Help me understand this Tracfone.

[SKL]

So I got my kid a tracfone and went online and bought her some minutes.  I tested it out and it is able to send and receive calls and texts.  I don't want her using the internet, so I didn't play around with that, but I didn't disable it either (I don't know if I can).

 

We have wi-fi in our house, which we use for work.  The tracfone picks up the wi-fi.

 

If my kid is within wi-fi range, how does that affect minute / data usage?

[justasque]

Wifi isn't generally used instead of minutes, unless you have some kind of app for that.  Minutes are minutes unless you're using Skype or something similar.

Assuming your settings are done right, the phone should always use wifi instead of data if wifi is available.  (Obviously, the phone's wifi has to be set to on, and it must be signed in to the wifi.)  So if she is in wifi, she won't be using data.  

Depending on the phone, you can often select which apps can use data (when wifi is not available) and which cannot.  You can also simply turn off data, to be sure it's not being used.  Turning off data won't affect calls or texts, or using apps when you're in wifi.

Texts are a bit trickier, depending on the phone; my iPhone can use iMessage instead of SMS texting under certain circumstances; that would use either wifi or data.)

[lynn]

I can't answer your question but can you give a quick likes/dislike about trac phone? I want to get DD one for Christmas

[Dmmetler]

On my DD's tracfone, Texts are texts, but use data or wifi if you send pictures, video files, audio, etc by text-so my DD texting her BFF a silly photo takes both a text from her count and data if she's not on wifi. Voice is always over cell data. You can use Skype or TextNow or similar apps to do either via wifi, but the phone number/contact will be different than the one assigned to the phone.

 

I would make sure apps only download over wifi and only connect to wifi unless you do so manually. I'm often surprised by how much of my data is used by stuff like "Someone liked your post". I have unlimited data, so it's not a big deal, but if I didn't,  I could wait to find out that people like my WTM post until I get back to wifi :). 

 

 

 

 

What I like about Tracfone is that when DD uses her allotment, it's done. No overages, no draining the family data plan (one of her friends is on a family plan, which worked great until they went on a trip where they had no wifi. They ended up with 20 GB in overages, mostly from the kids playing Minecraft in the car). I have agreed to pay the $20 every 3 months. If she goes over that, it's her problem. I also like that they have a decent number of relatively inexpensive phones that still do the "cool" apps, since we don't have phones to hand down.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 10, 2016 by dmmetler

[Rebel Yell]

BabyBaby has a hand me down iPhone that we set up as a Tracfone under their "bring your own phone" program.

 

We only want her to be able to use the paid tracfone minutes for talk or text. DH disabled the data usage for it, so she can only do "smartphone things" if she has wifi. So she can iMessage, snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, FaceTime, watch Netflix, etc. only when there is wifi and it does not affect her paid minutes.

 

Is your home wifi password protected? If you don't want her to have access to wifi then use a password and don't enter it from that phone.

 

She will still be able to connect to wifi when out. Not sure how to control that, it would depend on her phone.

 

Not every tracfone or prepaid phone allows you to disable the data. We had a phone once and the button location combined with my fat old fingers made it a constant struggle to not hit the web browser. 😡

 

Also, we buy the basic minutes cards for tracfone, not the smart phone or data plan ones. Since BabyBaby DOES have a smart phone she *could* access those minutes for data also, which is why we disabled the data access for this phone. Not because we don't want her to have the access, but rather because with the regular minute cards it is the most expensive way to do so, and she doesn't really need to since anything she'd want to do is accessible through the home wifi.

 

Editing to add: it will depend on your phone, but a pesky quirk when one of our iPhones was a prepaid ATT GoPhone: we only paid for the unlimited talk and text monthly plan, so zero data. When sending a text to another iPhone it always wanted to send it as an iMessage (which uses data, not a regular text) so messages would often "fail" to send. They just had to remember to hover on the message or whatever and "send as text". I mention this in case you have iPhones or some other phone that this could be relevant to.

 

I have not had my coffee yet, so if this sounds like the ramblings of a babbling idiot who has a weak grasp on technology, I apologize and applaud you for your deductive reasoning skills. 😂

Edited October 10, 2016 by Rebel Yell

[Bambam]

One things to think about -- my oldest has a Republic Wireless smartphone which used WiFi instead of data if available. Great!

But she loved to walk around listening to music. 25GB worth of music every month. Ran us over our data limit every month. 

[SKL]

LOL my kid just called me to inform me that they are walking up from the bus stop and I might want to come down and unlock the door.

 

This phone stuff is going to be an interesting experience.

[justasque]

Another thing - I would put the Tracfone app on the phone.  That way she can check whenever she wants to see how many minutes/texts/GBs she has left. 

 

[SKL]

Another thing - I would put the Tracfone app on the phone.  That way she can check whenever she wants to see how many minutes/texts/GBs she has left. 

 

She has been checking obsessively since I showed her how to to it.  :P

 

[Rebel Yell]

LOL my kid just called me to inform me that they are walking up from the bus stop and I might want to come down and unlock the door.

 

This phone stuff is going to be an interesting experience.

LOL! When I first got a cell phone 18 or so years ago, I mostly used it as a garage door opener.

(We didn't have an automatic one so if call DH because I hated getting out of the car and right back in for a 20foot trip into the garage)

[vonfirmath]

One things to think about -- my oldest has a Republic Wireless smartphone which used WiFi instead of data if available. Great!

But she loved to walk around listening to music. 25GB worth of music every month. Ran us over our data limit every month. 

 

Why not just put the music on the phone? I use my phone for a lot of audiobooks -- but I download them to the phone (and that is set up to only happen over wifi) don't constantly stream off of data.

[Ravin]

Why not just put the music on the phone? I use my phone for a lot of audiobooks -- but I download them to the phone (and that is set up to only happen over wifi) don't constantly stream off of data.

 

My DD has music on her phone as well. She is only allowed to use data for playing Pokemon Go (she is not obsessed and doesn't overdo it) and Google Maps.

[Dmmetler]

I've actually been surprised how little data Pokémon Go takes. I use far more browsing Facebook and forums while waiting for DD at different activities than DD does walking miles to catch Pokémon.