Prepaid
Wireless Tracker - January 2010 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 first hand 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 be interested in the full
details.
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Free Wi-Fi at McDonald's Part
of Trend | Science News
(source article removed)
Starting
this month, McDonald’s will
be offering free Wi-Fi. As
free hotspots
become more and more pervasive, does this put mobile broadband service
at
risk? It will
probably be awhile (i.e.
many years), but it seems inevitable that Wi-Fi will ultimately be
available
everywhere and compete with prepaid broadband offerings.
Virgin Mobile Canada Poised
for Reinvention (source article removed)
With
new prepaid entrants surfacing in the Canadian
market, we can
expect Virgin Mobile Canada
to adapt in order to remain competitive.
Although Virgin Mobile USA
is owned by a different carrier (Sprint as opposed to BCE in Canada),
we can
expect change there in 2010 as well as it merges with Boost Mobile. Overall a lot of changes
for Virgin Mobile
across both countries!
WIND Mobile Launches in
Canada!
It’s
been a long time waiting, but WIND Mobile
has arrived in Canada
with some pretty appealing phones and plans that will surely keep the
big three
running around updating their business cases and growth forecasts for
awhile!
Virgin Drops Price of
“Broadband2Go” to $99.99
MobileSyrup.com
Virgin Mobile
drops the price of its USB modem from $149.99 to $99.99; not a bad deal
for a
prepaid broadband offer. Hopefully
people are able to resolve their installation issues that have been
posted
recently.
Cell Phones, Airtime
Available
for Low-Income Residents
Ocean
City Today
TracFone Wireless expands its government sponsored free cell phone
service,
SafeLink, just in time to strengthen its distribution as Virgin Mobile
launches
its free Assurance Wireless offering.
Sprint Nextel Moves Boost
Mobile Head to Oversee 4G Development
BloggingStocks
(blog)
After just about 18 months at the helm of Boost Mobile, Matt Carter is
moved to
head up marketing for Sprint’s 4G WiMAX offering. After the purchase of
Virgin Mobile, and the
subsequent assignment of Dan Schulman as President of the new prepaid
business,
one can suppose that keeping Matt around would be superfluous.
Boost Mobile Adds New Calling
Features for 'International Connect' Offer
SYS-CON
Media (press release)
Boost’s International
Connect is now available on its
Monthly Unlimited plan and includes unlimited calls to Canada (excluding Northern Territories) and
landlines in Mexico City,
Guadalajara and Monterrey.
WIND Launches With BlackBerry
Bold 9700
Electronista
(blog)
The headline says it all; click over to see a pic!
Virgin Mobile Launches Free
Service for Low-Income Americans (source article removed)
Comtex
Smartrend
Virgin Mobile
launches Assurance Wireless, its own version of TracFone’s
SafeLink
program. Initial
availability includes New York,
North Carolina,
Tennessee, and Virginia.
Is access to wireless service now a basic human right
deserving of
government funding? See what
others have said and share your thoughts!
Leap: Mobile Broadband
Driving
Growth
FierceWireless
Leap has seen good growth with its prepaid broadband offer, and hopes
to sign
up these customers for voice service as well once their postpaid
contracts are
up. Good theory; it
will be interesting
to see if it materializes.
New Fee Added to Prepaid Wireless (source article removed)
The Daily
Advertiser
Starting today, January 1, prepaid customers in Louisiana will
see a 2% service charge on
their topup transactions. Until
now,
prepaid customers have had the benefit of access to e911 service,
however, have
not been contributing to the cost as have postpaid customers. As prepaid continues to
grow, it’s
understandable that without this additional revenue, the service would
ultimately go bankrupt. That
said, no
one likes additional fees. Expect
to see
this law sweep the rest of the country over the coming years.
Virgin Offers Pay-As-You-Go
Mobile Internet Data in Canada (source article removed)
By
Gillian Shaw
Virgin Mobile Canada
launched its prepaid
broadband offer with a $150 USB modem and $45 per month for 1GB of data. With WIND Mobile’s
launch of prepaid broadband, we
should expect that pricing will come down over the coming months. In the meantime, people
can start enjoying
no-contract mobile broadband on Bell Mobility’s network!
What's New at
Prepaid-Wireless-Guide.com?
- Updated
WIND Mobile page to
reflect that WIND has launched, and updated speculated phones with
actual
handsets
Comments?
Ideas? Feedback? I'd love to hear from
you. Just reply to
this zine and tell me what you think!
Cheers!
PrepaidWirelessGuy
