New Virgin Mobile Competition

[cookedgoose]

Pretty sure they give you 90 days before your number/account is lost. I reached that limit willingly and they continued my service. Pretty happy with that and as long as you add funds to your account every 2 months or a day/week or so before month 3, you should be fine.

Interesting. If I have topup on my account which I haven't used, does Virgin Mobile automatically take money from it when it's time?

I might try this out. My TMO plan is still in its "test" stages.

[billm261]

I find that very hard to believe unless you mean University of Phoenix. The reason I say this is because in the Sprint thread you made comments against BYOD and voice roaming on prepaid, which is not something anyone with any business acumen would suggest. Furthermore, ignoring that essentially everyone but the loss making Sprint allows BYOD. Where is the rationale or business sense in this???

Sprint needs every single customer they can get and cannot afford to be choosers.

You can not prostitute your postpaid model with prepaid. Verizon will not do it, AT&T won't do it.
Yes, they allow BYOD but on plans in line (or more) than postpaid.

I'd be OK with a BYOD plan on prepaid if it mirrored postpaid pricing within reason. A 60 a month (for example) BYOD plan, unlimited everything, no throttle or maybe a 5GB cap.
It would keep ARPU respectable, and they would save money by not having to pay roaming fees, device subsidies, and using offshore CS.

They can ill afford more voice roaming, they pay a lot in postpaid roaming fees and something NV and a bit of 800Mhz love is supposed to minimize.

The CDMA side of Sprint (both postpaid and prepaid) have been gaining subscribers.
What they need to be is profitable and that's been elusive since 2005. Once NV is completed, redundant cell sites decommissioned, roaming fees are reduced, as well as the expense of running two networks is put to rest, I think it happens. They can make money with it's current number of subscribers, it's the past bone head decisions that still haunt them.

T-Mobile still makes some money (as of Q3/2011) with less subscribers and for arguments sake, lets say a comparably sized network footprint. T-Mobile is grasping for any customer and will become a huge prepaid carrier (and it's just my opinion) since it continues to loose postpaid customers in droves.

This new Straight Talk and Net10 BYOD offering is going to be interesting. Maybe it will pressure Sprint's prepaid divisions to change. I'm not convinced it will until it's truly tested. Many have complained of having data turned off for what was considered excessive use or voice for talking too much.
.

[aka414]

You can not prostitute your postpaid model with prepaid. Verizon will not do it, AT&T won't do it.
Yes, they allow BYOD but on plans in line (or more) than postpaid.

I'd be OK with a BYOD plan on prepaid if it mirrored postpaid pricing within reason. A 60 a month (for example) BYOD plan, unlimited everything, no throttle or maybe a 5GB cap.
It would keep ARPU respectable, and they would save money by not having to pay roaming fees, device subsidies, and using offshore CS.

They can ill afford more voice roaming, they pay a lot in postpaid roaming fees and something NV and a bit of 800Mhz love is supposed to minimize.

Verizon allows BYOD on prepaid, as does AT&T. Their MVNOs obviously also allow the use of BYOD.

If I purchase a prepaid handset, I am typically doing so at a subsidized price. This means the carrier is going to have to wait for x dollars before they recoup their actual costs. As a result, a customer is typically forced to use (affordable) entry level handsets.

If they accepted BYOD and I used my own handset, I am still paying $35, as is someone who buys a handset. The difference is that all $35 per month is going to Sprint. Whereas, if someone buys a prepaid handset, they have to wait to recoup the costs on the subsidized handset first.

I guess what you are saying is that if a BYOD picks postpaid plans, their arpu is more, which is true. However, I am not going to pick postpaid, as Sprint's plans offer little value to me and I am not interested in unlimited at dial-up speeds.

[GSMinCT]

It's not sustainable

That's too bad, because it was a huge differentiator.

Your hung up on this "mega region" philosophy philosophy and it's not a business model that would last 30 minutes. Now, if you said "Metro Region" it may be more viable and maybe more in line with what Sprint, T-Mobile and to some extent what Leap and Metro PCS try to do.

If you abandon the whole MO of the tier 2 carriers of offering coverage where the most people live, and don't focus on an all-in mega-region strategy, then you're going to continue to have the problem where you have no coverage 5 feet off the highway, even if you're only 20 minutes out of town. That's not a good quality service.

