This whole throttling unlimited data business is a sticky issue. Take T-Mobile and Walmart for instance, yesterday we ran this story highlighting the fact that T-Mobile will start offering their Walmart Family Mobile customers unlimited data for $45 a month.
While that sounds like a great offer it’s only for the first 5gb a month, and that in itself is for a limited time. After a customer crosses the 5gb mark they will still enjoy free data but at much much slower rates. That’s also a 3G plan as opposed to anything that involves the number 4.
It’s no secret that since the announcement of the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger last March, consumer confidence in Big Magenta has unfortunately gone down. What makes it even more upsetting is the fact that T-Mobile is still pushing out great Android devices with really no end in sight.
As T-Mobile tries to keep things going “business as usual” their customer flow in stores has decreased dramatically. On their third quarter conference call that is reflected in a decrease of 186,000 post paid customers.
Okay so the Android journalist community is affectionately calling the T-Mobile Samsung Exhibit II 4G, Exhibit B, so we’ve joined in on that.
The Samsung Exibit II 4G is the follow up to the Exhibit 4G. While the Exhibit 4G wasn’t a monster smartphone by any stretch it was the first affordable mid-range Android device on America’s Largest 4G Network (T-Mobile). The follow up though offers a twist for prepaid users out there.
Prepaid has seen a huge increase over the past few years. The prepaid user has changed as well. Although prepaid used to be for people who felt they were uncredit worthy or didn’t want a credit check run, these days cost conscious consumers top the list of prepaid users. In the past prepaid wireless meant a phone that had far subpar features than their postpaid counterparts. In 2011, not so much. The T-Mobile, Samsung, Exhibit II 4G, reinforces that theory.
The Huawei M835 is a mid-range Android device with a great price on Metro PCS. We’re talking $79 bucks and thats without a subsidized contract.
Well today Huawei and MetroPCS announced a limited edition version of a great Android device, the M835. The new version is the Toki Doki version. This limited edition version has been designed by the cult apparel and accessory brand Tokidoki. The device has two covers a male version and female version and also has it’s own app.
The special edition app called TokiDoki Snap allows users to take photos with their M835 and then add TokiDoki elements to the photos before posting them to social networks, sharing them or putting them on a special TokiDoki Snap microsite.
If you’ve been thinking about getting the Sprint HTC Evo View 4G and were put off by the thought of putting it on a contract, Sprint has fixed that issue.
Starting today, Sprint has unveiled some “prepaid” or “Pay as you go” data plans for the HTC Evo View 4G. There are three plans, a day pass, week pass and month pass. The day pass plan gives you 50 more mb of data than Verizon or AT&T’s current day pass offerings. Sprint’s weekly pass gives you 500mb of data opposed to the 300mb on AT&T and Verizon. Finally the monthly pass gives you 500mb more data than the 1gb monthly pass for Verizon and AT&T.
There is only one word to describe the feeling a lot of us had at the Sprint/Motorola event last Thursday in New York City when Sprint CEO, Dan Hesse and Motorola Mobility CEO, Sanjay Jha unveiled the new Motorola Triumph headed to Virgin Mobile. That word is “WOW”.
First off the Motorola Triumph for Virgin Mobile was the only completely “original” device presented at the event and in the last few months in this new found partnership with Sprint.
This Sunday LG and AT&T Mobility are teaming up to release two LG Android powered devices the LG Thrive and the LG Phoenix.
The LG Thrive, not to be confused with the Thrill, is the first smartphone to appear on AT&T’s prepaid brand called “Go-Phone”. Cost conscience AT&T customers can now use new data plans on Go-Phone to purchase data plans without long term commitments.
I’ll bet you clicked on this link to see this story thinking I’ve totally lost it… Well I haven’t and stand by the headline. “The Samsung Galaxy Prevail On Boost Mobile Epitomizes The Greatness of Android”.
Let’s Begin…
The week before CTIA we were invited by our good friends at Samsung Mobile to get out of the cold and see something hot that Samsung and Boost Mobile were cooking up. I know what you’re thinking, Boost Mobile, yup Boost Mobile. We quickly secured a couple other meetings in New York and cost justified the trip to a cool little spot in Hell’s Kitchen (hot right?).
