Prepaid
Wireless Tracker - July 2011 Issue
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Sprint Steps Up
Prepaid Game With Motorola
Triumph Android Smartphone
ZDNet
(blog)
The specs of this phone are truly impressive for any of today’s mid to
high end
smartphones; however, launching this phone on Sprint’s prepaid Virgin
Mobile
brand is really quite impressive.
Given
Sprint’s propensity to stress about cannibalization of its postpaid
business by
its prepaid brands, I can only imagine the debates/arguments that took
place
getting this smartphone approved!
Huawei Glory Coming
to Cricket Wireless - Brings
1.4GHz And Gingerbread
Android
Police
All I can say is “wow”! If
Cricket can
get this smartphone to market on time in November, it will truly be a
force to
compete with if the price in fact comes in under $300.
I couldn’t tell if it has a front-facing camera
(for video chatting). That
and the
potential build quality could be the only factors keeping this handset
from
being at the top end of the smartphone market.
Definitely a handset to look forward to!
Battle Heats Up
in Lifeline Mobile Market: Assurance Wireless
Growing Strong
PRLog.Org
(press
release)
There’s no doubt that Sprint has been rolling out its free cell phone
service,
Assurance Wireless, in a big way since 2010.
Whether or not it
ultimately overtakes SafeLink is not
necessarily
relevant to most people, other than to say that these programs are more
readily
available and continuing to grow rapidly.
In other words, customers win in the end!
Assurance Wireless
Arrives in Kentucky
TMC
Net
It’s always nice to report when Sprint rolls out its free service
offering,
Assurance Wireless, to additional states, with this time being Kentucky.
Cricket Wins
Data Speed Test - Or Does It?
Philadelphia
Inquirer
So is this a desperate attempt by Cricket
to find a point of differentiation against MetroPCS, or naive
executives in an
unexpected apples to orange comparison?
I’m hoping it’s the former as that would be slightly less
sad. Within the
next year, Metro and Cricket will
essentially have access to the same pipe technology; time to compete on
phones,
services, and customer service please!
AT&T's New
$50 Unlimited Talk,
Text, And Web Prepaid
Plan Started June 26
MobileCrunch
Well well, what do we have here?
AT&T finally getting into the game with an offer
than is actually
competitive. Though,
before we get too
excited, as prepaid customers are starting to expect a decent selection
of
smartphones on these unlimited plans, AT&T is charging a
premium for
prepaid smartphone users. That’s
ok,
they’ll get there eventually; let’s give them another year!
Prepaid Wireless Consumers To
Pay 911 Charge At Time of Purchase
South Carolina customers are now part of the growing number of states
that are
requiring retailers to collect e911 fees each time prepaid customers
reload
their phones. I
talked about this inevitability
awhile back, indicating that prepaid customers have been getting away
with not
paying this fee. Given
its growth, it
was only
a matter of time before regulators were going to focus
attention on
the 911 infrastructure revenue potential from collecting fees from
prepaid
wireless customers.
Hands On With
the Cricket Huawei Ascend 2
PC
Magazine
The Ascend 2 appears to beef of its specs just enough to make it a
usable entry
level
smartphone. Having
used the
original Ascend, I can say that that phone is borderline infuriating
with its
slow performance in doing simple tasks like loading the phone app,
selecting a
contact, and making a call. The
Ascend 2
is really what the original Ascend should have been in my opinion.
SIMPLE Mobile
Upgrades $50 Unlimited Rate Plan
TMC
Net
Simple Mobile, a T-Mobile MVNO, also gets into the fully unlimited game
by
adding unlimited data to its plan.
Simple Mobile isn’t big, however, I like to keep up with
some of the
smaller niche players, and Simple is one that I’ve got on my radar. It’s good to see them
playing along with the
big boys.
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PrepaidWirelessGuy
