Prepaid Cell Phones Gaining in Popularity

Telecom News Editorials Reports Glossary

8:10 am on December 19, 2005 | Category: Telecom Services, Mobile Devices

Prepaid cellular plans have been available throughout the US and Canada for a number of years now, but customers have historically been wary of such plans due to limited selection and availability.

In recent times, however, these problems have dissipated immensely, with most of the major cell phone providers now offering some sort of prepaid option, and expanding handset selection in hopes of luring new customers.

Of course, most prepaid plans don’t offer a free handset, as post-paid options often do, but some providers such as TracFone are trying to break this barrier with extremely competitive pricing. TracFone has quickly gained a reputation as one of the most reliable prepaid providers, and offer unlimited prepaid wireless service at just $0.10/minute. They have also become well known for offering quality Nokia and Motorola handsets at steeply discounted rates.

With such revolutionary plans now on the market, many analysts are predicting that prepaid wireless could gain the lions share of new cell phone customers in the coming years, due to predicted consumer trends.

In the US market, for example, 65% of the population already owns a mobile phone of some kind, it is expected that half of the remaining number will never sign up for cellular service. The other half (17.5%) are best described as the late majority, meaning that they are likely cautious in nature. And cautious customers are much more likely to interested in a month-by-month plan, rather than a lengthy contract commitment.

This kind of reasoning has led analysts to believe that prepaid wireless services, such as TracFone, have a good shot at sweeping up more customers in the coming years than they previously would have though possible.

4 Comments »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Please watch for the launch of Prepaid Wireless on or before January 15, 2006. We will be carrying all of the named brand service providers in prepaid.

Regards,

Mark Flanagan
CEO

Comment by mark flanagan — December 19, 2005 #
how can i find a pre-paid service that has service in my area? ( area code is 574) thank you. tom

Comment by tom hryek — December 19, 2005 #
Have you tried visiting TracFone, and entering your zip code. They are one of the most widespread prepaid service providers in the US, and will likely have some kind of solution for you…

Comment by Jeremy — December 22, 2005 #
[…] Alltel added a total of 147,000 new subscribers in the final quarter of 2005, including 90,000 new prepaid wireless users. This is a very obvious example of the increasing popularity of pay-as-you-go cell phones. […]

Pingback by Alltel Adds 147,000 New Wireless Subscribers » Telecommunications Industry News — May 24, 2006 #