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

Sprint’s reinvigoration of Boost Mobile makes a lot of sense, according to Bill Ho, wireless services analyst for Current Analysis. As a number of consumers have churned off the network, it has capacity to spare for unlimited plans. Considering that there has been a resurgence in prepaid wireless across the board, Boost is smart to position itself as the value carrier for unlimited plans, he said.

“There is opportunity to be made in a bad economy,” Ho said. “The value angle is going to be a lot of the marketing that we will see going forward in advertising. Even Verizon’s marketing is moving to competitive and having as much value as other carriers. There is also going to be more competition for prepaid wireless in the future, if not already.”

It’s not just the US market, either. Canadian carrier Rogers Communications last week relaunched its Fido brand to do away with the $6.95 access charge for new customers and three-year contracts in exchange for either a pre-paid service or a two-year contract. The Canadian carrier also instituted text alerts to let customers know when they are about to max out their minutes.

Meanwhile AT&T, the largest US carrier, has yet to announce any adjustments to its pricing schemes but is looking to tap into the belt-tightening shift through a partnership with Wal-Mart. The discount superstore will provide free SMS, voice alerts or data messages on pricing specials and discounts for those shoppers who opt in. The service, which works over any network, also uses Single Touch System’s abbreviated dial code program, a handset-based distribution channel with a natural voice interface to download content to mobile devices.