Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Sprint - The New Prepaid King?

With the purchase of Virgin Mobile, Sprint became a bit top heavy on prepaid services. They have now added yet a 4th prepaid service that will be available mostly at Wal-Mart stores named Common Cents Mobile. The "hook", or the gimmick, is that they will Round Down your minute usage. Use 1 minute and 45 seconds and it will round down to 1 minute.

With this newest prepaid product, Sprint has clarified the personality of each of their prepaids. Virgin will be a data-oriented brand for younger users and Boost will focus on voice services, which is a good use of the slower Nextel iDEN network. Oh, the 3rd brand? I'm sure you've heard of Assurance Wireless aiming at low-income customers. So low, they qualify for government supported Lifeline service. Don't expect Assurance to be much of a force until they expand beyond the half-dozen states they currently serve. That leaves Common Cents as a phone for...uh...Wal-Mart shoppers?

If you're considering a switch to prepaid, welcome to one of the fastest-growing groups of wireless users. The easiest switch is to use your current phone with your current provider. Oddly, Sprint is one of the few carriers that won't let you switch to their own prepaid. For users who travel outside the city, there may be better choices. Like Virgin, Common Cents Mobile doesn't support off the Sprint network roaming.

View the top Prepaid options at CellularByTheMinute.com. We said this a few years ago, and it's even more true today. Fear no Prepaid, it's not just for kids any more.

2 comments:

Benjamin A said...

200 Minutes from assurance plus $.010 each additional for the places it works seems much fairer than Safelinks 60 minutes free and at least $.015 overage. Look forward to seeing this one expanded.

Benjamin A said...

I intended to say $.10 for Assurance and $.15 for Safelink