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.

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.

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 read any of the forums, like Howard Forums, you will find nothing but positive comments regarding Mingo, their plans, and their customer service.

Mingo has two plan categories:

1. MingoFlex – Pay-As-You-Go.
2. MingoPlus – Monthly Bundles that include free nights and weekends

They also offer additional features such as:

• Text Messaging: 10 cents per SMS
• Mobile Web: 59 cents per MB
• Picture Messaging: 20 cents per message

So the question is, why are they leaving Verizon?  They seem to have a great thing going, with loyal customers, simple plans, and a great nationwide network.  The switch is creating an issue for some customers that love Mingo but don’t have good Sprint coverage in their areas.  Mingo is helping these customers move to PagePlus.  That will be a shock for customers that are used to getting their questions answered in under and hour of hold time.  Although, they will still have that great Verizon network, and PagePlus’s well-rounded rate plans.

Mingo is sticking to its great customer service by doing everything it can to help their customers transition as they need.  They are assisting in porting the customers to the carrier of their choice, and refunding any balance left once the port is complete.

Hope fully this transition to the Sprint MVNO program benefits Mingo.  It seems to me that Verizon is loosing in all of this.  Now Mingo will join the ranks of other Sprint MVNO’s like Kajeet, Total Call, PlatinumTel, and many others that have become successful MVNO’s under the Sprint umbrella.

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 offering has any hard caps similar to those applied by other carriers (in some cases 1, 2, or 5 GB). With these new rates, Simple Mobile now holds a clear advantage over other GSM MVNOs with unlimited plans, such as H2O Wireless and Airvoice Wireless, both of whom offer unlimited talk and text for $40, but lack any data offering.

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, and MetroPCS led the charge, forcing smaller carriers and MVNO’s to come to the plate with better offerings.  And everyone gave their response.  Here’s a short list of the $50 players:

• Boost Mobile – Unlimited Talk, Text, Web
• Cricket – Unlimited Talk, Text, Web, and some Cricket specific features (*market dependent)
• MetroPCS – Unlimited Talk, Text, Web, Email, and more MetroPCS specific features (*market dependent)
• PlatinumTel – Unlimited Talk, Text, 100mb web
• Simple Mobile – Unlimited Talk, Text, 100mb web

And I’m sure there are many more that can fill this category.

However, as of late, there seems to be a shift in this price point.  Carriers and MVNO’s are beginning to offer similar plans for only $40.  This is a monkey wrench, if I ever saw one.  Here are some examples:

• Airvoice Unlimited – Unlimited Talk & Text = $39.95
• Simple Mobile – Unlimited Talk & Text = $40
• PagePlus – Unlimited Talk & Text = $45 (includes 20mb of web, but used to be only $39.95)
• MetroPCS – Unlimited Talk, Text, and basic web = $40
• Cricket – Unlimited Talk, Text, and basic web = $40
• H2O Pure – Unlimited Talk & Text = $40

You get the picture.  If there were a “Wireless Threat Advisory System”, it would be elevated to orange (high).

How are these carriers doing this?  Don’t get me wrong, its always a great thing when you get more for less.  I just wonder, at what cost.  At these lower prices, what happens to these carriers’ margins?  With a lower price point, and lower margins, can the carrier sustain the same quality of service, afford to continue to provide good customer service to it’s users, and make enough money to stay in business?  If the carriers can these questions in the affirmative, then they are doing something right.  Another question that needs to be answered is, “Are these just teaser rates that won’t last long?”  Will these carriers decide in 6, 12, 18 months that, “hey, what were we thinking, we can’t do this anymore,” and raise their rates again?  As a consumer who likes to save, I hope this is not the case.  However from a business perspective, I find it hard to believe that these carriers all found a way to take $10 off the top and still maintain big enough profit margins to pay for all the advertising, employees, and general operating expenses that go into running a wireless company.  I think this is a good old fashioned “land grab”, where they are all trying to amass as many customers as possible and hope for the best.

That’s just my opinion.

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 much needed addition after the lack-luster performance of the Palm Pre.  The Android platform seems to be most carriers’ answer to the iPhone.  And it seems to be working……kind of.  The Evo is a dynamite specimen of a wireless device that has everything a consumer could ask for in their wireless phone.  Yet, this beast has so much to offer that it cannot simply be called a “phone”.  There currently are no phones in the wireless space that offer a true 4G wireless experience, personal hotspot, HD viewing experience, and a screen thats 23% bigger than the iPhone.  Just speaking in features, this phone towers over all of the competition, and casting small shadow on the iPhone.

