Revol Wireless Review

No-Contract Unlimited Plans for Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania

2014 Update: Out of Business

Revol has gone out of business. The following info is for reference purposes only.

Revol Wireless offers no-contract unlimited cell phone plans for subscribers in states like Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Their unlimited plans start at $35 per month. Additional plans and features are available. Coverage is good if you qualify for service and there is a good selection of phones available.

Coverage

To sign up for Revol cell phone service you have to be based in Indiana, Ohio or Pennsylvania. However, although you need to be based in these primary service areas, Revol coverage is actually nationwide with no long distance fees and no roaming fees when you travel.

Presumably, Revol has its own network of towers in these three states and leases network coverage from the other providers to be able to provide cell phone service in the rest of the country.

They are similar to Cricket and MetroPCS.

So assuming you've got coverage, it's time to check out their plans.

Revol Wireless Plans

You can get individual Revol plans or you can add additional lines to qualify for their Family Plan multi-line discounts.

Individual Plans

$35 per Month Plan

Individual plans start at $35 (sometimes on sale for $30) per month for unlimited talk and text. Unlimited talk includes long distance. This is a pretty good deal if that's all you're going to do.

Things that are missing include voicemail, caller id, and picture messages. Whether you need voicemail depends on whether the people who call you are likely to leave a voicemail if they can't reach you or just send you a text message instead.

If you use your cell phone for work-related tasks, then you probably need to have caller id and voicemail. In this case you should move up to the next plan.

I have to note here that the Cricket $35 per month plan does include voicemail and caller id. However, Cricket is often not available is the areas where Revol is offered.

$40 per Month Plan

The $40 plan adds voicemail, a calling package and a media mail package. The calling package includes caller id as well as call waiting and 3-way calling. The media mail package sounds more impressive than calling it picture messaging. For $40 a month, it's not a bad deal, but there are a couple of things you get by paying $5 more.

$45 per Month Plan

You get unlimited mobile web and call blocking with the $45 per month plan which is also known as their Best Value plan.

However, not even their Best Value plan includes all possible features. We'll cover some of those features after looking at the Family Plans.

Family Plans

Revol Wireless Family plans basically offer a small discount for having more than one line, AND also signing up for auto-billing.

Talk Text and More Family Plan

Two lines of the Talk, Text and More Revol Family plan costs $70 per month or $35 per line. However, you get the features of the $40 per month which includes the voicemail, caller id and picture messaging.

Additional lines (for the "kids", etc.) cost just $15 more per month.

Best Value Family Plan

Two lines of the Best Value Family plan costs $80 per month or $40 per line. However, you get the features of the $45 per month plan which includes unlimited mobile and call blocking.

Additional lines cost $20 more per month.

As I mentioned, these Best Value plans don't quite cover everything. There are still a few additional plan options.

Additional Plan Options

There are some additional options you can add to your plan as you need them.

International Options

International Calling and Texting are available for $10 per month on all except the $35 per month plans. This means that you get unlimited long distance countries covered under the Revol International Plan. Most countries seem to be covered except for a few exceptions. For those countries you'll still have to go the calling card route. A full list of countries is available from the link above.

You can also sign up for just International Texting under all the Revol plans for $5 per month.

Other options available include the following:

Call Forwarding

Call forwarding costs $3 under all plans. I assume this is not a popular feature, but those who need it are willing to pay extra.

Caller Id Block

This also cost $3 per month. I can think of time where you'd want this, not all of them pleasant. It's there if you want it.

Ringback Tones

Ringback tones are another feature that costs $5 extra per month.

Phone Insurance

If you get a phone that would be expensive to replace (many discounts apply only for new service), you might want to sign up for phone insurance for $5 a month - that works out to $60 per year.

Speaking of which, it's time to check out some of the phones.

Phones

There's a good selection of Revol Wireless phones starting from the basic flip phones to touchscreen and Android phones.

Since I am not based in Indiana, Ohio or Pennsylvania; I would like to ask readers like you to provide your reviews of these phones. I wrote a couple of descriptions as examples.