why not a board on forum dedicated to .... carrier....

[joseg2016]

I would say, making dedicated boards on this forum for specific carriers, especially the well known virtual network operators would be a great idea - to INCLUDE Mint and U S Mobile and any others which are remarkable enough. I know there are some such dedicated sections already, but I just believe more would be good.

[zapjb]

I think a minimum subscriber base should be established.

[Serial Port]

There is a general prepaid discussion board currently. I doubt there has to be a separate one for every carrier in North America (for instance).

[ecs0013]

Yeah, having one for each MVNO wouldn't really make sense. If things ever got re-organized, I'd argue that at least have each of the main-line prepaid brands (AT&T Prepaid, T-Mobile Prepaid, Verizon Prepaid, Boost) as their own entity and each of the carrier-owned flanker brands (Cricket, Metro, Visible) as their own. Visible and Verizon Prepaid have vastly different concerns and issues, so lumping them together feels weird (kind of like if one put Cricket and AT&T Prepaid together). Although owned by Verizon, Tracfone is still sort of its own thing, but maybe it could be inclusive for all remaining Tracfone brands and archived old brands?

Beyond that, maybe the top 3 or 4 of the bigger MVNOs if there are enough posts? Red Pocket, Ultra/Mint (although we'll see what T-Mobile does with it if the deal goes through), and/or US Mobile.

Looking at what we have now, there are a lot that are on their way out (Page Plus, Net 10), already dead (Virgin), or things are a ghost town (H2O and Fi). We don't need to get too granular, but a cleanup might be good?

Then again, a lot of activity in the General Prepaid forum has been about FreedomPop, but mostly due to controversy, not because of a large subscriber base—I would say it shouldn't get its own forum (unless it was lumped in with Red Pocket?)

[robbyrobby]

i think there may be too many already and would makes sense to bring them together

maybe a 'free plans' section though dedicated just to Freedompop, textnow, freeup, etc. maybe along with discussion of free trials

one observation I have made lately and i'm guilty myself is value priced postpaid discussion often ends up in prepaid

i'm guilty for starting a thread on $ 10 tablet for business plan in prepaid when its postpaid for example

[husavik]

I'd argue that we don't need ANY sub-forums for prepaid. Just one "General Prepaid Discussion" forum would get maybe 4-5 new threads a day which is manageable. Plus 10-12 active threads per day, again still less than many other forums.

I'm sure there are many good discussions I'm missing on the Metro board or the Cricket board, but I never visit them.

[robbyrobby]

the one very active sub-forum is tracfone/net10, none of the others(outside general prepaid discussion) get many posts at all anymore

would make sense to move pageplus and straighttalk into the tracfone sub

the flagship carrier brand prepaid (Verizon prepaid, T-Mobile prepaid, ATT Prepaid) could probably be discussed and may even have more relevancy in their respective postpaid subs. its essentially just a different billing method.

[PaulCrawhorne]

Yes the old contract vs no-contract

and pre- vs post- is not nearly as great a distinction anymore

except for those with horrible credit I suppose

[frail]

Have to agree that some reorganization of the prepaid sections is overdue. I've seen some good suggestions here for what that should look like, I'm open to more before I start working on this.

[AnciusD]

the one very active sub-forum is tracfone/net10, none of the others(outside general prepaid discussion) get many posts at all anymore

would make sense to move pageplus and straighttalk into the tracfone sub

the flagship carrier brand prepaid (Verizon prepaid, T-Mobile prepaid, ATT Prepaid) could probably be discussed and may even have more relevancy in their respective postpaid subs. its essentially just a different billing method.

Personally, I would hate that.

[Boz1]

I'd argue that we don't need ANY sub-forums for prepaid. Just one "General Prepaid Discussion" forum would get maybe 4-5 new threads a day which is manageable. Plus 10-12 active threads per day, again still less than many other forums.

I'm sure there are many good discussions I'm missing on the Metro board or the Cricket board, but I never visit them.

This is my thought, and I voice that opinion every time this topic comes up on HoFo, which has been several times over the last 20ish years.

[sillyette]

I think Tracfone is a strange and complicated animal, so a separate sub-forum for Tracfone, like we have now, is really good. It would be good to add Tracfone's sister brands to the TF sub-forum because a lot of the sister brands and their "re-branding to TF" get discussed on the TF forum right now anyway.

And I think have the rest of the Prepaid brands in the General Prepaid forum like it is now.

Oh and like AnciusD, I would hate to see Visible, AT&T-Prepaid and TMo-Prepaid go into PostPaid forums.

[mframe]

My thoughts are: Keep Verizon Prepaid/Visible combined, have AT&T Prepaid/Cricket combined, have T-Mobile Prepaid/Metro combined, and have all TracFone and sister companies together. All the others would be under General Prepaid.

[robbyrobby]

i was thinking about why value priced postpaid ends up in the prepaid forums and it struck me that there is no 'general discussion' in the postpaid forums. for example where would one post a topic about the best tablet plan or hotspot plan options(postpaid, prepaid, whatever) without already having a carrier in mind.

a general US carrier discussion sub that is not specifically marked 'prepaid' might make sense

[Altanis]

Have to agree that some reorganization of the prepaid sections is overdue. I've seen some good suggestions here for what that should look like, I'm open to more before I start working on this.

I know I'm not a power user of this forum by any means, but since you seem interested in feedback, I wanted to throw these items to be at least considered:

Merge the Tracfone/Net10, Straight Talk, and Page Plus (especially now that Page Plus is going away) forums into one forum for all of the Tracfone brands - Tracfone, Net10, Straight Talk, Page Plus, Total by Verizon, etc. This is a little of a gray area since you could argue that Verizon Prepaid and Visible belong here too as a Verizon brands forum, but I think VZWPP & Visible are separate enough still.

I always thought that Visible and Verizon Prepaid really shouldn't be merged into one forum. I know that was probably done because the two of them separately didn't not deserve their own forums due to lack of traffic, but if the traffic existed I would say separating Visible and Verizon Prepaid similar to how AT&T Prepaid/Cricket and T-Mobile/Metro are separated would be ideal even if the traffic isn't warranted.

With Boost now being owned by Dish Wireless, maybe rename that forum to Dish/Boost/Boost Infinite/Ting?

I never venture there but it looks like the h2o forum is pretty sparsely used. h2o just doesn't seem like a major Prepaid brand, or one that drives traffic. I don't know about the idea earlier of a "free" section, but maybe that could fill the void from merging h2o back into the general sub.

I can't think of any major prepaid carriers that are big enough to drive the traffic to need a subforum.

I did want to say thank you to the mods and admins that are even considering a change to the structure here. I know not all the suggestions are going to be implemented (and hey, maybe none will be), but it is really nice to see the interaction about it and the considerations from the powers that be.