Tuesday, August 3, 2010

New Unlimited Competition

Verizon Wireless is test marketing a new Unlimited plan similar to Sprint's "Any Mobile, Any Time" plan, but Verizon is pricing their plan at only $50. Sprint gets a leg up for their Unlimited plan that includes Unlimited everything except Voice calls and Roaming minutes, which are capped.

We agree with Don Hesse when he states in the Sprint TV ads that nobody just makes Voice calls on their cell phone. Even our Unlimited Talk & Text Plan Page now includes only Voice and Text plans because Text and Image Messages now outnumber Voice calls. Yes, Sprint's Any Mobile plan does seem to fit more users than the other carriers' Unlimited Voice-only plans, but they still have some distinct disadvantages. To get Sprint's Voice, Text and Data plan to any number, you need to pay at least $100, and you're still limited to their own network. Verizon's $50 price point could be a game changer.

Sprint gets credit for moving the market in this direction which takes advantage of the fact that around 25% of all US households are now wireless-only. Sprint was also the pioneer in giving customers free long distance calls.

Now that Verizon is wading into the Any Mobile pool, Sprint may need to get back to the drawing boards. If they're smart, they already have. "Smart" does not describe all of Sprint's moves. We still haven't figured out how they can justify their purchase of Nextel. We do however know that offering a bunch of prepaid options and supporting several MVNO networks has kept Sprint moving, even if not very fast...or down.

No comments: