You can further minimize your cell phone backup costs with PTel.com, a T-Mobile MVNO, which costs $5/month (minimum spend) and $.05/minute. I had them for my (

You can further minimize your cell phone backup costs with PTel.com, a T-Mobile MVNO, which costs $5/month (minimum spend) and $.05/minute. I had them for my (lightly used) cell service until recently, when I switched to Google's Project Fi, which opportunistically connects to either T-Mobile or Sprint, as needed. From a reliability standpoint, Project Fi might offer a bit more piece of mind with dual providers available, though it requires late model Nexus phones at the moment.