cell numbers as we bounce from carrier to carrier. Let's say your on Verizon, your friend used to be on Verizon, she switched to Sprint and she was able to take her old cell phone number with her. You still call the same number and think she is on Verizon, so it's a free call, right? No, since she moved to Sprint. It becomes a costly mistake at the end of the month when you get your bill. What I'm trying to say is this; we adults get caught in the cell company’s confusion trap too. It might not completely be your child’s fault for bringing home a cell bill with high scores on it, instead of their report card.

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