Virgin lowers rates as prepaid competition heats up

As competition heats up, what is particularly notable, Bluestein said, is how the marketplace has bifurcated into two entirely different worlds – a postpaid world, punctuated by stagnant growth but high ARPUs, contracts, fancy handsets and a great footprint, and a completely different prepaid world with aggressive innovation and heightened competition.

"You have to wonder when they will really start spilling over into one another," Bluestein said. "I think they already are with the economy the way it is."

In the vein of tier-two innovation, Metro today introduced ‘GroupLine,' a new calling feature that gives families one number to ring all their cell phones at once. Like other carriers efforts to replace or reinvigorate the landline, this service poses an alternative to the landline by letting them transfer their cancelled number to their GroupLine service. Using this number, family members can join a mobile conference, so that when one picks up the call, everyone else's phones will ring to give them a chance to join too. Metro also teamed up with Nuance Communications this week to launch a self-service mobile management platform that lets subscribers dial 611 to manage their mobile account direct on their handsets.

Virgin, which has 5.4 million subscribers, is also introducing SMS text-messaging only packages to appeal to its largely younger customer base. Without paying for voice, subscribers can get 1,000 messages for $15 per month or unlimited messages for $20 per month. Voice calls are then 10 cents per minute. According to the company, it currently relays 11 text messages for every 10 minutes of voice calling.