The Sprint prepaid brand is testing out a financial services app that allows you to pay bills, transfer funds and cash checks within a mobile app. For physical transactions, Boost is supplying a prepaid Visa card. Read more »
Verizon’s prepaid plans are still more expensive than other no-contract operators, but you can now get 2 GB of 3G data on the $60 plan and 4 GB on the $70 plan. Read more »
A third of all smartphones activated in Q1 were on prepaid plans, a trend that historically has favored Android, according to The NPD Group. Apple, though, is starting to make in-roads into the prepaid market. Read more »
AIO Wireless, a new pre-paid services company that is an AT&T subsidiary, launches today. The plans are simple and you can even get an iPhone, but you won’t get LTE data. Read more »
Prepaid mobile giant TracFone had a massive quarter, adding 839,000 subscribers and even beating out Verizon Wireless. TracFone didn’t say why, but not coincidentally its Straight Talk brand and partner Walmart began selling the iPhone 5. Read more »
Verizon has never been the operator you would associate with the word cheap. After years of focusing on the high-end of the market, Verizon is going after the budget carriers with a new $35 prepaid plan. Read more »
Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam is watching T-Mobile’s new contract-free, subsidy-free mobile strategy closely. If consumers start biting, McAdam says Verizon is willing to shake up its own pricing and contract policies. Read more »
Want LTE service in the U.S.? You’ll likely need a contract with your smartphone. Unless you want to use Sprint’s LTE network through Boost Mobile that is. Here’s why it’s a smart play from Sprint’s prepaid brand. Read more »
GoSmart Mobile will focus on the budget-conscious voice centric user. There are data plans, and one of them is even unlimited, but you won’t get access to T-Mobile’s full HSPA+ network speeds. Read more »
TracFone had another enormous growth year. Though it doesn’t have a network of its own, it is starting to grow close to national carrier size off of the success of Straight Talk and its other prepaid brands. Read more »
Now that Verizon is quickly moving customers to its LTE network, what can it do with the older 3G airwaves? Use them for two new prepaid plans and make a little new money on old resources. Read more »
The $60 unlimited talk, text and data plan is back, but MetroPCS has removed some of the perks. No more Rhapsody and unlimited video and audio downloads for MetroStudio included. But for most customers the restored plan is still a much better deal. Read more »
In January, Boost Mobile will start throttling speeds to its “unlimited” customers after they exceed 2.5 GB. Clearwire is experimenting with usage-based plans. It’s getting harder and harder to find a truly unlimited data plan anymore as carriers impose more restrictions. Read more »
Verizon may be getting serious about prepaid if only as a means to find a future use for its rapidly emptying 3G networks. After years of ceding prepaid to its competitors, Verizon started actively courting contract-averse subscribers over the holidays. Read more »
The Verizon version of the iPhone 5 will come with all of its radios, save CDMA, unlocked. That means any Verizon iPhone user can insert any carrier’s SIM card and be on another network. That’s great news for network switchers and even better news for jetsetters. Read more »
RadioShack joins the ranks of the mobile virtual network operators, partnering with Leap’s Cricket Communications to resell its prepaid smartphone and feature phone plans. The deal both expands Leap’s retail presence and allows RadioShack to sell service plans, not just handsets. Read more »
You have probably never heard of Yulong or its Coolpad brand, but in China it’s a top 3 smartphone maker beating out even the iPhone in device sales. On Tuesday Coolpad arrived in the US on the MetroPCS LTE network with its first budget smartphone. Read more »
Sprint saw 1 million Nextel and Boost customers kick their phones to the curb in Q2. But Sprint managed to steer 600,000 of those departing subscribers to CDMA contracts or its prepaid brands. Helped by steady iPhone sales and its MVNO business, Sprint managed to grow. Read more »
Free Mobile has launched a new front in its war with France’s incumbent operators. It’s taking SFR to court over the handset subsidies it charges, claiming they amount to usurious loans that consumers wind up paying back in the form of hidden fees in their contracts, Read more »
Cricket Wireless will offer two Apple iPhone handset models with monthly pre-paid plans beginning on June 22. The iPhone 4 and 4S will cost $399 and $499 respectively, without a contract, using Cricket’s $55 plan, advertised as unlimited voice minutes, text messages and data usage. Read more »
