Local and regional campaigns are typically short-lived. As a result, contracts for mobile service can be a serious cost when it comes time to either discontinue the contract or continue to pay unused phone lines.

Prepaid services are an affordable way to allow a campaign to keep in touch. Services like Pocket, Cricket, and Boost offer affordable alternatives to costly land lines or contract mobile services.

The campaign staff may still have full-service phones or use their own phones, including data packages for email. Volunteers and other support staff typically only need lines for field communications and phone banking. The services mentioned previously often offer unlimited packages in addition to affordable phones. They are also beginning to provide data services for smartphones; but are still not up to par with the larger mobile service providers.

Boost Mobile may be one of the better solutions for a campaign given their unlimited package also includes use of their push-to-talk service, a form of walkie talkie communication. This allows the handsets to be used for phone banking and field communications with canvassers.

Having unlimited calling on your prepaid phones allows your campaign to not worry about racking up costs from overage. Some of the unlimited prepaid wireless providers may not have the fastest wireless Internet service; but, this can be overcome with the ability to call others for information. Few of the prepaid services offer plans for smartphones.