Not to be outdone by metroPCS, CricKet, Boost and Virgin, TracFone has unveiled an unlimited nationwide voice and text prepaid plan for $45/month under their Straight Talk brand. Now there are at least three carriers in every market, and four in metroPCS and CricKet markets (which for the most part, don't overlap), with competing unlimited plans in the $40-50 range.
Since these are non-contract plans, users can move around freely without early termination penalties. They simply buy a new handset while the new provider ports their number.
Interestingly, these plans are close to the Big Four operators' entry-level plans. The prepaid players are using these Unlimited Plans to boost (no pun intended) their ARPU (Average Revenue per User) to near that of the Big Four ($46-52), From a customer perspective, you can get an unlimited plan from Boost, Virgin, metroPCS, CricKet and now TracFone for the same price as a Big Four $39.95 "bucket" plan, e.g., Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T all offer 450 minute plan for $39.95, T-Mobile offers 1,000 minutes for the same $39.95. (Is it any surprise that T-Mobile subscribers average nearly 1,000 minutes a month, the highest of the Big Four?)
There remains a sizable market who cannot afford a $40-45/month plan whether prepaid or postpaid . This is a market TracFone knows better than anybody, and they have a 1,000 minute/month plan including 1,000 texts, for $30, enabled by the ground-breaking deal they did with Verizon Wireless. (The wholesale airtime cost of this deal had to be in the 1.5 cents/minute range.)
All the action is in prepaid, and competition in this hot space continues to heat up.
