Want Kids to Stay in Touch? Let’s Talk

Kids have odd-ball hours, evening practice, weekend games and a penchant for movies and malls. How’s an anxious parent to keep in touch?

Fortunately, there are plenty of solutions, whether your kids are off to grade school across town or to a college across country. The most popular option is the cell phone, but there are others.

Here’s a rundown of the top prospects:

Cell phones

These days, there seems to be a mobile phone in every pocket, purse, backpack or briefcase. With good reason: Wireless phones are great safety devices, plus they are portable, reasonably priced (sometimes free) and boast call waiting, caller ID, a host of games and other extras.

For kids headed to college, a cell phone is a must-have. In addition to its obvious safety benefits, a mobile phone gives parents a single, unchanging phone number and a direct link to kids wherever they are.

Lauren Killian, a 20-year-old volleyball player at the University of Southern California, is typical. She uses her cell phone almost exclusively. In her apartment, where her carrier does not provide a signal, she forwards calls from her cell phone to the apartment line.

High-schoolers are also big cell phone users, especially once they get a driver’s license and hit the road. More than 40% of 16-to-17-year-olds, and nearly a third of kids 14 to 15, regularly use a cell phone, according to one study.

Many schools prohibit mobile phone use during classes, but most have eliminated outright bans because of growing worries about school violence. Parents like the security of knowing their kids can call for emergency help if needed. It’s also handy for coordinating the schedules of busy parents and kids.

If a cell phone is on your back-to-school shopping list, keep in mind that the main consideration is not the phone itself but the service plan. It determines the price for each minute of use, for messaging, for long-distance calls and so forth.

College students need a plan with a generous allotment of minutes because the cell phone often acts as their primary phone. Usage levels can vary substantially, but studies show the average college-age user spends more than 300 minutes a month on his or her mobile phone.

A good plan also should include free long-distance, national coverage, a large “home” region with no roaming or toll charges, and a way to retrieve voicemail messages from a standard phone, which reduces air-time charges for calls to voicemail.

Most high school and grade school students can get away with a regional service plan but will need a low rate for toll charges and messaging. The key factor for parents is finding a way to keep their teen’s usage under control.

To address that concern, most wireless carriers offer “prepaid” cell phone plans. Details can vary, but prepaid plans typically allow users to buy blocks of minutes, with time subtracted with each call until the allotment is depleted.

These plans dispense with the hassles of long-term service commitments and the credit and deposit requirements of monthly plans. The per-minute price typically is higher than with a contract plan, but the arrangement forces kids to budget their usage to keep the phone from turning off.

Cingular Wireless offers a $100 “prepaid phone in a box,” which includes a low-end Ericsson phone, a Cingular account “SIMM” card for the phone and a $25 activation credit on your account. You can buy minutes in $10 to $100 increments, with air-time prices between 30 cents and 50 cents per minute. Lower rates apply for night and weekend minutes.

Sprint PCS offers a Wireless Allowance plan, under which parents are charged $35 a month to provide their teen with a set number of minutes. The minutes can be replenished before the next month’s allotment with an additional payment. AT&T; Wireless and Verizon Wireless also have prepaid plans.

With prepaid plans, however, parents can’t be absolutely sure that their teen’s phone will be on and available in an emergency. If the account is low or out of minutes, the phone could become inactive.

In addition, prepaid minutes typically have an expiration date of anywhere from one month to a year after purchase. Read the fine print to make sure you don’t buy more minutes than your kid will use before the expiration date.

Several mobile phone companies offer “family plans,” or plans that allow parents and kids to have separate phones but still draw usage from a single rate plan and bucket of minutes. Those can work, providing your teen doesn’t suck the plan dry chatting with friends.

When selecting the phone, make sure it works in both analog and digital modes to provide the best service coverage. Kids also usually want messaging capability, along with custom ring tones and phone covers to up the cool effect.

Pagers

Kids still like pagers, but they are quickly being supplanted by cell phones. About 17% of kids ages 10 to 17 use a pager, with most of them strictly one-way. They allow parents to send a callback phone number or a message to their child.

One-way pagers are easier to carry, less pretentious and cheaper to buy ($10 to $50, plus a service plan). They also are useful in many circumstances. But they are not really a safety device since the user can’t send out messages or summon emergency crews.

Lately, two-way, or “interactive,” pagers have grown popular with teens. They are pricey, with the device alone costing $200 to $300 or more. But they allow a free flow of text messages that are typed out on tiny built-in keyboards. Several models, notably the RIM BlackBerry pager, send and receive standard e-mail, and others include scheduling and different features.

Two-way radios

Although cute and fun, two-way radios (also known as “walkie-talkies”), aren’t a practical solution for keeping in touch with kids at school. The most popular family radio models cover only a neighborhood, are subject to interference and are impossible to use unobtrusively.

Still, they offer parents an inexpensive way to track younger kids or to keep in touch with older kids when they’re playing street hockey on the next block. They cost $50 to $80 and are free of any other charges.

Long-distance calling cards

Calling cards can be a dream or a disaster for parents. The standard calling card is linked to a home phone account and allows the user to make long-distance calls while away from home and to charge the expense to their phone bill.