Look at companies like C-Spire and US Cellular. A very different approach than the mega region mindset you have but they manage (and I don't really know how) to stay in the game.

They focus on rural coverage, and they do it better then anybody else. You also have to factor in relatively lower costs of operation and tower leasing, huge roaming revenues coming into USCC from AT&T and Verizon, as well as massive tower spacing. When your towers are sometimes on top of a mountain and can reach 20 miles, you can get a lot of coverage for your dollar. The areas they operate in are also relatively low-cost. Of course, Chicago for USCC is all an exception to this.

T-Mobile has horrible coverage IMO and I (unlike you) have used them and tried my hardest to make them work. I like the plans, HSPA+ (where available) data speeds, the handsets and most of all the ability to simply pop a SIM in a different phone.

Their overall coverage sucks, but where they go in, they go all-in with very dense tower spacing.

Of course they do. Not the Accent, Elantra and Sonata but have you ever once looked at (or driven) the GENESIS which competes with the A4 or A5 or EQUUS which competes with the A7?
Or will you discount them because of supposedly better engineering by the Germans?
I actually drive a Passat GLX 4Motion, I know how good they are.

You clearly didn't get the point. The point is that a low-quality service like Sprint doesn't directly compete with a high-quality one like Verizon.

You make the stubborn choice of only looking at the cost instead of what you get for your money. For those that are on Sprints postpaid or prepaid side we get way more than being with AT&T or Verizon. We ONLY get way more if in fact the services provided are satisfactory. Any carrier is of no value if you can't make it work.

VM is a good value. Because you pay $25 (grandfathered) and get some voice, and unlimited text/data. However, for postpaid, they are a rip-off. The $80/$90/$90 is unlimited for any reasonable user. Verizon has the least, since they don't have M2AM like AT&T and Sprint.

Let me clarify, It's about protecting your postpaid model from prepaid prostitution. Verizon and to some degree AT&T do prepaid right from a corporate, bottom line perspective.
Have any device you want, (for the most part) have no commitment to us, and in return we will allow you on our network at a cost that is just about equivalent or (as with AT&T due to data fees) more expensive. No difference than BYOD on postpaid no contract really but that's what I am getting at.

That's nonsensical. Prepaid should be cheaper because there are no device subsidies. StraightTalk is doing it right now with BYOD for $45/unlimited on AT&T. Why do you need to protect your postpaid model? Make your prepaid model profitable and competitive, and cash in. It's a very low-risk business, as you get money with no device subsidies to pay out.

You may not realize this but there are plenty of people out there with less than adequate credit.
Verizon Impulse prepaid is a way for those people to be on "The Network" without a credit check. Verizon is nowhere near as data friendly to it's MVNO affiliates as AT&T is.

They should go to Straight Talk, Tracfone, or others that offer competitive services. Especially if they have bad credit, as they clearly aren't in great financial shape to be paying for Verizon's absurd prepaid prices.

It's not that they are dumb, they just don't care to know. There are those that think if you buy the most expensive product your getting the best product. Or, that the cheapest is the worst. A lot of people think the iPhone4 is a 4G device.

Well, if they buy Verizon, they'd pretty much be right. It's also the industry. They don't explain a lot of things, good luck trying to find a lot of information about their networks and how they work online.

Competition in prepaid can be argued to be more fierce than postpaid. It's not going to end anytime soon and contrary to what you believe I would wager T-Mobile to become a bigger prepaid player as they will continue to loose postpaid subscribers. IDEN aside, Sprint continues to add additions on both postpaid and prepaid of its CDMA network .

T-Mobile had better think hard about pre-paid, as they aren't that competitive in anything right now, at $70 on postpaid, and $50 on prepaid. At least Sprint has Ting, Republic and Virgin (Boost is out-done by Straight Talk on AT&T). The question though, is how low can they go? If AT&T is offering unlimited everything for $45 through Straight Talk, how much lower can they go? Is there any other way they can differentiate themselves? International roaming that's actually usable? Something else?

