Prepaid
Wireless Tracker - August 2011
Issue
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Virgin Mobile
Bids Farewell to Unlimited Data Too
CNET
In addition to raising the price of its Beyond Talk plans, Virgin
Mobile now
limits data usage on its phones as well to 2.5GB, after which speed is
throttled. Note
that they’re still
advertising these plans as having unlimited data.
Technically I have no doubt that throttled
plans are still unlimited, however, practically speaking, once
throttled, it
becomes unusable. Though
a throttled
experience on a smartphone is much better than on a mobile broadband
product,
because apps for checking email and the like still allow you to
interact
normally, it just takes longer to receive mail.
Carriers really need to stop advertising “unlimited” with
“throttled” in
the small print. Come
on carriers, this
is deceptive advertising regardless of what the letter of the law
allows
for.
Leap/Cricket
Expands Roaming, Raises Prices All Three Prepaid
Tiers by $5
Dslreports
Cricket brings nationwide data roaming to its prepaid broadband product
(Broadband2Go), along with a $5 price increase across all plans. Despite this increase, the
plans remain
competitive.
payLo by Virgin
Mobile Increases Value for Talk 'n' Texters
MarketWatch
(press release)
Virgin ups the value
of its $30 plan, 1,500 min plan with a bump from
500 to
1,500 messages, and 10MB of data to 30MB of data.
Without seeing consumer data, it’s hard to
know for sure, but this change may not carry much value, and be more of
a
marketing ploy. The
question of the day
is whether feature phone users (even with a QWERTY keyboard) use more
than 500
messages per month. I
believe that for
most people, the answer to that question is “no”.
Likely a fairly low risk strategy for Virgin.
Verizon
Maintains Unlimited Prepaid Smartphone
Data for $30 Per Month
Gotta
Be Mobile
It appears as though Verizon is still not taking prepaid seriously as
they
clearly don’t see the possible data usage as a threat.
I suppose that makes sense given the
relatively low prepaid base they have.
Unless you’re a diehard Verizon fan, with the limited
smartphone
selection, and relatively uncompetitive pricing, there are certainly a
myriad of
more attractive offerings available at this point in time.
Muve Music Wireless Download Service Rocks
100,000
Users
RollingStone.com
(blog)
It’s great to see innovation in the
industry. I’m still
not sure, though,
whether 100K subscribers is good or not compared to
their forecast. I’m sure their forecast is
publicly available;
I just haven’t had a chance to review their documents.
Once they have Muve available on all of their
smartphones, we’ll really see whether or not this service takes off. I think the critical
barrier to adoption is
that people tend to want the ability to play their music from multiple
devices,
which isn’t currently possible with Muve.
Though if it’s included in the plan price, I have no doubt
people will
make use of it. We’ll
have to see if
battery life becomes a usability issue, and whether Cricket can
maintain
profitability if it does take off.
I
expect any meaningful adoption will require a price increase to support
the
network and licensing costs.
Cox to Launch Prepaid Mobile Service
IntoMobile
So long as Cox has a wireless service, it really needs to offer prepaid
to stay
in the game. I’m
not sure how their
contract wireless service is going, but I suspect that customers
looking for a
bundle of service may find its prepaid
service attractive. Beyond that, it’s unlikely
that they’ll
capture any meaningful market share overall.
Will Postpaid
Customers Defect to Prepaid
Carriers With High-End Android Phones?
PhoneDog
The
short answer to this is “yes”!
As
prepaid smartphone selection continues to improve as hardware pricing
comes
down, going prepaid will continue to make more and more sense. Contrary to what the
article says, the
prepaid revolution started several years ago, and will continue to
accelerate
as the gap between postpaid and prepaid handset selection continues to
narrow.
Huawei M835
Brings Affordable Android to MetroPCS
The
Gadgets
While it’s certainly not a high end,
sexy smartphone, it’s a decent addition to MetroPCS’ entry level lineup
of
prepaid Android phones. Keep
in mind
that specs like these were on high end handsets on major postpaid
carriers
barely two years ago, and people from all demographics and carriers
continue to
happily use handsets with these specs.
What's New at
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- Updated
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PrepaidWirelessGuy
