A lot of it will depend on where you are. If you're in or near a major city most any of the companies around Cingular, Verizon, T-Mobile, Alltel, Virgin Mobile, etc. will likely work similarly in that you'll have to have a compatible phone and subscribe to a company's network. You'll buy refill vouchers usually in amounts of anywhere from $5 to $100. The refills will have "expiration" times by which you either need to make a call or add more money to the account to keep the account from being discontinued. If you keep track of the account and add more money generally the money you alreay have in the account stays there and is just added to by the new refill you add to your account. You cannot however just "forget" about it. You'll need to do something such as add money periodically to keep the account.