Prepaid Cellular Phone Services - How did prepaid wireless get so complicated?!How do you compare prepaid prepaid cellular phone services? Does that sound like a silly question to you? Well, maybe it's a pretty basic question, but once you start digging into it, you'll find that prepaid wireless plans have become so complex and confusing. Let's take a look at how prepaid plans have evolved over time: Prepaid Started Off With Simplicity When prepaid cellular phone services were originally launched, they was pretty straightforward. Load money on your account, make a call, and your account is deducted for each minute you use; simple and easy, no? Prepaid had the real benefit of being a no contract plan for occasional users who didn't want, or coudn't get a contract cell phone. (For a more detailed discussion about the benefits of prepaid wireless visit Why Prepaid Wireless.) So how did things evolve to where they are today? Continue reading... The Target Customer Has Changed When prepaid launched in North America, it was targeting what people have historically described as "low value" customers. Typically those who couldn't qualify for a contract plan usually because of low credit, or when a large deposit was required. I hate to say it, but honestly speaking (which is the spirit of this entire website!), carriers were targeting the bottom of the barrel of customers. So why offer service to these customers at all? Well, bottom line is that they'd rather have them as customers and make some money from them than send them away altogether. And once in the carrier's "family," hopefully over time they would "buy up" to a postpaid contract plan. Over time, the volume of customers fitting into this group began to grow. Without getting into a philosophical discussion/debate about why this segment continued to grow, or arguably was there all along, lets just take it for granted that it was a lot of people, and interest was growing! As a result, all kinds of prepaid cellular phone services started to spring up, but again very simple plans. Even what most people would consider basic features such as voicemail and call waiting weren't readily available. Carriers then found that their prepaid customers wanted more features. Not just voicemail and call waiting, but also more flexibility and better value. So PAYG (pay-as-you-go) plans began to evolve, offering more options for how much money you could load at one time, different expiration dates, better per minutes rates, etc. Understandably, as more options and features became available, the appeal of prepaid did as well.
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