If used right, they can be a handy thing for kids away at college. The trick is in finding a card with reasonable rates and devoid of outrageous per-call “connection” fees, minimum per-call charges and other fine-print “gotchas.”

Prepaid calling cards also have their place. Although they have similar fine-print drawbacks, they provide a great backup for kids on the go. They are for sale just about everywhere, from drugstores to the Internet, and they can be purchased in just about any increment. Minutes get deducted with each use.

Computer network phone service

Services such as Net2Phone offer very cheap calling and are terrific for kids going to college far away, especially overseas. Some services require the purchase of software or devices to use with a personal computer, but others can be used phone-to-phone.

The services are cheaper because they send conversations over Internet-style networks instead of standard phone systems. The quality and reliability aren’t as good, but you can’t beat the price, especially as a backup connection to the kids.

Yahoo is one of a growing number of Internet sites that offer “voice messaging” or voice chat for free, using a home computer.

Personal toll-free numbers

Businesses aren’t the only ones with toll-free numbers these days. Most long-distance companies now sell 800 numbers to individuals so kids or other people can call for free.

Parents can restrict the use with a special code. The bill can be steep, with per-minute prices of 35 cents or so. Even so, it can be a cheaper option than calling cards.

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Times staff writer Elizabeth Douglass covers the telecommunications industry.

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BEST BETS

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K-5th grade

Solution: One-way pager, if you must.

Cost: $10 to $50 (sometimes free) for the pager. Numeric local service at $99 a year; text paging for $250 or so. Nominal activation fee.

Pros: Small and light for easy toting. Lets parents send basic messages. Cheap to replace if lost or broken.

Cons: No help in emergency situations. Text paging service not much cheaper than a cell phone.

Note: Shop around; service prices can vary significantly.

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6th-8th grade

Solution: Low-end cell phone, not Web-enabled.

Cost: Free to $60 with service plan. Plans are $20 to $30 a month. Or purchase prepaid service at varying prices.

Pros: Easy, immediate communication. Doubles as safety device in case of emergencies.

Cons: Frequent messaging and chatting with friends can yield big bills.

Note: Parents should program important phone numbers for one-touch dialing, so kids can dial M for Mom or D for Dad, etc.

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9th-12th grade

Solution: Dual-mode cell phone, with instant and text messaging, plus regional or national service plan.

Cost: Free to $200 with service plan. Plans are $20 to $50 a month or more if you add text messaging use. Prepaid plans can reduce costs or shift responsibility to the teen user.

Pros: Allows parents and high-schoolers to coordinate busy schedules. Good safety device.

Cons: Costs can get out of control unless users learn restraint.

Note: Teens will want text messaging, along with games, changeable phone covers and special ring tones. Don’t forget to teach them cell phone manners too.

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College

Solution: Dual-mode cell phone with instant and text messaging, Web access, free nationwide long-distance.

Cost: $60 to $300 with service plan. Plans are $20 to $60 a month, or higher for college students whose cell phone acts as their main phone.

Pros: One steady phone number for constantly moving students. Good safety device.

Cons: Lost phone costs more to replace.

Note: Supplement cell phone with prepaid calling cards with minutes that don’t expire or that last at least six months. To get the best coverage, make sure the phone is dual-mode, working on both traditional analog and newer digital networks.

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On the Web

For more advice and information:

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https:// www.cellmania.com

Advice, comparisons, sales of cell phones and plans, pagers, two-way radios

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https:// www.star69.net

Advice, comparisons, sales of long-distance phone service plans, calling cards, prepaid calling cards, wireless phones and plans, including prepaid plans

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https:// www.letstalk.com

Advice, comparisons, sales of cell phones and plans, prepaid wireless plans and cards, pagers, two-way radios

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https:// www.getconnected.com

Advice, comparisons, sales of cell phones and plans, prepaid service, long-distance and local phone service

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https:// www.abelltolls.com

Advice, comparisons, sales of long-distance phone service plans, calling cards, prepaid calling cards

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https:// www.ld.net

Sales of cell phones and service, long-distance service, prepaid phone cards, Internet calling service, pagers and plans

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https:// www.trac.org

Advice, comparisons of long-distance and prepaid phone plans

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Also: https:// www.simplywireless.com and the wireless sections at https:// www.buy.com , https:/ /www.amazon.com , https:// www.epinions.com , https:// www.cnet.com

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Phone Facts

In today’s electronics-crazed youth market, two-way radios and pagers are losing ground to mobile phones, which have become cheap enough for the whole family. The chart shows actual and projected numbers for kids ages 10 to 17 who own or regularly use cell phones as a percentage of that segment’s total U.S. population.

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2000

Cell phone user: 29.2%

Cell phone owner: 7.0

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2004

Cell phone user: 62.6

Cell phone owner: 33.4

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For constantly moving college students, mobile phones have become an important way to keep in touch with friends and family. The chart shows actual and projected numbers of college students ages 18 to 24 who own or use a cell phone, as a percentage of that segment’s total population.

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2000

Cell phone user: 60.1%

Cell phone owner: 35.7

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2004

Cell phone user: 85.9

Cell phone owner: 69.2

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Source: Cahners In-Stat Group, December 2000.