Prepaid Reviews Blog

kajeet wins Mom’s choice Award

Joe — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:30:39 +0000

Another parents’ award, another win for kajeet. This time it’s the Mom’s Choice Awards, where the company took home the Gold Recipient in the Gear and Accessory category. kajeet seems to win one of these every few months, a nod to their place in the market. It’s one thing to offer a cell phone service to kids when they’re at an age where parents aren’t sure if they should have a phone or not. It’s another to consistently win awards for your service. Contragulations to kajeet for another notch in their belt.

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MetroPCS CFO notes company’s interest in Leap

Joe — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:03:30 +0000

Roger Jones of Down Jones Newswires has a report up regarding the hot-button MetroPCS – Leap Wireless situation. It’s nothing definitive, not by any stretch, but Metro’s CFO, Braxton Carter, make his company’s interest clear. “Obviously, we’re very interested in the combination of our companies,” he said. While it’s not much, it’s still the most direct comment we’ve heard from an involved party. It doesn’t, however, sound like we’re any closer to action — or definitive non-action.

This post originated at PrepaidReviews.com - The number one resource for Tracfone Prepaid information on the web!

Complaints to the BBB on the rise

Joe — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:55:54 +0000

If you look through the user reviews in our pay as you go cell phone pages, you’ll see that many people have had such poor experiences that they’ve taken their case to the Better Business Bureau. It’s tough to gauge a trend from those reviews, of course, because the overwhelming majority of people write them to vent about bad experiences. But it does appear that complaints to the BBB are up from last year. While the banking sector saw the largest increase, the wireless industry also saw more customers submit complaints, up 2.1 percent from 2008. Thankfully, the cell phone industry does solve their complaints, at least to the satisfaction of the BBB, at a 97.4 percent rate. I still think that submitting a complaint to the FCC can be more effective in many cases.

This post originated at PrepaidReviews.com - The number one resource for Tracfone Prepaid information on the web!

Samsung Stunt now available from Cricket

Joe — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:30:29 +0000

New to the lower tier of Cricket is the Samsung Stunt, a phone that MetroPCS added back in December. It’s as basic as they come, boasting Bluetooth as its sole “advanced” feature. There’s no camera, no nothing, keeping this in line with the recent trend of prepaid carriers releasing bare bones phones. The handset is available now for $79.99 on Cricket’s website.

Via Engadget.

This post originated at PrepaidReviews.com - The number one resource for Tracfone Prepaid information on the web!

Boost Mobile to add Android-powered Motorola i1?

Joe — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:30:54 +0000

I was just a guest on a podcast, and one major topic of discussion was prepaid mobile data. We’ve seen a number of companies add WAP browsing, but few have robust data options. Earlier this year, though, we saw Boost Mobile add a a CDMA BlackBerry device. Was that just the start? It appears that could be the case. We learned late last week that Motorola plans to release an iDEN Android handset, and of course Boost is a possible carrier. The handset features a 3.1 inch, 320×480 capacitive touch screen, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a 3 megapixel camera, and plenty more. It also features MOTOBLUR, which is just awesome.

No word on availability, but speculative word is that the announcement could come at CTIA later this month.

This post originated at PrepaidReviews.com - The number one resource for Tracfone Prepaid information on the web!

Page Plus adds Kyocera Mako S4000

Joe — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:30:47 +0000

An little over a month ago we noticed that Page Plus appeared to be preparing for new handsets. Over the weekend they made the first such announcement, introducing the Kyocera Mako S4000 to its lineup, the first brand new model the company will offer. It features a VGA camera, Bluetooth, and WAP browsing capabilities. In other words, it fits in well with the entry-level phones we’ve seen carriers introducing lately. It’s available today, so check out Page Plus’s website. It will sell for $99.95.

And, just to whet your appetite, Page Plus has also announced that it will introduce a new QWERTY handset within two months.

This post originated at PrepaidReviews.com - The number one resource for Tracfone Prepaid information on the web!

