Disposable cell phones are an idea that has been in development for many years in other parts of the world. In the last few years, the idea of offering disposable cell phones to the American public had started to take root and people were able to purchase disposable cellular phones in a variety of places.
In the early days of offering disposable cell phones in the United States, it was possible to get a phone almost anywhere you could purchase electronic items. Large chain stores such as Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and Radio Shack used to be great places to find disposable cellular phones. The throw away phones became so popular that they could be purchased at convenience and drug stores such as 7/11, Walgreens, and Rite Aid. But it may have been the ease of getting these phones that eventually became their downfall.
The original disposable cell phone product was an inexpensive phone you could purchase with minutes worth of service already loaded on it. Once you opened up the phone and activated it, you would have a working cell phone with a phone number people could call and a pre-determined amount of minutes attached to it. When your minutes ran out, you had the option of throwing the inexpensive phone away or adding more minutes by calling the service carrier and adding service to your phone. The problem with the original disposable cell phones is that they became the favorite mode of communication for criminals because they could not be traced in any way, so they were taken off the store shelves.
Today you can still order a disposable cell phone, but you can only do so from websites on the internet. When it is done in this fashion, a credit card number is attached to the phone and it makes it possible for the authorities to trace the owner of the phone if they ever need to.
The popularity of disposable cell phones with the law abiding American public was not lost on the cell phone providers, and soon it became apparent that the rapid change in cell phone technology could be used as an ally in providing a new type of disposable cell phone.
As cell phone technology advances, previous designs of phones are abandoned in lieu of more updated designs. However, the cell phone companies are still left with a great many of the older phones and no customers that want them. Today, you can purchase a cell phone for less than $20 from one of the many cell service providers and then add pre-paid service to it for activation and use for a month. Many customers are treating these phones as disposable cell phones because they are so inexpensive that they can be thrown away after the minutes are used up. These types of cell phones are great to take on vacation to avoid losing your regular cell phone, and they are good to give children when they are going away to summer camp or in some other situation where the children would need to call home but the parents do not want to take on the responsibility of a monthly contract.
These inexpensive phones require no contract to activate, and you can buy them off the shelf and ready to use. The difference is that you must activate them with the cell provider in order for them to work. It is the industry’s way of providing disposable cell phones without adding convenience for criminals.