[bdunni]

The 100 minutes is clearly for someone who almost never uses their phone for calls. I feel like I barely use my phone for calls other than keeping in touch with my wife during the day, and I still hit 150 minutes a month on average. Don't get why they wouldn't do a normal amount like 250 minutes or something.

Sent via VM670

They want you to bump up to their 50-dollar unlimited everything. I'd be on them right away if they 30-dollar had more than 200 minutes.

[cookedgoose]

T-Mobile had better think hard about pre-paid, as they aren't that competitive in anything right now, at $70 on postpaid, and $50 on prepaid. At least Sprint has Ting, Republic and Virgin (Boost is out-done by Straight Talk on AT&T). The question though, is how low can they go? If AT&T is offering unlimited everything for $45 through Straight Talk, how much lower can they go? Is there any other way they can differentiate themselves? International roaming that's actually usable? Something else?

Well, I agree and disagree with you at the same time. I agree that ST is going to compete head to head against T-Mobile in the prepaid plan markets. But their lunch isn't going to be eaten, at least not completely. TMOs $30 plan is more than enough for many of us who don't make calls on our phones too often. $15/month difference is enough for people to take a pause before choosing one over the other. Now the $50/month plan all things equal is where TMO needs to really stop and think.


At the same time, I have to wonder whether T-Mobile as a carrier who's wholesaling internet to Straight Talk is allowing ST subscribers' speeds to go full blast. If not, then it looks like TMO's not completely in trouble.

[ONE80ONEDAY]

Not worried, 10 cents min if needed. Wifi calling is getting better and a text can replace many calls these days.

[swedrows]

They want you to bump up to their 50-dollar unlimited everything. I'd be on them right away if they 30-dollar had more than 200 minutes.

yeah but if you use 200 minutes on T-Mobiles $30 prepaid plan, you only have to pay $40 since they charge $0.10 per minute over your plan....I think that is something to think about because remember that T-Mobiles $30 plan comes with 5gb Data at 4G speeds before they slow you down.....the $50 unlimited plan slows your speeds down after 2gb.

I am already jumping ship from VM to T-Mobile. I am one of those people that use between 50-150 minutes per month, so the T-Mobile plan offers a much better value for the speeds you get, plus the most important part for me, SELECTION OF PHONES! I just got an LG G2x for $200 off craigslist (i have an Optimus V on VM) and am waiting for my sim activation kit to arrive. The G2x is awesome so far. I can't wait to activate it on T-Mobile and take advantage of their 4G network. the speeds on VM have always been "acceptable" for $25/month, but now it's time to step up to a big boy network lol I know there are rumors that Sprint is going to roll out 4G to VM and Boost sometime this year, but that is still a long ways away, plus you still have to buy a new 4G phone anyway, so that will set us back another $300 depending on what kind of phones they will offer. I can get 4G speeds RIGHT NOW on T-mobile for $30 and BETTER phones...it's a no brainer for me. My wife is staying on VM but I have a feeling once I activate my T-Mobile prepaid plan and she sees how quick the speeds are, she will jump ship as well....plus she really doesn't like that the gps sucks on her Triumph because she's had to use it quite often and it barely works when she needs it.

[bsharitt]

Well, I agree and disagree with you at the same time. I agree that ST is going to compete head to head against T-Mobile in the prepaid plan markets. But their lunch isn't going to be eaten, at least not completely. TMOs $30 plan is more than enough for many of us who don't make calls on our phones too often. $15/month difference is enough for people to take a pause before choosing one over the other. Now the $50/month plan all things equal is where TMO needs to really stop and think.


At the same time, I have to wonder whether T-Mobile as a carrier who's wholesaling internet to Straight Talk is allowing ST subscribers' speeds to go full blast. If not, then it looks like TMO's not completely in trouble.

For me, the $30 T-Mobile plan is enough, but for my wife who actually need the unlimited talk minutes it's a $45 ST plan vs $60 T-Mobile unlimited/2GB plan. On top of that, the ST plan even comes out a little ahead since it supports conditional call forwarding so you can use third party voicemail services along with supporting AT&T phones on 3G as long as you get the right SIM.

I'm still half tempted to go to straight talk myself, but for now it seems that T-Mobile is the better bet for moderate to heavy data usage since they at least spell out the limitations of their "unlimited" data, while ST is a bit more erratic with throttling.