Prepaid
Wireless Tracker - April 2011 Issue
Hi,
Prepaid wireless is a growing and truly exciting industry. At
Prepaid
Wireless Guide I try to provide you with in-depth information that
isn't
readily available anywhere else. Its content is original, and
created
from firsthand experience working in the prepaid wireless industry.
This monthly email provides you with a quick glance at what's in the
news so
that you can easily keep informed. I believe in brief,
to-the-point
summaries/commentary so that you can move onto other tasks in your day.
Each snippet includes a link to the original story should you
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MetroPCS
Narrows Gap Between Postpaid, Prepaid Offerings in Record-Setting Year
With strong results reported for 2010, MetroPCS is stating that the
future
holds very little distinction between prepaid and postpaid offerings. I couldn’t agree more. Particularly as high
quality
Android smartphones
become more and more affordable for carriers to offer at attractive
price
points, postpaid really is going to suffer.
With better national coverage than in recent years, and
LTE already
deployed, MetroPCS really is staged to be a formidable force. As for getting Snoop Dogg
as a spokesperson,
those of us who have been in the wireless industry long enough know
that
customers don’t care about celebrity endorsements when it comes down to
their
actual purchase decision. While
it may
be cool for a brief moment, most people don’t have any rapport with the
celebrity lifestyle, and are too smart to think that buying a phone
that a
celebrity is paid to use offers any real meaning; it all comes down to
price,
quality, and handset selection. Save
your money Metro!
Sprint Merger
Talk Heats Up Again
Kansas City Star
While we all know by now that T-Mobile
and AT&T are moving forward with a merger (assuming it’s
approved), I
thought it would be interesting to include this tidbit in here as a
record of
how fickle this industry, and the news in general, can be. If this merger
completes,
Sprint will likely
depend even more on the growth of its prepaid division to achieve
results. Whether or
not Sprint and T-Mobile were ever
in talks is still unknown, but this just goes to show that we need to
be very
careful where we get our news from!
Unauthorized
Cricket Dealers Unlocking Verizon iPhones
FierceWireless
I personally found this article to be somewhat puzzling. It’s a well known fact
that Cricket has a
specific “Customer Provided Equipment” program that enables customers
to use
any compatible (CDMA) phone on Cricket’s network.
To say this was unauthorized seems a little
bit odd. Notwithstanding,
so long as
customers are not within a contract, they should be able to do whatever
they
want with their phones; at least that’s my opinion.
Proposed Fee From
Prepaid Cell Phones to Fund
911
Call Centers
Patch.com
I’ve discussed this topic in the past, but it’s certainly here to stay. I think it goes without
saying that prepaid
wireless has been dodging this inevitability.
As much as I dislike additional fees, prepaid needs to
contribute its
fair share to 911 services. This
really
was an oversight initially when
legislators didn’t see prepaid wireless
as a
strong market force. With
major postpaid
wireless carriers dismissing prepaid as a competitive threat (and
paying dearly
for this mistake), how could anyone have expected legislators to be any
smarter?!
AT&T
Reveals Monthly Billing for Tablets, First Month Free
Hot
Hardware
AT&T will continue to offer prepaid pricing for its tablets. With the prepaid forces
strongly at work in
the industry currently, eliminating a prepaid offer would certainly
have
devastating results. Verizon
has also
taken the same stance.
Is Apple
Considering a Low-Cost/Prepaid
iPhone?
ITworld.com
Similar to the evolution of its iPod lineup, Apple will inevitably
introduce
additional iPhone models. I
personally
don’t feel that it needs to necessarily offer lower end models only for
prepaid. Apple
simply needs to bring down
the manufacturing cost of its current model (which it should now have
with the volume
it’s seeing), in addition to offering more variety.
At this point in the game, offering only one
model is going to limit its growth potential, as better, more capable,
and less
expensive Android phones continue to penetrate the market.
MetroPCS Could
Get Boost From AT&T/T-Mobile Deal
Investor's
Business Daily
Hmm…I don’t know about this logic.
There
may be some positive elements to yield from this deal; however, it’s
certainly
not going to be an overtly positive thing.
T-Mobile has never been a force in prepaid, so I
don’t buy
that. Is this
perhaps a media ploy to help raise
the stock price, or at least to head off any panicking by the easily
excitable?
LightSquared
and Leap in 4G Deal
Leap notes that this deal is to help
accelerate its ability to rollout 4G services, noting that it will take
several
years to complete its network upgrade.
This deal infers a vote of no confidence in Sprint’s 4G
WiMAX
technology, given that Leap already has a 3G data roaming agreement
with
Sprint.
Leap Plans Wi-Fi-Only
ViewSonic Android Tablet
FierceWireless
Looks like Cricket is bailing out on its previously announced Samsung
Galaxy
Tab launch in favor of a WiFi only ViewSonic Android tablet. Those wanting anywhere,
anytime data
connectivity will need to
bundle it with Cricket’s MiFi Crosswave
device. If priced
right, I could see this
device/bundle selling well. It
will,
however, need to be quite compelling given the flurry of other tablets
launching over the next 8-12 months.
This looks like a “testing the waters” type of strategy to
me. It will be
interesting to see what happens.
What's New at
Prepaid-Wireless-Guide.com?
- Answered
new question re. Prepaid iPhone
- Added
Apple iPad 2 to Tablet PC
Comparison
Comments? Ideas? Feedback? I'd love to hear from
you. Just reply to
this zine and tell me what you think!
Cheers!
PrepaidWirelessGuy
