The Prepaid Press - May 15, 2008 - (Page 12)

PREPAID WIRELESS May 15 · 2008 - 12 The Age of Prepaid Wireless By Jackie McNiff Providers, Plans, & Handsets Virgin Mobile Virgin Mobile’s Pay As You Go plan is the cell phone choice for many subscribers who are concerned with not only their wallets, but the time their child spends on the cell phone. Virgin Mobile offers three monthly prepaid options with replenishment cards. Subscribers can pay $20 for 200 minutes, $30 for 400 minutes, or $50 for 1000 minutes. Additionally, options exist for those who want text messaging and picture messaging. Virgin charges $.10 per text and $.25 per picture text or $5 a month for 200 texts, $10 a month for 1000 texts, and $20 a month for unlimited texts. If you buy another minute pack with in 30 days you can roll forward unused minutes. Subscribers are also charged surcharges and taxes. Handsets provided by Virgin Mobile are the Flare and Wild Card. The Flare costs $34.99 and comes with an abundance of capabilities for the price. It has an attractive flip phone design, full color screen, ringback tones, ringtones, web browsing, games, digital downloads (Sugar Mama), loud speaker, voice dialing, TTY/TDD, and Bluetooth Wireless. Their higher priced model, the Wild Card, retails for $99. It offers everything the Flare offers and more. The Wild Card has a 1.3 mega pixel camera with mobile to mobile instant text messaging and email capabilities. Downloads include Chat Park, Real Music MP3 ringtones and graphics. Furthermore, the digital downloads lure teenagers with ringtones from MTV, crank calls from Comedy Central, Good-time Nuggets, and voice mail greetings. Although, Virgin Mobile offers handset with features that attract teenagers, they do not offer any parent controls on their handsets like GPS or tracking and call blocking by number or time. Firefly Mobile In contrast to other pay as you go plans, Firefly Mobile is a kid friendly prepaid provider that offers strong parental controls on their handsets. In comparison to the larger providers, they do not have nationwide coverage, although it is offered where they have service. Firefly Mobile offers nationwide service for $.15 anytime minutes, $.10 text messages and a $.35 per day activation fee. Minutes will never expire as long as you pay your daily activation fee. Firefly offers the FlyPhone & the GlowPhone only. The GlowPhone sells for $49.99. It has a full color screen, built in games, customizable ringtones, wallpaper, and its selling feature is a keypad dedicated to parents. The keypad allows parents to monitor usage and calls in or out through a password, and a programmed 50 number phonebook. The FlyPhone costs $99.99 and has all the bells and whistles of the Glow Phone plus a camera, and Flykicks Software, which enables users to create their own music and videos. Even though the FireFly phones are otherwise kid friendly, they do not offer tracking or GPS capabilities. kajeet Another pay as you go provider that is designed for youths and families, and does have GPS to locate family members at all times, is kajeet. A Disney Family.com article describes kajeet as “a great solution for the ‘cell phone wars’ of the tween and early teen years.” The Nickelodeonthemed mobile content downloads attract kids, and the built in limitation capabilities draw in parents. The rate plan per package offered by kajeet is $19.99 for 150 minutes, $29.99 for 300 minutes, or $39.99 for 450 minutes. The basic rate per minute and per text is $.10 without a package. Text packages available are $4.99 for 200 texts, $9.99 for 1000, or $9.99 for unlimited texts. There is a $.32 a day access fee. Using the kajeet Configuator, parents can set up a Time Manager and a Contact Manager. Parents can manage whom their child is talking to and when they can use the phone. They also use “real life lingo” to teach young subscribers about money management. For example, the word ‘wallet’ is used in place of ‘account’. Kids can look inside their wallet to retrieve their account balance and use basic math skills to either continue talking, or add money to their wallet. Unlike Firefly, a major competitor, kajeet runs on Sprint’s Network and does offer nationwide coverage. The plan is only compatible with Sprint handsets. This includes top sellers like LG LX150 and the Nokia 6165i. Both phones are priced at $49.99 and come with music ringtones, wallpaper, and games. Access is also provided to applications like Google Maps, AOL Instant Messenger, and a scientific calculator. The Nokia comes with a 1 mega pixel camera and a 30 second video feed. The LG LX150 is Bluetooth Wireless capable and comes with a speakerphone. kajeet handles all customer care services, Sprint does not. It’s year 2008, and kids from 8 years and older have joined the technological age of talking and texting. Less than 6 years ago, prepaid subscribers were seen as unattractive customers by the large network providers, because they couldn’t capture and hold their consumers prisoners of a two year contract, and slide in all those hidden fees. Wireless carriers learned a valuable lesson in economics, when the customer base that once was uneducated in surcharges, hidden fees, termination fees, reactivation fees, and long-term contracts wised up, and began looking for an alternative. The alternative, the prepaid plan, is now emerging as cell phone subscribers’ number one choice, especially as contracts with major carriers come to an end. Cell phone providers have responded, and now many carriers offer both contract and no contract plans for youth. They also offer affordable handsets with competitive features, and some offer parental controls. Prepaid cell phones designed specifically for teens and sub teens are effective at both keeping control of budgets, as well as children. The availability and affordability of pay as you go plans have created a winning team for both kids and parents. The prepaid, pay as you go plans don’t have contracts, credit checks, activation or termination fees. It is easy and convenient to activate a plan and buy minutes. Subscribers can pay with cash, debit or credit card, and check via phone, internet, or at a local retailer. AT&T AT&T, an industry leader, answered customer calls for prepaid alternatives with the GoPhone plan. “AT&T leads the wireless industry in the flexibility, friendliness and fairness of its practices, and the new policies we have announced today are the most recent examples of that leadership,” said Paul Roth, president of Sales and Marketing for the company’s wireless unit. “Customers have told us they do not like one-sizefits-all approaches. They are right, and that is why we have made these important changes.” GoPhone costs $.10 per minute with a daily access fee of $1 to check voice mail, or $.25 a minute Using the kajeet Configuator, parents can set up a Time Manager and a Contact Manager. Parents can manage whom their child is talking to and when they can use the phone. with no daily access fee. The GoPhone per minute package is competitive with other providers - $29.99 for 200 minutes, $39.99 for 300 minutes and 500 night and weekend minutes, 49.99 for 400 anytime minutes and 3000 night and weekend minutes, or $69.99 for 650 anytime minutes and unlimited night and weekends. Nationwide service and rollover minutes are included, if you refill before the balance expires. AT&T featured phones for prepaid GoPhone option are affordable, the LG CG180 is for $19.99 (after a $20.00 rebate). The features are limited to text messaging, speakerphone, and ringtones. Also offered is the Nokia 2610, a refurbished phone, for $9.99 after a $150 rebate. The refurb comes with more abilities such as MP3 ringtones, graphics, games, and wireless internet. AT&T Smart Limits, a monthly parental control service, is not available with prepaid GoPhone plan. Prepaid Wireless in Brief Magicpins.com has chosen XtraGlobex as their communications agency for advertising and promotions. XtraGlobex has been handling Magicpins’ public relations since the fall of 2007. XtraGlobex will now be creating and buying co-op advertising for Magicpins in select industry magazines and newspapers. The firm will continue its public relations efforts for Magicpins. XtraGlobex - www.xtraglobex.com and mail-in rebates, and the Cricket monthly broadband service plan is just $35 per month for customers who also have Cricket’s low-cost unlimited voice plans, and $40 per month as a stand-alone service. Cricket – www.mycricket.com Strauss Auto, the US subsidiary of Autobacs Seven Co, Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, has teamed up with Locus Telecommunications, Inc., the provider of O2 Wireless, to offer O2 Wireless in the 88 Strauss locations throughout the greater metropolitan areas of NY, NJ and Philadelphia, PA. Locus says this recent milestone puts O2 Wireless as the only national wireless service currently being offered at Strauss Auto. O2 Wireless – www.O2wirelessservice.com Virgin Mobile USA has teamed up with Burger King Corp. and Warner Music Group to bring music-loving customers more of the tones they want – at a price they say will make mouths water. For a limited time, Virgin Mobile USA is bringing the popular BK Value Menu concept to the mobile channel, delivering a selection of ringtones from artists like Mana and Flo Rida at $1.00 a pop. The Virgin Mobile Ringtone Value Menu powered by Burger King allows Virgin Mobile USA customers to choose from a list of available options via the VirginXL WAP deck or online for $1.00 each. Virgin Mobile USA – www.virginmobileusa.com; Burger King – www.burgerking.com Cricket Communications, Inc., a provider of unlimited wireless services, began offering its mobile phone and wireless internet services in Las Vegas on May 13. Cricket’s unlimited services, which do not require contracts or credit checks, provide a simple wireless solution to Las Vegas consumers. In addition to unlimited mobile phone services, Cricket is also offering Cricket Wir http://Magicpins.com http://www.mycricket.com http://www.xtraglobex.com http://www.O2wirelessservice.com http://Family.com http://www.virginmobileusa.com http://www.burgerking.com http://www.meijermobile.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of The Prepaid Press - May 15, 2008

