Carriers focus on pre-paid wireless, budget-conscious bundles

Competition for prepaid plans is just starting to heat up. Sprint, the third-largest carrier, announced in its third-quarter earnings that it plans to refocus on Boost Mobile, its prepaid and budget brand on Sprint Nextel’s iDEN network, at the start of the next year. Boost’s focus for 2009 include low-cost all-you-can-eat plans. The service, made popular by its push-to-talk technology and youth-oriented marketing campaigns, was primarily thought of as a secondary option for teens or people with bad credit. But with today’s credit-challenged economy, that category is growing.

“We feel like we have a good value here with Boost,” said president Matt Carter. “The prepaid category is a growing segment. With most carriers, it used to be we had to participate in this side of the business. It is now becoming increasingly a much bigger part in their go-to-market plans. It’s no different with Sprint. We view the prepaid segment and Boost as a real opportunity to enhance the overall value of our enterprise.”

Boost, which today has 4.2 million subscribers, does have a reputation for being low-cost, but cheap is not the selling point, according to Carter. He said Boost will announce pricing for its new service plans in the first quarter of 2009, but the service already offers a flat 10-cents-per-minute for voice on a variety of Motorola handsets.

“They way we are looking at it is really about value,” Carter said. “We will never be the cheapest service plan out there. Consumers are not looking for the cheapest; they are looking for the best value for the price they are paying. It shows up in the quality of their service. We believe the right combination is to have a good quality network, good reliable, dependable handsets, good customer support, good selling in our channels at a price point that is affordable. We are never going to the highest or lowest.”