The Prepaid Press - November 15, 2007 - (Page 12)

WIRELESS November 15 · 2007 - 12 Prepaid Wireless Roundup By Joe Pawlikowski AllTel Offers Boingo The big news from Alltel this month was their partnership with Boingo, which will provide its customers with access to WiFi hotspots across the country. Alltel subscribers can add WiFi to their calling plans for $21.99 per month, or $9.99 per month if they already subscribe to Alltel’s EV-DO Internet service. The WiFi hotspots aren’t necessarily for phone access, though. Alltel carried only one WiFiready phone when they announced the partnership with Boingo: the HTC PPC6800. Since the announcement, they added another compatible device: The UTStarcom 6850. However, prepaid users traditionally do not use smart phones, so, where does this leave the prepaid user? Laptop cards are the main use for this new service, for both prepaid and postpaid users. On the whole, this does not affect their prepaid plans at all, save for the $21.99 fee if a subscriber would like WiFi. Alltel still runs their pay-per-minute plan for 15 cents per minute, their pay-per-day plan for 75 cents per day, as well as their monthly prepaid rate plans. The WiFi acquisition for Alltel was the last part of a proﬁtable quarter. The company added a net 205,000 subscribers from July through September, shattering most analysts’ forecasts. They, however, did see a loss of nearly 8,000 prepaid customers. AT&T Enhances GoPhone AT&T’s GoPhone plans have remained mostly unchanged since they took over the Cingular brand. The biggest change has been the $1 per day access fee, which was implemented right around the time of the switch from Cingular to AT&T. That dollar is only charged on days when the user actively uses his or her phone. In exchange, calling rates are lowered from 25 cents per minute to 10 cents per minute, and mobile-to-mobile minutes are unlimited. AT&T also gives you the option of adding 3,000 night and weekend minutes for an additional $20 per month. AT&T has also added a number of text messaging packages to go along with its Pick Your Plan service. Before it was either $5 for 200 messages or $20 for 3,000 messages. A $10 plan has been added for 1,000 messages, and the $20 plan now gives you unlimited messages. You can view the entire review of AT&T prepaid on prepaidreviews.com. Total Call Mobile Offers Low Cost International Each major national carrier in the U.S., except T-Mobile, hosts a number of Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO). These operators purchase bandwidth wholesale from the major carrier and resell it. Their services are usually directed towards a niche market that the larger carrier cannot afford to target speciﬁcally. Total Call Mobile is one of those companies. Their target is the international calling market. Boost Mobile, a subsidiary of Sprint, which acts as their prepaid service, also offers international rates, but they do not come close to the rates offered by Total Call. A call to France, for instance, is on average 26 cents cheaper per minute with Total Call, and can even be as much as 36 cents per minute cheaper. Calls are always 10 cents per minute, no matter the time of day or day of week. They also offer 5 cent text messaging, which is the industry ﬂoor. So not only do they offer cheap international rates, but they offer average to below average pricing on domestic mobile services. kajeet Thrives on Disney Collapse MVNOs came into question during September after Disney Mobile called it quits. However, not only are MVNOs going strong, but an MVNO in Disney’s niche continues to thrive. The service is kajeet, a cell phone service aimed at kids. After announcing in September that they had raised $36.8 million in funding, they rolled out a new line of handsets in October. The phones -- the Samsung m300, LG LX150, and Sanyo Katana II -- supplement kajeet’s current line of phones, giving their customers a far wider choice. kajeet also announced that they will offer a $50 airtime credit to all Disney Mobile customers who port their numbers to kajeet by the end of the year. That $50 can go towards any of kajeet’s services. Voice calls are 10 cents a minute and text messages are ﬁve cents each. The company does charge a 35 cent per day access fee, which goes towards services like the kajeet Conﬁgurator, which allows parents to set limits on when their children can and cannot use the phone. Joe Pawlikowski is a Senior Editor for Prepaid Reviews, an independent website that reviews prepaid cell phone providers and reports on the prepaid wireless industry. He can be reached at info@ prepaidreviews.com http://www.pre-comm.com http://prepaidreviews.com http://www.pre-comm.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of The Prepaid Press - November 15, 2007

The Prepaid Press - November 15, 2007 Online Wireless Recharge It's a Wrap for Gift Cards Contents GENERAL PREPAID Prepaid 101: Merchandising Regulatory Rundown: Wireless Broadband, LNP, Internet Taxes, and Stored Value Legislation Guest Editorial: Honest Minutes: "The Times They Are A-Changing" 5 Minutes With Daniel Neal, CEO of kajeet The Legal Line Prepaid Wireless Roundup WIRELESS Wireless in Brief 011 Mobile Launches Mobile International Dialing Hop-on Adds GSM Phone to Product Line Virgin Mobile USA Launches New Services kajeet Adds to Handset Line MarketStar Publishes Mobile Phone Usage Study Nokia and Cellfire Team Up Verizon Selects Firethorn iVisionMobile Launches Messaging Platform Sprint Expands "Unlimited by Boost" INTERNATIONAL Spot Rates NOMAD Brings MasterCard EMS to Europe R&M Finds Potential in Africa International in Brief TELECOM & TECHNOLOGY Caveat Emptor When Negotiating IP Licensing T&T in Brief MySpace and Skype Ink Deal Octastic Announces New Media Gateway DSP Pactolus Selected by Global Crossing Tadiran Announces New Loyalty Incentive Program Oblio Telecom Launches New Prepaid Products Total Call Enhances Prepaid Calling Cards PAYMENTS A Gift Card Technology Guide Pinnacle and PaySpot Roll Out POS/Prepaid Solution TIO Networks Announces Membership Program TransFund$ Partners with TruckersB2B AMR Finds Retailers Returning to Main Street Payments in Brief Diebold to Offer Prepaid Gift Card Technology InComm to Sell nFinanSe Discover Cards iVisionMobile Offers Retailers Mobile Payments i2c to Offer Stored Value Webinars Mobilians Starts U.S. Mobile Payments Operation NetSpend Increases Savings Program Interest EXTRAS Classifieds Contact Us Our Advertisers

The Prepaid Press - November 15, 2007

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