Prepaid Wireless Tracker
- June 2013 Issue #60
Hi,
Prepaid
wireless is a growing and truly exciting industry. At
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content is original, and created from firsthand experience working in
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New T-Mobile MVNO GIV
Mobile Donates 8% To
Charity
CNET
New T-Mobile MVNO GIV Mobile is differentiating its service by donating
8% (or up to $50/year) to designated approved charities from which
customers can select. It's a great concept, and I'm all for
supporting charities, however, chopping off 8% of their top line
revenue out of the gate is a risky business case to be paying around
with. I don't know that the tax-offset will be sufficient to
leave GIV with sufficient margin to stay in business long term, let
alone be profitable. Prepaid carriers strive for 40% margins,
so an immediate 8% loss is material (before the tax write-off).
Of course, I don't have any insight into Giv's business case
or financials. Ultimately, I hope they succeed, though at
this point I'm not optimistic; hopefully I'm wrong. Check out
their site to see if it meets your needs, and help support good causes!
AT&T Launches
New Brand &
Company Aio Wireless
ConsumerAffairs
So now it's official ; AT&T launched a separate prepaid brand,
Aio Wireless. It's short for All In One, which is kind of a
lame name if you as me. Note that this is more than a new
brand, it's a new company. I chatted with Aio online and they
insisted that while they run on the AT&T network, they're a
separate company. This allows AT&T to keep its
prepaid GoPhone brand, and experiment with more aggressive and diverse
offers without impacting its AT&T brand. This is a
common strategy, though I expect there's a lot more AT&T
control that they're admitting to. Also, oddly, they're
calling these data centric plans, and while the data allowances are
good, they're 3G only. Aio will need to move to LTE within
the next 12 months to have a chance of competing. Regardless,
it's a wise move for AT&T to make a larger investment in
prepaid, which promises to take over postpaid in the not-so-distant
future!
New MVNO Zact Lets You
Build Your Own Plan
Hot Hardware
So here's an interesting new Sprint MVNO! You choose the
number of voice minutes and texts, and how much data you want in your
plan. There are a plethora of options (which I played around
with on their site), and your monthly price changes as you customize
your plan. In addition, if you overestimate what you need,
they're credit back to your account the dollar difference had you
selected the lower priced plan with the lower number of minutes, texts,
and data that you actually ended up using. It's really a cool
idea. I'd love to have a peek into their business model!
It will be interesting to see if they have the money to
market their product, as I expect that it will appeal to a lot of
people. Also, they have access to Sprint 3G and 4G LTE, which
keeps them in the game from a data speed perspective. Lastly,
they also have app-based pricing, which means that you don't
have to buy a plan, but can pay for access to a certain app with
unlimited usage. For example $5/month for Facebook access.
Though there is a $4.99 monthly maintenance fee on every
device. I think to truly take off (besides awareness),
they'll need to implement a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) program as
their phone selection is not very inspiring. It will be
interesting to see how this new company performs.
Prepaid Wireless Takes
A Third Of U.S.
Smartphone Sales
FierceWireless
Well, well, what do we have here! More evidence
that prepaid is growing. For those of you who have been
reading this e-zine for the past five years (yes, I know there are a
good handful of you still on the distro!), you know that I've been
forecasting prepaid dominance since 2008. There were a number
of elements that needed to align before carriers, and the mainstream
consumer, would buy into this inevitability. At this time
next year, it should be well north of 60%!
Verizon Increases
Prepaid Data Allowances To
Stay In The Game
FierceWireless
Its prepaid smartphone users got a data allowance bump from 500MB to
2GB on the $60 plan, and 2GB to 4GB on the $70 plan. I've been
monitoring their site for weeks since the announcement,
however, they have yet to update it. I expect they'll update
it June 6th when new customers will be eligible to receive the new data
allotment. Existing customers were able to get it by calling
Verizon and requesting it as of May 15th. Verizon continues
to creep up on getting real value into its prepaid offerings, which is
necessary to stay in the game. However, keep in mind that
Verizon has limited prepaid smartphone selection, and it's 3G support
only at this point.
Boost Mobile Finally
Gets iPhone
iPhone FAQ
So Boost is said to be getting the iPhone sometime this summer.
While that's not inspiring news in and of itself as they're
VERY late to the iPhone game at this point, Boost's prepaid plans are
some of the most competitive in the market, so this means great value
assuming Boost doesn't charge a premium for iPhone plans as it once did
with BlackBerry smartphones. I do, however, expect that sales
won't be as high as some people think, given more compelling Android
phones are already available at the same or lower price points.
AT&T GoPhone
Gets Highspeed Data
& iPhone
Afterdawn.com
Starting at the end of June, AT&T prepaid GoPhone customers
will have access to its highspeed data networks, and it will finally be
allowing iPhones to be activated. While this is a positive
step forward, its pricing is largely uncompetitive. I still
can't think of a reason why anyone looking for prepaid would choose
AT&T?!
Boost Mobile Partners
With Wipit For Mobile
Wallet Solution
Mobile Payments Today
This new mobile wallet offering allows users to transmit money
overseas, pay bills (ex. utilities, cable, etc.), topup, and transfer
funds between accounts. Users also get a Visa card attached
to the account for use at retailers. This type of mobile
application has been in the works for years, and is intriguing for the
unbanked. That said, do you really want to be 'banked" by
your mobile carrier? I would think people would prefer to use
an independent company that doesn't tie them so deeply to their
wireless
carrier. That way should you decide to switch carriers for
whatever reason, you don't have to essentially move your virtual
banking activities to another provider. What they should do
is allow you to keep the virtual wallet service even if you discontinue
Boost service. There's no reason they couldn't offer the app
for download on any Android or iOS device. Now that would be
extending the brand! Even then, however, as a customer, I'd
opt for a service like GoBank.com, or other similar banking solutions
for the unbanked.
Cricket Targets
Postpaid With "Half Is More"
Campaign
MediaPost Communications
Rather than compete with prepaid carriers on price in a race to the
bottom, Cricket is taking a different approach and competing directly
with postpaid carriers AT&T and Verizon. The reality
is that prepaid has long since offered effectively the same services
for nearly half the price. Device selection has historically
been the major gripe once customers actually started to appreciate the
value of prepaid plans. Now that prepaid carriers have the
latest and greatest handsets (Cricket has the Galaxy S3 & S4,
and the iPhone), the game is on! One thing to note, however,
is that their price comparison chart includes a $5 discount for autopay
customers (noted in smaller print). That said, it's still a
good comparison without that discount. It will be interesting
to see whether this messaging resonates with AT&T and Verizon
customers!
Sprint Finally Lets Galaxy S3 Onto Boost &
Virgin Mobile
Gotta Be Mobile
So Boost and Virgin are finally getting the GS3! With Cricket
launching the Galaxy S4 this month, this announcement seems to lack
luster; however, for customers already on these brands, or for those
that prefer these Sprint subsidiaries, the GS3 is a great phone, and
for some an even a better option than the GS4. We'll see the
price of the GS3 decline, and it's actually a good alternative
for those that find the slightly larger form factor of the GS4 to be a
little too large.
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PrepaidWirelessGuy
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