MetroPCS

MetroPCS ranks "about average" overall among prepaid wireless providers in the 2010 J.D. Power and Associates national survey, where it is rated against Virgin Mobile, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile and other carriers. Although it gets high ratings for being cheap, MetroPCS gets low marks for customer service and performance/reliability. Customers at PrepaidReviews.com also complain about MetroPCS' customer service and limited regional coverage, although editors like that MetroPCS uses a flat-rate, unlimited-minutes system, which eliminates the need to monitor usage. A monthly plan with unlimited local and long-distance calls, text and picture messages and MetroWeb (with access to most websites) costs $40. For $5 more, you can add unlimited international text messaging and more; another $5 adds unlimited email access, instant messaging and MetroNavigator GPS navigation. BlackBerry service costs $10 more. Like Virgin Mobile, MetroPCS offers some advanced handsets, such as the Samsung Galaxy Indulge (*Est. $400) running Android 2.2. Virgin Mobile's Beyond Talk Unlimited plan (*Est. $60 per month) costs more than MetroPCS for unlimited talk, text and data, but Virgin Mobile (on the nationwide Sprint network) gets better ratings for performance and customer service.

J.D. Power and Associates rates MetroPCS based on a poll of about 5,400 prepaid wireless users, and PrepaidReviews.com posts feedback from more than 200 MetroPCS users. ConsumerReports.org didn't get enough responses about MetroPCS in its consumer survey to include it in the ratings, but editors do mention it in their report. Rounding out our list of reviews is CNET, which evaluates MetroPCS along with eight other prepaid wireless carriers.