A no-contract phone with a month-to-month plan can be considered disposable. A no-contract phone with a prepaid, or pay-as-you-go, is the other type that can be considered disposable.

I found this chart very helpful in deciding what wireless phone service provider to get my hobby prepaid phone from: http://www.cellguru.net/prepaid_compare.htm

An escort probably uses her phone a lot more than I do, though, so you may be better served by this chart: http://www.cellguru.net/prepaid_hybrid_compare.htm

Keep in mind that any phone you get from a phone company will work only with that phone company. The exceptions are AT&T and T-Mobile — since they use the GSM technology of wireless telephony, you can probably find an independent telephone store that will unlock your AT&T phone so you can use it with T-Mobile (and vice-versa). The iPhone is a notable exception; you have to keep up online with the latest developments in order to keep an unlocked iPhone working.

If you want to get a GSM phone that's unlocked out-of-the-box, you have to go to a non-phone-company store.

Once you have an unlocked contract-free GSM phone, you can keep the phone instead of ditching it should you want to switch between AT&T and T-Mobile, or vice-versa. You just have to get a new SIM card (a tiny card that slips into place inside the phone.)

If you think you may ever go abroad and want to use your GSM phone, get one that's unlocked and quad-band-capable. That way, you can buy a SIM card in the foreign nation rather than pay the high international roaming rates of your home carrier.

By the way, when I bought my hobby phone at a T-Mobile store (not to be confused with an independently owned phone store that's authorized to sign consumers up with T-Mobile), I was asked for my name and date of birth. I had bogus info ready to give them; you should too. (Perhaps you should also have a bogus home address and an e-mail address you don't use much to give to them, too.) Just make sure you don't forget what info you give them in case you have to contact customer service.

a