Parents, would a Kajeet cell phone help your child to stay in touch with you and learn how to manage their money while having fun? It could. And what about you? Would you like to be able to check where your children are without having to call them up all the time? Would you like an easy way to manage your child’s cell phone usage? With Kajeet, you can.
The iPhone 5 and 4s are now available from Kajeet. In addition you can bring any handset previously on a Sprint plan over as well.
If you’ve got an 8-12 year-old child in your family then you’ve probably thought about whether to provide them with a cell phone, and what cell phone to choose.
The cell phone service is designed to be easy to use and manage for parents as well as their children. It’s advertised not only as a cell phone, but also as a way of teaching your children to manage money.
We'll go over these cell phones for kids, but let's pause for a second and check the coverage.
The service uses Sprint's network, so coverage is pretty good depending on where your are. In particular, the map shows good coverage in population centers and along highways (which are also population centers.) You need to check first, of course.
With that out of the way, let's move on to how you manage how your kids use the phone.
You give them an allowance in what's called a "Kajeet wallet” of, let’s say, $20, and they can use that either for making additional calls or downloading ringtones and games. Your children then have to learn to balance those different desires within their allowance. As a parent, you decide to fund their wallet. You can exempt certain calls (such as calls to you) from their wallet. These calls then get charged to you.
"Call me maybe"? Maybe not.
Kajeet, of course, complies with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA).
Your child
The above safety features all work automatically. In addition, there are parental controls to customize the phone for your child.
Parental controls include
All these features are free. There is one additional safety feature.
All Kajeet phones are comptabile with their GPS-locator service. This allows you to locate your child's phone wherever it, and presumably, your child is. You can either check their location via a web site or set up the phone to send you alerts at particular times so you know whether she's where she's supposed to be. For example, if she's supposed to be at soccer practice by 4pm, you can have the phone send you an alert every weekday at 4pm to check if she's there.
The GPS Locator service usually costs $7.99 per month or 99 cents per locate. It's also included free on the $24.99 and up plans.
Now that you know it's safe, you can check out the plan rates.
You might interested in these phones and plans, too.
This basic flip phone from Virgin Mobile is targeted at the teen crowd but feature some controversial content in the web browser home page.
This touchscreen Tracfone offers similarly low monthly operating cost with a nicer appearance.
Several Android phones are available for under $100 and can run Kytephone app for parental controls.