Sprint is Lifted by Prepaid and Wholesale

by DrPrepaid on July 28, 2010

Sprint Nextel reported positive net adds for the second quarter of this year, first time in three years. Unsurprisingly, the net adds came courtesy of Sprint’s prepaid and wholesale divisions. Total net adds came in at 111,000 subscribers. Sprint lost 228,000 postpaid customers yet gained 173,000 prepaid subscribers and 166,000 wholesale subscribers in the period.

With a recent refresh of the Virgin Mobile offering and national availability of Boost unlimited everything on the CDMA side of the network, Sprint will be looking for the two brands to drive growth. Sprint’s HTC Evo (the nation’s first 4G device) also contributed to reducing losses in postpaid. The companies ARPU went down a notch, however, the churn is at an all time low.

So what’s next for Sprint? A few options: a merger with T-Mobile, which will put the new entity on par with the nation’s two largest carriers, AT&T and Verizon, acquisition of Cricket, further solidifying Sprint’s leadership in prepaid under multiple brands; or an all-out shift towards prepaid while bringing postpaid down to the $50 all-you-can-eat realm.

That said, score another point into the prepaid margin.

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Verizon has brought a new plan to market under the radar that features unlimited talking and text messaging for $49.99 in 11 states in the Southeast. The plan is only available through calling Verizon’s customer service, and is absent from online and retail stores. Though Verizon did confirm the existence of this limited offering, there isn’t much detail out there but surely information will emerge very soon.

It comes as no surprise that Verizon has introduced such a plan as the reasons are many. Exhibit (A) is T-Mobile’s $49.99 unlimited talk and text offering. Exhibit (B) – and this is the big one – is driven by Verizon’s own numbers in Q1 and Q2. Look no further than the company’s 665,000 retail postpaid net additions for the second quarter out of a total 1.4 million total net adds. That’s less than 50% (47.5% to be exact). The retail net adds weren’t that much better in the first quarter of the year either. A healthy chunk of Verizon adds are coming courtesy of StarightTalk, Tracfone’s “unlimited everything” offering available at WalMart for $45 a month. That’s where the market is going. Verizon understands that, but the shift from full-on postpaid to prepaid overnight isn’t something an 800 pound gorilla can pull off gracefully.

Expect more aggressive play from the big four in prepaid over the next few months. These are exciting times in wireless, especially in the prepaid space as consumers are finally given great options outside the boundaries of long-term contracts.

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Mingo Wireless makes the switch…

June 18, 2010

Mingo Wireless is reportedly switching from being a Verizon MVNO to being a Sprint MVNO.  On their website the activations system is temporarily unavailable while they switch systems.
Who is Mingo Wireless?  They are a prepaid MVNO offering simple rates for Pay-as-you-go and bundled plans.  They are most known for their exceptional customer service.  If you [...]

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Simple Mobile Updates Unlimited Plans

June 11, 2010

Simple Mobile, a T-Mobile MVNO, announced today a new lineup of unlimited plans. The most interesting aspect of the new plans is the addition of unlimited data. The new plans are:

$40: Unlimited talk and text
$50: Unlimited talk and text, with 100 MB of data
$60: Unlimited talk, text and data

It is unknown if the unlimited data [...]

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Is $40 the new $50 in prepaid?

June 11, 2010

In 2009, prepaid wireless changed the “wireless game”.  $50 was the number every wireless carrier, large or small, was trying to reach.  There were (and still are) plans offering Unlimited talk for $50, Unlimited Talk & Text for $50, Unlimited Talk, Text, & Web for $50, and everything in between.  Carriers like Boost Mobile, Cricket, [...]

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Now that the EVO has landed….

June 9, 2010

Now that the HTC Evo has officially hit the streets and Sprint has corrected its misquote on the sales figures estimates, does it live up to the hype?  More importantly, does it have the chops to go toe-to-toe with the iPhone?
There is no doubt that Sprint has a winning device now in the line-up.  A [...]

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Boost to add Android June 20

June 6, 2010

On June 20, 2010 Boost Mobile will be adding and Android to their line-up.  But there’s a catch, it’s iDen….
Boost’s new iDen device will be the Motorola i1.  This will be the first iDen device to have Android, and the first Android to use a walkie-talkie service.
So why the iDen network?  No, really, why the [...]

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AT&T and their new data plans

June 4, 2010

So now that AT&T has scaled back how much data they are giving to consumers, what are the ramifications, if any?
Just to recap what the plans actually are:

Option 1: Data Plus Plan for $15 per month and 200MB of data
Option 2: Data Pro Plan for $25 per month and 2GB of data

There are many schools [...]

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H2O Wireless Drops Unlimited Talk and Text to $40

June 3, 2010

H2O Wireless has just updated their plans with the most significant change being a drop in price for their Unlimited Talk and Text plan from $50 to $40. Per H2O’s website, the $40 plan has been given the name “Pure”.
Plan details are as follows:

Monthly cost: $40
Talk: unlimited
Text: unlimited
Data: unavailable

H2O also offers “Day” and “Minute” plans. [...]

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PlatinumTel Introduces Lowest Pay-As-You-Go Rates

May 29, 2010

PlatinumTel Prepaid Wireless announced the introduction of “Real Paygo“, an a al carte prepaid cell phone plan that offers what the company dubbed as “the most competitive rates in prepaid cell phone service”.
Here are the details of the new plan:

Five (5) cents per minute
Two (2) cents per text message
Ten (10) cents per megabyte of [...]

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