In a move to retain and acquire more prepaid customers, Verizon Wireless has cut the daily price of their prepaid access in half from $3.99 to $1.99. Competition has heated up in the prepaid sector. Sprint owns prepaid brands Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile while Metro PCS and Cricket have both confirmed gains in customers.
Verizon Wireless’ $1.99 rate includes unlimited voice and texts at two Cents per message. The text messaging rate was original one cent per message. Verizon also offers a .99 cent option which includes unlimited mobile to mobile and 10 cent a minute voice. These plans only include feature phones and we are unclear what their smartphone prepaid service is. We know during the summer they rolled out availability of some smart phones on their prepaid grid.
Verizon’s biggest competitor, AT&T revamped their prepaid plans in October. Now, through their GoPhone brand, AT&T offers unlimited talk and text to prepaid customers at $2 per day. AT&T does not currently offer any smartphone pricing through GoPhone and their smartphone customers who convert to GoPhone have no 3G data access. AT&T is offering both the Samsung Galaxy Tab and Apple iPad on prepaid models, perhaps thats an indication that their smartphone offerings for prepaid will increase.
Leap Wireless, the parent company to Cricket Wireless, is rolling out a limited LTE plan that CEO and President Doug Hutcheson is calling “Hot Spots”.
Hutcheson told the Global Media and Communications Conference that they would roll out what the US considers 4G in limited amounts in 2011 and add to it based on demand in 2012 and 2013. He also said that Leap doesn’t plan on building out an entire 4G network on it’s own. Leap Wireless has the equivelant of a smaller regional footprint of their own and uses roaming or wholesale partnerships with other carriers to complete the entire country. When there is no leap service Cricket (Leap) phones have 3G roaming data on Sprint. When pressed for details about LTE roll out Hutcheson suggested he may wholesale from Clearwire or Lightsquared.
Hutcheson also spoke quite a bit on Leap’s recent successes. Theyve seen a “significant upsurge” in customers migrating to smartphones and their more expensive smartphone data plan which is unlimited voice and text and 1gb of data for $55 per month. Leap/Cricket currently offers a blackberry model and two Android devices including the Huawei Ascend which is exclusive to Cricket offering Android 2.1 on a quick device for $149 off contract.
Hutcheson said smartphones accounted for 40% of new customer sales in November. Hutcheson said that Leap is rolling out a new big box retail strategy. A Cricket spokesperson indicated to thedroidguy.com that in the coming year the whole company would be called Cricket.
Earlier this month at CTIA, Kyle and I sat down with Matt Stoiber VP/GM Device Development for Cricket Wireless. While we were there he brought out the Huawei Ascend. He also told us that they were getting ready to announce a nationwide 3G roaming agreement. He did not share any more than that, just that it was coming. Well, yesterday Cricket Wireless announced a roaming agreement with Sprint. I have included the press release below so I will not go into great depth here.
Cricket offers a great option for those who either cannot or will not let themselves get tied into a long-term contracts. Also they have by far the most competitive rates that I have seen, to date. The Android plan they offer is $55 a month with the following features:
unlimited: talk, text, long distance, mobile web
also includes picture and video messaging, call waiting, 3 way calling, call forwarding, data backup, international text, mobile email.
Bonus Features: no signed contract, talk and text in all 50 states, free overnight shipping.
Cricket Announces Launch of Nationwide 3G Data Roaming
Nationwide 3G Data Roaming Initially Available for Cricket Smartphone Customers SAN DIEGO, Oct 19, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) –
Cricket Communications Inc.,a leading provider of innovative and value-driven wireless services and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Leap Wireless International, Inc. (NASDAQ:LEAP), today announced the availability of nationwide 3G data coverage. This nationwide 3G capability will initially be available for users of the two Android Smartphones offered by Cricket: the Sanyo ZIO by Kyocera and the just-announced Huawei Ascend, and the Blackberry Curve 8530. Cricket has significantly expanded its 3G data capabilities through a roaming arrangement announced in August, which enables Cricket to now offer its Smartphone customers nationwide 3G coverage to complement the nationwide talk and text service it currently offers.
“We are pleased to offer nationwide 3G data coverage. It’s a significant step in our efforts to bring exciting new devices and capabilities to our customer and become the best provider of value-driven 3G services in the prepaid wireless industry,” said Doug Hutcheson, president and chief executive officer of Leap. “Data is increasingly important, particularly as the new Smartphones we’ve introduced gain popularity across our customer base. We expect our ability to offer high-speed data services across the United States will expand our appeal to potential customers and provide a better customer experience.”