Metro, Leap could try to go it alone

Joe — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:30:17 +0000

We’ve been talking about it for years, and it won’t go away until something definitive happens. For years we’ve heard speculation of a MetroPCS and Leap Wireless merger. Last month we heard even more, as both companies hired strategic advisors. Yet instead of hearing news of talks between the companies, we’ve heard nothing. It turns out there might be a reason for that. Tim Horan, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., predicts that any potential merger could be a year or more off. Instead, they could pursue independent paths, falling back on merger talks if things don’t work out.

“The market is slowly coming to the realization that a merger is not imminent,” wrote Horan, who said he expects the shares to perform in line with the market over the next year. The industry is “still hurting from effects of increased competition, though we believe the industry is nearing the end of this price-war cycle, which would take some pressure off Leap and PCS.”

He further presents the idea that Metro appears to have no competition in a possible acquisition. We’ve heard names of nearly every wireless company mentioned as a potential suitor, but nothing seems to be in the cards.

Things could change within a year, of course. For all we know, we could get news of a merger next week. It’s not probable, but it’s possible. I think, though, that if we’re not going to get movement soon that we could do without news on the matter for a while.

This post originated at PrepaidReviews.com - The number one resource for Tracfone Prepaid information on the web!

A newbie’s guide to Page Plus

Joe — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:30:40 +0000

A few months back we published the noob guide to Tracfone, Net10, and Straight Talk. It came from Howard Forums user fonezfonz, and I thought it was quite the excellent resource. Today we have something similar, if not more comprehensive. User Kitty Wireless is all over the Page Plus boards, letting people know what’s going on from a dealer’s standpoint. The latest contribution is a series of four guides that will help out a newbie in need. They go from setting up your voicemail to changing plans, so if you’re a Page Plus user or are thinking about trying them, check out the following guides.

A huge thanks to Kitty Wireless for writing these. Hopefully plenty of people can find answers to their questions within.

This post originated at PrepaidReviews.com - The number one resource for Tracfone Prepaid information on the web!

Virgin makes changes to Broadband2Go plan

Joe — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:00:24 +0000

It seems to be Virgin Mobile’s day. The second item of the day from them relates to their Broadband2Go offering, a prepaid high-speed data platform. Virgin has announced new prices, ones that are scaled a bit better to postpaid data rates and usage patterns. A quick table of the new rates after the jump.

Price	Size
$10	100 MB
$20	300 MB
$40	1 GB
$60	5 GB

The $10 plan expires in 10 days, and the rest expire in 30. You can sign up for Broadband2Go at Virgin Mobile’s website.

This post originated at PrepaidReviews.com - The number one resource for Tracfone Prepaid information on the web!

Virgin Mobile phasing out contract plans

Joe — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:30:44 +0000

When Virgin Mobile acquired Helio in 2008, they began offering contract plans. It took a while to get the Helio and VM systems to work together, but they finally got it done. Then, just about a year later, Sprint acquired Virgin Mobile, citing its focus on the prepaid sector. It never really crossed my mind to think about the fate of Helio, and I didn’t see much, if any, commentary on the topic. Yesterday we learned that Virgin will phase out its contract plans, with a complete cessation coming May 25. That gives current VM contract customers 12 weeks to find a new service provider. Virgin hopes that carrier will be Sprint.

Current VM postpaid customers who switch to Sprint will get an additional $50 off a new handset — with a new two-year agreement, of course. This is in addition to the normal phone subsidy, plus any applicable rebates. In other words, there will certainly be a cheap phone involved for customers who switch. Any activation fees will also be waived.

Virgin postpaid customers must contact Sprint or Virgin if they want to keep their numbers. A simple port-out request should do fine, though.

Virgin prepaid customers can rest easy, as there are no changes to their service. Just an upgrade to the broadband offerings, which we’ll learn about in the next post.

This post originated at PrepaidReviews.com - The number one resource for Tracfone Prepaid information on the web!