What is the cheapest prepaid phone?

What cheap prepaid phone is good for travel between USA and Canada?

• I need a prepaid "burner" phone for work in the USA later this year. However, I will need one that works in Canada as well, which was not an option the last time I was traveled with one. I will be in the USA in the fall. When I am in the USA I usually just pick up a cheapo "burner" cell phone like Net-10 or Trac-phone and top up the unit charges as I need. This trip, however, includes several weeks in Canada. The last time (in 2009) I used an American prepaid phone in Canada my service would not allow me to call or receive outside of the USA. Any suggestions for a semi-disposable cheap phone / plan to be purchased in the New York City area that can work on both sides of the border? Coming from Europe, I'm a bit confused when researching US prepaid plans. Providers like Verizon and ATT offer monthly prepaid plans for set fees. Are these similar to the "burner" phones I have used, where I just pick up a card at a drug store when I need to top up minutes, or are they bound for a contracted period of time? Can I just buy a cheap unlocked phone and stick in a new SIM card from one of these services, or do I need to buy a phone from them all ready to serve their wireless masters?

• Answer:

  http://ask.metafilter.com/239215/Cell-phone-options-for-a-short-trip-to-Canada. But things change, so check for updates. Specifically, one of the bigger US prepaid providers, Cricket Wireless, was just bought by AT&T's prepaid subsidiary, AIO Wireless, and will move from CDMA (Sprint network) to GSM/LTE on AT&T's network. So things are shaking up a bit. > Providers like Verizon and ATT offer monthly prepaid plans for set fees. Are these similar to the "burner" phones I have used, where I just pick up a card at a drug store when I need to top up minutes, or are they bound for a contracted period of time? The whole idea of a prepaid phone plan is that you load some money into the account, and the phone works as long as there's money left. Optionally, this can be charged on a monthly basis - there needs to be $MonthlyFee in your account on the day they bill. Or it can be a by-the-minute plan. Both versions exist. > Can I just buy a cheap unlocked phone and stick in a new SIM card from one of these services, or do I need to buy a phone from them all ready to serve their wireless masters? Either. I think most phones in the prepaid market are hand-me-downs from regular plans (e.g., passed on to teenager as Dad upgrades) and so they may be network locked. But if you bring a factory unlocked phone to a prepaid carrier, it will work as long as it is network compatible (CDMA for Sprint or Verizon networks, GSM for AT&T and TMobile, and a situation in flux for LTE and multi-network phones). In the US, for an unlocked phone and a cheap prepaid plan, TMobile is probably your best bet - but check out AIO, Airvoice, and H2O Wireless too - all these are GSM carriers. Virgin Mobile is on Sprint CDMA, and CDMA networks are in general more fiddly because phones don't (didn't?) use an easily swapped SIM card to identify themselves to the CDMA network.