Prepaid Reviews Blog » Sprint

Sprint could bring 4G LTE to Boost and Virgin

Joe — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:30:29 +0000

MetroPCS might be the only prepaid carrier with an LTE network now, but that won’t last for long. Cricket has already started its LTE rollout, and will expand further in 2012. But that’s not the biggest move. This week at CES, Sprint discussed their LTE plans. President of network operations Steve Elfman said that Sprint planned to release LTE devices on its prepaid carriers, Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile. This is a big step, since neither prepaid carrier has made use of Sprint’s 4G WiMax network. We’re still a ways off, since Sprint will be in only a few markets by June. But by the end of the year we could see considerable prepaid competition in 4G services.

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Sprint putting a focus on MVNO partners

Joe — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:21:41 +0000

Yesterday we saw T-Mobile, the nation’s fourth-largest cellular carrier, boost its subscriber numbers by adding hundreds of thousands of prepaid subscribers. Sprint, the nation’s third-largest carrier, has made similar prepaid gains. In fact, their wholesale subscriber additions nearly doubled their retail subscriber additions in the third quarter. In a recent BusinessWeek article, Matt Carter, former Boost Mobile CEO and current president of Sprint Wholesale Solutions and New Ventures, said that he plans to put a greater emphasis on Sprint’s wholesale partners.

Many MVNOs buy minutes wholesale from Sprint, including PlatinumTel, STi Mobile, Total Call Mobile, and Liberty Wireless. In addition, Cricket has an MVNO-like agreement with Sprint, though that supplements their own primary network. Yet most of these MVNOs simply buy minutes from Sprint and resell them. An expansion of Sprint’s wholesale partnerships will include billing and other services, says Carter.

Via FierceWireless.

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One way to get high-end smartphones on prepaid

Joe — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:58:58 +0000

Before long Verizon will release what will prove to be the best smartphone of 2011: the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. It’s technical specifications blow every other smartphone out of the water, and its new Android 4.0 operating system provides cutting edge features. While the iPhone 4S will sell better, the Galaxy is without a doubt the superior device.

Of course, you’ll probably never see this device on a prepaid carrier. Verizon protects its highest end smartphones with exclusive agreements. Even MVNOs that buy time from Verizon have no chance at landing the Galaxy Nexus or any other high-end Android. Sprint, on the other hand, apparently sees the folly in this. According to their product chief, they’re working on a plan that could deliver better phones to prepaid partners.

The product chief’s statements, relayed through CNET, are pretty vague, so it’s tough to get a real idea of what print has up its sleeve. The gist is that they’d consider rebranding these high-end handsets and offering them to their MVNO partners, of which there are many. Those carriers could then offer them at a premium to their own subscribers. Considering all the small carriers operating on Sprint’s 3G network, this could prove enticing. It would bring a considerable advantage to Sprint’s own prepaid brands, Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile.

For now, however, this remains wishful thinking. It’s one idea expressed by one member of Sprint’s staff. It would be a great thing to see, but we should certainly file it under: “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

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Prepaid continues to fuel Sprint’s growth

Joe — Mon, 02 May 2011 17:00:37 +0000

Sprint recently announced its first quarter results, and while there was plenty on the report, the main takeaway is that prepaid continues to fuel the company’s growth. Specifically, CDMA prepaid is growing at a rapid rate, with 1.4 million net adds in the first quarter of 2011. That includes its two major brands, Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile , plus Common Cents, though the latter has since been discontinued. Many of those adds, though, were people moving over from iDEN, which lost 560,000 subscribers, leaving the net prepaid growth at 846,000, which constitutes 77 percent of Sprint’s total adds for the quarter. They also added 389,000 wholesale and affiliate subscribers.

This has been a big move for Sprint, as the company had been losing subscribers at this point last year. The Virgin Mobile deal was made official around that time, though, and that seems to have been a big part of the turnaround. Left to only direct postpaid sales Sprint still lost subscribers, though not nearly as deeply as they had a year ago. But with prepaid they continue to grow.

Part of the solution has come from reducing churn. Prepaid churn during the period was 4.36 percent, which is a steep decline from the 5.74 percent in the first quarter of 2010, and even a drop from the 4.93 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010. Churn is always an issue in the prepaid space, and the ability to cut it can make a huge difference in numbers. Boost, apparently, help keep the churn number low, as its $50 unlimited plan tends to keep customers around. Virgin, however, did reduce its churn as well.

The question, of course, is of how much greater Sprint’s prepaid arms can grow. They’re a big part of the company’s success, and they’ll be a big part of its continued recovery. We might see some changes in the next few quarters to help continue that growth.