Sprint doesn’t plan to dump WiMAX entirely after it takes its LTE live this summer. Instead, it plans to reposition the older 4G technology as the network for its prepaid customers. Sprint will begin selling WiMAX devices next quarter under the Boost and Virgin brands. Read more »
Smartphones long ago lost their hoity-toity status as the toys of the technological elite, but in the last few years they have been moving down to the lower-rungs of the mobile market ladder. Smartphones accounted for 29 percent of all prepaid device sales in 2011. Read more »
Pre-paid smartphone prices are in decline, and now Virgin Mobile is offering a new Android handset for $99. The no-contract smartphone offers basic hardware but could appeal based on Virgin’s $35 monthly plan: unlimited Sprint 3G data and texts, along with 300 voice minutes. Read more »
BonaYou, which lets people send prepaid Mastercards as gifts to their Facebook friends, has just received cash to help it expand across Europe this year Read more »
This year’s CES was the biggest in the show’s 44-year history. It boasted 15 miles of exhibit hall aisles, 3,100 booths and 153,000 attendees. It is easy to be jaded by the endlessly repetitive products, but the thousands of innovations point toward a future of connectivity. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The tablet market is booming as a host of new gadgets come to market, but 3G-enabled devices are gathering dust due to pricey data plans and requirements for two-year contracts. So prepaid data services could help carriers grab a slice of the pie. Read more »
We’re not seeing sub-$100 smartphones without contracts yet, but we’re getting closer: Virgin Mobile is selling the LG Optimus V for $149 with unlimited data plans starting at $25. That’s getting close to feature phone territory but adds the promise of apps and the mobile web. Read more »
T-Mobile is making changes to help redefine itself amidst tough competition above from three larger carriers in the U.S. and below from national prepaid providers and smaller regional carriers. It’s not the Saks of cellular, but not a Sears either. So who, then, is T-Mobile? Read more »
On Monday of next week, T-Mobile will introduce new prepaid plans for handsets and data devices. Also launching next week is T-Mobile’s first prepaid 3G mobile broadband dongle, the Jet Prepaid USB Stick, which can be used with plans by the day, week or month. Read more »
Amid upcoming competition from next-generation networks, Clearwire is adding prepaid options for its WiMAX service. Although the national network is expected to cover 120 million by the end of 2010, it has cost billions and only attracted 1.7 million customers. Will prepaid speed up WiMAX adoption? Read more »
Clearwire is expected to announce a pay-as-you-go option for its Clear WiMAX service on Monday according to a form filed with the SEC yesterday. With competitors launching next-generation data networks, Clearwire’s “first to market” advantage is fast going away, so it’s gunning for more customers now. Read more »
In a bid to grab new customers, Sprint’s Virgin Mobile USA is now offering prepaid unlimited mobile broadband service for $40 per month with no contract. That compares to Verizon’s new prepaid plan at twice the price with a 5 GB limit over 30 days. Read more »
Got an old iPhone lying around? With a few simple steps, you can repurpose it with prepaid data and minutes. Read more »
Boost Mobile today said it would offer the Motorola i1, the first Android phone for the prepaid market in the U.S., a move that makes prepaid plans more compelling from a device perspective. This could continue the prepaid growth spurt the market is currently enjoying. Read more »
AT&T and Verizon Wireless have thus far been able to stay far above the brutal battleground that is the prepaid space. That will change, though, as smartphone sales continue to ramp up and mobile data traffic ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The prepaid market continued to expand in the fourth quarter of 2009 thanks to a price war that seems to get more brutal by the week. Meanwhile, AT&T and Verizon Wireless built on their dominance with postpaid subscribers. Read more »
MetroPCS’s quarterly profit beat expectations, an indication that the carrier is holding its own in the brutal prepaid market. But if it can begin to lure postpaid consumers instead of poaching users of other prepaid services, it could begin to truly separate itself from the pack. Read more »
Leap Wireless will form a joint venture to expand its footprint in South Texas, an effort to make itself more attractive to potential suitors amid an increasingly brutal prepaid space that is pushing the mobile industry toward consolidation. Read more »
MetroPCS this morning reported slower growth and increased churn thanks to an increasing competition in the prepaid market. It’s the latest sign that the health of the prepaid space is in decline. Read more »
