There are BYOD prepaid providers that are even cheaper than that. The lowest you can get is ultra mobile's $3.50/month plan, but you need to jump through some hoops to get it working, like getting a physical sim in person. Tello is $5/month and you can activate online.

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modeless a day ago | parent [-]

Do you get SMS that continues to work when the phone is powered off?

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gruez a day ago | parent [-]

You can still get SMS (and even make calls) over wifi calling, which can be done with airplane mode on and with a VPN router.

	▲	modeless a day ago \| parent [-]
		But not without the phone