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Sprint discontinuing Common Cents, moving to Virgin’s payLo

Joe — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 17:25:59 +0000

Well, that didn’t last long. Just last year Sprint announced the launch of Common Cents Mobile, a pay-as-you-go complement to its Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile brands. It seemed like a great deal: 7 cents per minute, with partial minutes rounding down instead of up, and 7 cents per text. Yet things haven’t gone all that well for the fledgling service. At least, that’s the indication Sprint gave today when it discontinued Common Cents. This is actually a somewhat complex move, since it does involve Sprint’s other brands, plus the nation’s largest retailer.

For starters, Common Cents users will be able to keep their current accounts as long as they actively top them up. That is, they can buy Virgin Mobile top-up cards and use them to refill their Common Cents accounts.

From the statements of Sprint spokeswoman Jayne Wallace, it sounds as though Common Cents will merely fold into Virgin’s payLo service. “As payLo is targeted at the same ‘basic talker,’ we’ve opted to make this transition,” she wrote.

So it appears that the division of different prepaid services to separate brands hasn’t worked out quite as well as Sprint had envisioned. In the long term, I do think that it could have worked. But I also see the sense in consolidating a bit, especially when Sprint has such recognizable brands as Boost and Virgin.

We’ll keep up on this story as we learn more. But for now it sounds like nothing much has changed. The biggest question, really, is of whether Sprint will keep in tact the Common Cents pricing within Virgin. I really think that price point is a winner from a consumer standpoint, given the alternative pay-as-you-go options on the market.

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Sprint prepaid adds customers, reduces churn

Joe — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 13:59:05 +0000

It appears that when we get quarterly reports from Sprint, we’ll get Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile rolled into one. The company added a net 646,000 prepaid subscribers in the fourth quarter, which includes 4.93 percent churn, down from 5.56 percent in Q4 2009 and 5.32 percent in Q3 2010. Boost and Virgin CDMA actually gained 1.4 million subscribers, but iDEN lost a staggering 768,000 subscribers. I’m sure many of them simply migrated to the other side of the company. This was a good quarter for Sprint, as they added net customers for the first time in a long time.

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iDEN phase-out to begin in 2013

Joe — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 15:28:34 +0000

We’ve heard Sprint executives, including CEO Dan Hesse, talk about the eventual end of their iDEN network. To this point we haven’t heard anything about a time frame. Now we have. This morning, while announcing a $5 billion overhaul of its network, Sprint said that it would begin phasing out iDEN starting in 2013. That doesn’t mean that the network will be gone during that year, but only that they will begin the process of migrating iDEN customers to the company’s primary network. It does plan to include push-to-talk, along with a lineup of “rugged handsets” in its future offerings.

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Sprint CEO confirms iDEN shutdown

Joe — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 12:30:46 +0000

We started the month with a story about Sprint ditching its iDEN network. The quote came from Bob Azzi, the senior VP of networks at Sprint. It didn’t sound like a grave warning, only the acknowledgement that soon enough iDEN will be an obsolete technology. Sprint CEO Dan Hesse made the same acknowledgement yesterday. “It’s a gradual process,” he said. “There will be an end date for all 2G, just like there was an end date for 1G.” He left open when that date would come, but it sounds like we shouldn’t include the word “decade” in any form when estimating it. Sprint lost 383,000 subscribers from its iDEN services in the third quarter after losing about twice that many in the second quarter (postpaid and prepaid combined).

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Assurance Wireless announces paid voice plans

Joe — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 12:30:13 +0000

Assurance Wireless, a Sprint-owned prepaid carrier that services low-income Americans, has announced two new plans. These will provide more minutes and messages, but will cost users an additional fee. The free plan, which provides 250 free minutes and costs 10 cents per minute and text message thereafter, is still available. Customers can now opt to pay $5 per month for 500 minutes, or $20 per month for 1,000 minutes and 1,000 text messages. Over the summer SafeLink, another low-income provider, began offering new plans, but all of them remain free.

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Clearwire announces $5/day prepaid mobile broadband

Joe — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:30:21 +0000

Going into yesterday we knew that Clearwire would announced a prepaid 4G broadband plan. The details of the plan, announced yesterday, look pretty enticing. The service, branded Rover, costs $5 per day, $20 per week, or $50 per month, and provides unlimited service in any of Clearwire’s 4G markets. Unfortunately, this does not include a hybrid 3G option, so if you’re not in a 4G market or you frequently travel to places without Clearwire 4G coverage, you’re out of luck.

You can get more information about Clearwire coverage at http://www.rover.com/coverage.

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