Chances are what you think you are getting for free really isn't going to do you much good. Basically, giving away SIM cards is just a ruse some companies use to get you to sign up for cell phone service, which is not free -- ever. So even if the phone for the SIM card is free, you will still have to pay for either a rate plan or a per minute charge.

Before you proceed with your free SIM card, read the fine print. Make sure you are not locking yourself into a scheme that, in the end, will be more costly than some of the more popular prepaid cell phone plans that are available.

Basically all a SIM card does is allow users to change phones by simply removing the SIM card from one mobile phone and inserting it into another. They may be used with ongoing cell phone usage plans as well as with prepaid plans. Prepaid plans are extremely useful for those individuals who have a bad credit rating or no credit at all.

People who don't have access to a cell phone through their place of business find these plans useful. They are also useful for teenagers and younger children because they teach them how to budget their cell phone usage. Because you have prepaid a certain amount of minutes, you can easily calculate minutes you have on the cell phone. That way there are no unpleasant surprises at the end of the month.

Some companies do offer a full size free SIM card that you can serve as a back up should your phone break. You can insert the SIM card into your phone and copy material, or you can use it to transfer the information into a different model of phone from the same manufacturer. Again be cautious as this convenience also allows unscrupulous people the opportunity to steal your SIM card information.

In reality a free SIM card doesn't provide any real benefit for a majority of people. There isn't any real value attached to them. Cell phone service is inexpensive enough and getting more inexpensive every day so that most people can afford cell phone service in some form or another without resorting to the SIM card scheme.

There is very little reason why you should have to go through the contortions of piecing together your own cell phone plan this way when there are other more convenient, and maybe even cheaper, ways to accomplish the same thing. Don't fall for something that in the end is going to be time consuming and not give you the benefits it would seem to promise.