Prepay cell phones

Has anyone had a good experience with a prepay cell phone service? I'm trying to buy a phone for my mom, for emergencies and light usage. She doesn't want a huge extra phone bill a month... I heard that trac-phones weren't that great, because they share cell phone towers other companies... in other words, they buy up extra air time from other companies and use it for their customers, kinda like piggybacking, from what I've read.

Verizon has the best and widest call area, however their service is super pricey. I didn't realize this, until I actually bought her a pre-pay $30 Verizon phone from Target two days ago, the Samsung, and then brought it home and did a little research. The activation fee for it is $35 (which they didn't mention this on the box) It's very misleading also, when it says ".99 daily access" and you "don't pay for monday, if you don't use monday" ...so what does that make you think? It makes me think... you only pay for the days you use, and you pay for .99 cents a whole day. Not .99 cent for each call plus a connection fee?! My mother's bill could be well over mine if she were to sign up with this service. My Verizon phone is $34.99, as I've been a customer with them for over 4 years now. I see now that their simple plan has gone up to $39.99. The only plus I see for this phone would be that the calls to me would be free... but she would still be charged a .99 cents daily access fee and the connection fee? That could really add up.

I read where Virgin Mobile and T-Mobile were the cheapest with their minute cards. As cheap as $20 for a month for 200 mins. and they roll-over if you don't use them all on Virgin. Though their phones are little bit more expensive. On T-Mobile is only $10 for 30 mins. and you have 90 days to use them, and they also roll over if you don't use that.