Now back to the major question, can it stand up to the iPhone head to head?  If we lived in a vacuum, it could.  Since we don’t, the Evo has a lot of catching up to do.  HTC and Sprint need to be able to master the marketing machine like Apple and AT&T did.  They made it as though, “if you don’t have the iPhone, you’re not in the club”.  They have put so many iPhones in so many people’s hands that if Sprint and HTC want a rEVOlution, they really need to show the world that iPhone users have another real choice.  That’s what this really comes down to, given iPhone users an option that not only compares to what they are currently using, but can deliver more, with less cost, more features, and easier to use.

Until then, iPhone is still king.  But maybe with a little elbow grease and some marketing creativity, Sprint and HTC can make a run at the crown.

But like I always say…..I could be wrong.

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 iDen network?  Don’t get me wrong, the combination of Android and walkie-talkie is pretty cool, but how do they expect people to enjoy the benefits of the device on a network that is less than half the speed of 3G and light years behind devices like the Evo with 4G.  Ah, yes, the device will have WiFi.

I had a chance to demo the device at this past CTIA, and I have to say, I’m impressed with it.  Motorola has made a done a great job with the touch interface, the look and feel of the device.  As a former user of the Nextel service, I can say, I would buy it.  The walkie-talkie interface is very simple to use and looks just like the phone interface.  Everything else is classic Android.

My only recommendation to Boost and Sprint, which will also have this device, would have been to make this a Hybrid device. Meaning that it uses voice and data on CDMA and PTT on iDen, just like they did with the older Motorola ic902, ic602, ic502.

For more information visit www.boostmobile.com

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 of thought on why AT&T has taken away the “all you can eat” data plans. One is that they’re trying to squeeze more out of their customers’ wallets,  especially with the recent iPad release and soon to be released 4G iPhone.  These two devices are essentially designed specifically for the mobile web user, who doesn’t necessarily want to worry about how many megabytes they are using.  They just want to get on and go.  Right?  And what about when 4G lights up?  Isn’t that going to use up more data, so customers will be using up their megabyte and gigabytes much quicker?

Another school of thought says that AT&T is doing it to save people money….really?  By lowering their plan offerings to a more manageable figure they are making the entry into their service more affordable, in turn making AT&T more accessible to more consumers.  This is actually not a bad point, in that, yes, now more people can get the iPhone they’ve always wanted and spend $55-70 per month instead of $90-120 per month.  But will these budget conscious consumers realize that only 200MB is not enough or that they are flying through the 2GB because they love to multi-task and surf the web on their new 4G iPhone?

Some people are saying that AT&T is moving away from unlimited data bundles simple to alleviate network capacity issues.  Now, I’m not an expert, but this also makes sense.  The less data being used by one person, the more that is available for everyone else on the network.  The more people that use the network at lower capacity, the less likely AT&T will have the “issues” it has been having with “outages” and the sort.

So what do I think? I think it’s a good thing.  In today’s world of instant-facebook-twitter_update-youtube-google_everything, data use is the status quo.  But limits are good for several reasons.  Like, too much ice cream will either give you “brain freeze” or a stomach ache, too much mobile web could do the same.  By using this service as you NEED can save you from brain freeze by making sure you’re not wasting time surfing for mindless subjects.  You can save yourself from a stomach ache every time you open your phone bill by simply saying, “if I only need 200MB to check my email, facebook, twitter, and occasional YouTube video, then it’s only gonna cost me $15 per month.”  My only concern is that users of the 4G iPhone are going to get bamboozled with overage charges.

Maybe I’m wrong…..

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. The “Day” plan features unlimited nights and weekends for $1 per day on the day the phone is used. Peak minutes on the “Day” plan are billed at fourteen (14) cents per minute. The “Minute” plan features two bundles: 500 minutes for $29.99 and 800 minutes for $39.99, six cents and five cents per minute respectively.

For more information, visit H2O’s website.

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 web use
• Ten (10) cents per picture message
• Plans are available in $10, $20, $30, $50, and $100 increments. The $10 and $20 plans provide 90 days of service, the $30 and $50 provide 180 days of service, and the $100 provides a full year of service.
• Free long distance
• Free on-network roaming

Pros: This is considered to be the cheapest pay-as-you-go offering in the United States, especially the SMS and Data rates.

Cons: Phone selection isn’t great, at least what’s available online (vs. retail).

For more information, visit the “Real Paygo” plan page.

Also, you can visit PlatinumTel’s “Compare Tool” which compares Real Paygo to the AT&T, Net10, and T-Mobile pay-as-you-go offerings.