Starting today new Cricket customers can take advantage of nationwide 3G coverage when using their ZIO and Ascend Android Smartphones and Blackberry Curve 8530. The roaming agreement that enables Cricket’s expanded coverage is the first major commercial 3G data roaming agreement in the United States and expands Cricket 3G data network from 92 million potential customers (POPS) to cover approximately 280 million POPS.
For more information about Cricket’s dynamic device lineup and value-rich service plans, please visit www.mycricket.com.
About Cricket
Cricket is the pioneer of simple and affordable unlimited wireless services with no long-term commitments or credit checks required serving more than 5.3 million customers in 35 states and the District of Columbia. Cricket offers wireless voice and broadband Internet services over the latest technology, high-quality, all-digital 3G CDMA2000 1X and 1xEV-DO wireless network. Cricket’s nationwide wireless voice service plans include unlimited anytime minutes, unlimited U.S. long distance, unlimited text and picture messaging, unlimited text to Mexico, unlimited Mobile Web, unlimited directory assistance, as well as a variety of calling features and feature-rich mobile applications such as popular games, ringtones and wallpapers. Cricket Broadband provides unlimited Internet access anywhere within Cricket’s coverage areas at speeds comparable to DSL. For more information on Cricket, visit www.mycricket.com. Cricket is offered by Leap Wireless International, Inc., headquartered in San Diego, Calif. For more information on Leap, visitwww.leapwireless.com.
Regional prepaid carrier Cricket Wireless launched it’s first Android device last month. In the hubub of wrapping up the summer of Android we didn’t want to try it out in the thick of the Droid 2′s and Galaxy S’ of the world we werent sure it would get it’s due diligence. Fast forward to now and the phone is performing well for Cricket Wireless and we’ve had a bit to play with it.
First off the Android 1.6 would be a shocker to everyone, in the post paid world, however in the prepaid world 1.6 is perfect for an entry level user migrating from a flip or candybar style “dumb phone” to something a little bit, well actually a lot smarter.
This may come as a shocker but I’m going to say, at Android 1.6, the Kyocera Zio by Sanyo is a better device than the Sony Xperia X10 also running 1.6, sure out of the box the X10 would run circles around the Zio if they were both in the Postpaid space but in my opinion, no major carrier postpaid device should have come out post March 2010 with Android 1.6, just sayin.
Otherwise here are some other likes: Kyocera/Sanyo didn’t bother with their own cool UI they let Android 1.6 be Android 1.6 and when we were upgrading to 1.6 it was the shnitz.
Next, there is a trackball in the middle which for some is a great added bonus
The default ringer isnt extremely annoying and the call clarity, when in the leap/cricket area is very clear. But here are the kickers, the good kickers, this phone unsubsidized is yours to own at $249.99 with a $20 mail in rebate, so only $30 more than the average smart phone on the postpaid 4, and it’s YOURS TO KEEP with NO ETF! Next, Cricket keeps their pricing fair and at around $55
Final Verdict I’d say if you’re looking to escape the postpaid bill and you need to do it RIGHT NOW, Cricket and the Zio are a great option for you to look at.
Chirp Chirp
Here are some more specs:
3.5″ Display
600 Mhz qualcomm processor
3.2MP camera with video capabilties
and the almighty, will upgrade to 2.x at some point
Android’s original mission statement was to offer devices of all types to as many people as possible. First, the four major carriers got their own compliment of Android phones, then recently, prepaid companies and smaller carriers started getting them. A push for devices offered in a prepaid format for major carriers has been around since the beginning of the Android revolution. There are plenty of people out there who do not want contracts, and so resort to prepaid or just buying their phones outright. Well, Verizon has heard the call, and will be the first to offer prepaid data plans!
The carrier said that beginning today customers can go into stores and purchase unlimited prepaid data on select smartphones and multimedia phones for $30 per month. Verizon said the plans will be available online starting Sept. 28. The prepaid data pricing is identical to Verizon’s postpaid pricing. With changes like this coming around the corner, it makes me wonder when the other three will follow suit and offer similar plans. Carriers?
