Prepaid phones are often known as PAYG (pay as you go) or prepay phones. These are services where you can purchase airtime upfront, and your data usage gets debited from the airtime you have purchased. And once you exhaust the set data, you cannot use any service until you top up your plan again. Our country has four national prepaid phone providers as of 2021 – Sprint, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, and AT&T Mobility.

Sprint
A lot of people are unaware that Sprint is actually a subsidiary wholly owned by T-Mobile. Nevertheless, it functions under its own brand name. Speculations are rife that the company might eventually be taken out and continue to be branded as T-Mobile. As far as its features are concerned, Sprint offers you text, voice, as well as 4G and 5G data. You can choose from different plans as per your budget and requirement.

Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless has the proud reputation of being the country’s largest national prepaid phone provider. It provides 4G coverage all over the country and was also one of the first to offer 5G. Verizon gives both prepaid as well as contract phone services. In addition, the brand also provides dual-mode phones and handsets that support both GSM and CDMA mobile standards. However, this network will not work outside North America.

T-Mobile
Most likely, you have already heard of T-Mobile. The prepaid phone provider offers both 4G LTE as well as 5G services. One of the brand’s most significant changes is that they have stopped giving out contract services and have started solely offering prepaid ones. With contract services now gone, you can pay for your mobile phones in monthly installments.

AT&T Mobility
AT&T is known to be the second-largest prepaid phone provider in the country as of 2021, the first being Verizon Wireless. Like the others on this list, AT&T also provides 4G as well as 5G services. Besides, using this provider should not be a problem when you travel overseas, provided you have a quad-band GSM phone. This is because AT&T Mobility is a GSM network.

This completes our list of prepaid phone providers in 2021. These are the only four phone providers that offer coverage nationwide. But remember, certain services such as 5G connectivity might sometimes not be available based on your location. Of course, many other prepaid phone providers are offering regional coverage that you can consider as well.