In most countries outside North America, if you don't pay the phone bill you can still receive texts and calls. You just can't make calls, send texts or use internet.

The same applies to prepaid cards - if the balance hits zero, you can only do incoming calls and texts.

Obviously, the provider will still send debt collectors if you were on some fixed price per month plan, and those debt collectors will still try to collect moneys for the months the service didn't allow outgoing calls... I always thought it odd that a company was allowed by law to collect money for a service they didn't provide.