Minute-by-minute pricing

There's a reason why minute plans seemed like a good idea. Carriers get the best of both worlds: loads of unused, but still paid-for minutes and overage charges, all wrapped up in a bow. According to a study sponsored by Virgin Mobile and conducted by NOP World, the average subscriber on a postpaid plan pays for more than double the amount of minutes he uses every month. For family plan users, the numbers are even higher; the average family plan contains more minutes than individual plans but uses less actual airtime. At the same time, half of all wireless users surveyed by NOP said they have paid overage charges at least once. With an average overage charge of $6.66 per month for individuals, that's no small amount of revenue. Of course, Virgin probably has some ulterior motives for commissioning the study. It wants to bring consumers to its postpaid mobile virtual network operator service, and what better way to do so though than by pointing out the discrepancies in customers perceived versus actual usage habits. Virgin isn't the only one to sense the frustration of plan customers, though. Cingular last year launched its rollover plan, and Sprint PCS has instituted an increasingly more complicated system of pricing designed to stem high overage charges.