Up to a point that might be considered a good thing for service providers who have made a business of prepaid, especially some of the regional providers.
But it never is too helpful when the "big guys," or at least some of them, decide they have to play in the prepaid segment, as Sprint now is doing.
The new "Common Cents" service is the fourth prepaid brand Sprint supports, after Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile and Assurance Wireless, which is a government-subsidized cell phone program for people who are under or close to the poverty line.
Under the new plan, customers will pay seven cents per minute for phone calls and they will be charge seven cents per text message.
Wal-Mart is planning to sell phones, costing $20 to $70, in more than 700 stores.
Sprint will also give customers a break by rounding down on the minutes used in order to aattract more subscribers. Sprint says that "with minutes that round down after the first minute, not up, consumers get more minutes for their money."
In the first quarter of 2010, Sprint lost 578,000 postpaid subscribers. But it gained 348,000 prepaid customers.
Sprint also positions each of the prepaid brands in different segments. While Common Cents is geared toward value customers, who aren't looking for much beyond basic cell phone and texting service, Virgin Mobile's and Boost Mobile's services offer more data-centric plans that target the youth market.
TheVirgin Mobile and Boost brands have been offering flat-rate pricing for all-you-can-eat plans for $50 a month. Soon Virgin Mobile will also offer a $25 plan that comes with unlimited texting, e-mail, and Web surfing, plus 300 minutes a month of voice service. For $40 a month, customers can get 1,200 voice minutes.