The Prepaid Press - May 15, 2008 Prepaid Attracts Press Attention First Data to Acquire InComm Contents The Retske Report: To Everything There Is A Season Regulatory Rundown: Rules, Bills and Probes Courtesy of the FCC 5 Minutes With Ray Horak, Telecom Author The Prepaid Press Expo Spotlight The Age of Prepaid Prepaid Wireless in Brief Prepaid Wireless Roundup American Wireless to Sell Virgin Mobile Openet Introduces Flexible Accounts Prepaid Reviews Launches Pay as You Go Podcast Motorola Reports Losses APC Wireless Buys Movida Virgin Mobile to Deliver Limbo Services The State of Prepaid Technology Start Your Engines! The Legal Line PhoenixSoft Adds Service Providers Blackstone to Distribute Viscom Calling Cards Spot Rates IVR Technologies Releases Talking SIP 3.4 Calling Cards in Brief Former IDT Employee Wins $10.5 Million Payments in Brief Hypercom SmartPayments Certified for Windows Pacific Resource Credit Union Selects TMG New Payment Software for QuickBooks POS Blood in the Water Prepaid 101: Give Me the Power 7-Eleven to Hold Innovation Event First Data Gives Ingenico I-Series Class A Support Coinstar Kicks Off Change Reuse Program Payment Application Data Security Standard Issued Forrester Predicts Online Sales to Climb Retail Focus in Brief Our Advertisers Contact Us

The Prepaid Press - May 15, 2008

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