Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Unlimited: Picking Up Speed?

We have been waiting for the next Unlimited shoe to drop. Since several carriers and resellers have dropped their Unlimited prices to the $30 to $50 range, we wonder how long can the major carriers hold their prepaid options to the $99 level. We have been watching a rumor that AT&T will announce a $60 Unlimited rate soon, but we have absolutely no confirmation. Is it just wishful thinking on someones part?

Switching to get a better rate has been very popular lately, but the large carriers claim there has been no loss of customers moving to prepaid. Since there is no longer a stigma attached to using Prepaid, users are happy to cut their wireless bills in half.

We actually expected Sprint to be the first to make a move to a cheaper Unlimited rate but they may be hanging their hopes on the popularity of their Boost Mobile Unlimited plans, and maybe their upcoming purchase of Virgin Mobile. If Pocket Wireless in Texas is selling Unlimited at $25 a month, and is still making money, how low can we go?

2 comments:

Dave said...

It seems to me that Sprint has accidentally put themselves in a tight predicament with their handling of Boost Mobile. Boost has become a very popular prepaid option, but to what extent does Sprint plan to expand the service? Lately on tv, I see advertisements for Sprint's 4G network and MIFI internet all over the place. But if Boost and IDEN are whats bringing the majority of new subscribers to the table for Sprint, how much can they do to improve the IDEN network without doing too much to cripple their own services? All of this of course, is very good news for consumers. There's no reason anymore to drastically overcharge people for basic phone usage and sms messaging. I'd like to know what percentage of cell phone subscribers out there even need a 3 or 4G network. Some us still just like to make calls i'd imagine.

William said...

I'm happy to see more and more reasonably priced prepaid options coming available. As i've mentioned before, I hope to see the "major" prepaid carriers start to fill out their network over the next year or two. In particular, i'd really like to see Sprint upgrade their Iden network by filling it out more and maybe getting more spectrum for it. Boost would really be able to reel customers in.