What are the best cell phones for kids, tweens (between a kid and a teenager), or teens?
What is the little-known secret that can save you money on your cell phone bill?

Let’s talk about kids and cell phones! Then I’ll tell
you the secret!

If you are thinking about getting a cell phone for your
children, kids , tween, or teen,
then you can ask yourself these questions:

Can your child handle the responsibility of keeping up with a phone and not
talking away or text messaging away all your minutes?
Can they keep the batteries charged?

Does your child participate in after-school and weekend extracurricular activities?
Do these activities occaisionally get canceled or have irregular starting or completion times?
Are there public phones available where your child who attends those activities can call you?
Is the traffic in your area so unpredictable that you are frequently late
picking your child up from activities?
Do you need to get in contact with your child regarding changes in your plans?

Do you live in a high-risk area (e.g. a major metropolitan area)?
No place is immune from crime these days, and a cell phone can even make you a crime target, but
do you need the security of knowing the where your child is at any given time?
Phones with Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking are available now so that you can know where your child is at all times.

As I’m sure you’ve guessed, if you can answer any of these questions yes, read on!

Here are some points to consider:
Many schools do not allow you to bring a phone to school.
Be sure and check with your school officials on the policy
regarding cell phones.

You may want to limit placing and receiving calls?
You may want to control who can call the phone as well as who can be called with the phone.
Maybe you don’t want internet access, instant messaging, or chat capabilities
because of the costs or the interference with your child’s concentration.

If controlling your budget is important,
there are phone plans with prepaid minutes so your kids can’t go over.

Regarding cell phones for children and teens there are basically two
broad categories that you can consider.
In one category there are cell phone providers (or carriers) with specialty phones
and special plans.
In the other or regular category are various options using standard cell phones
from providers (or carriers). Let’s look at each category.

In the speciality category you can find TicTalk, Fireflymobile, and Wherify Wiress.
The options are more limited.

TicTalk
The TicTalk phone is $99.99 and the phone plan is a pay-as-you-go rate plant(more or this later).
Minutes can be purchased in denominations of $25 (100 minutes), $50 (200 minutes),
$75 (300 minutes), and $100 (400 minutes).
Airtime minutes expire 90 days from purchase.
WIth TicTalk, parents use an Internet website to:

set up parental controls. Enter phone numbers that can be called anytime
and phone numbers that can only be called during permission-based times. Choose what times the phone can ring.
Send your child a reminder message. And, you can enable or disable features on the phone whenever you like.

Firefly
The Firefly phone is priced at $79.99 and is available at
Justice, Limited Too, Target and Toys R Us stores.
Fireflymobile minutes are priced at $0.25 per mintues on a
pay as you go plan.
The minutes expire in 90 days.
Refills with airtime cards are available at Target and refill by phone or online
in amounts of $25, $50, and $75.
The Firefly phone is also available through partner wireless carriers,
who offer their own wireless service and plans.

Wherifone
Whereify Wireless has just announced the Wherifone which has
a GPS allow parents to track the phones using the world-wide web.
The phone will will initially
be distributed by Wynit.

The Wherifone GPS Locator Phone will retail for $99.95,
and fixed-usage Wherify Family Locator Service plans that include both voice and location services
start at just $19.95 per month.
The competitively priced, all-inclusive service plans are straightforward and easy to understand,
and there are no hidden costs for additional required services, so parents always know exactly what to expect.
Dynamic service plans are available to help save money when actual usage
exceeds the current service plan’s limit by automatically upgrading to the next higher service plan for that month.

In the regular category you will many providers (or carriers) with many options
but most all of the providers (or carriers) will give you a choice of prepaid (pay-as-you-go) or
a monthly plan, so we can consider prepaid and monthly as two subcategories of this category.

Most monthly plans require a contractual committment of one or two years to
start, but usually include a “free” phone, low-cost phone, or substantial discount on the phone
over the regular retail price.
You may be able to “bring-your-own-phone” and avoid a contractual committment, or you may not.
It depends on the carrier.
Many providers (or carriers) have family plans that let you add on new phones at
monthly costs much lower than their standard rate.
However, many times you can’t add a line to your service unless you are already
using a plan that higher than the minimum.
In this situation your add-on phone can cost about the same as a regular
minimum-priced plan.

You might think that prepaid plans would always be the cheapest way to go for cell phone
plans for people who need a cell phone for emergency or infrequent use.
Unfortunately the way these plans are implemented often include extra
costs or hidden costs.
You phone can wind up costing you much more than
you anticipate.
Watch out for the incredible, shrinking, vanishing, expiring minutes!
We mentioned these already.
Some phone plans offer you prepaid minutes with a long expiration time — up to a year.
Look for these plans.
But remember that most cell phone plan minutes
expire at some point, so it’s almost impossible
to have a phone for a long period without incurring some cost to keep it.

Beware the dreaded daily charge!
Some plans charge a daily fee for the first call each day.
This can really add to your charges and I think you
should avoid plans using this technique.

So how can you avoid busting your budget?
And by the way, what’s that big secret?

Well many phones sold on regular plans such as the Nokia and Motorola
have options to restrict incoming and outgoing calls.
This is frequently referred to as a “fixed dial list” or a “fixed dialing list”.
It is usually tied to the address book and set with a password to
allow only selected incoming calls or outgoing calls from numbers that are
in the address book.
Many corporations use this plan to control communications costs so that company
issued telephones can only be used to make and receive calls to and from
company authorized numbers.
Check out your existing phone for this feature.
Or if you considering a new phone, make sure it has this option.

So whether you use a prepaid (pay-as-you-go) plan or a regular monthly plan,
you can control your costs and get the maximum benefit from your cell phone.

Mike Furlong

More cell phone reviews and recommendataions at
ShoppingDroid.com