At 17 May 2008 06:53:21 -0700 SMS wrote:

> Sure they do. They don't try to set the lowest price, but they can't
> charge more either.
>
> Look at "http://www.mobileburn.com/plans.jsp" and do some comparisons.
>
> $40 buys you 500 minutes on Alltel, 450 minutes on AT&T, Sprint, and
> Verizon (all with free MTM), and 600 minutes on T-Mobile (with no MTM).


Here we go again...

While the number of "peak" minutes is equivalent, other options vary wildly-
unused AT&T minutes rollver, perhaps allowing the customer to use a lower
plan- Sprint has earlier nights, Alltel allows one "circle" number- any
number you define gets unlimited calling to/from.

Add-ons like data and texting are often much higher from Verizon- although
they've improved on this only recently.


> It goes beyond the price too. Look at free MTM. Verizon has, by far,
> the largest number of retail customers (customers that you can call
> with free MTM). While AT&T
> has more users of their network, giving them bragging rights of "largest
> carrier"), they have a lot of MVNO customers included, who don't qualify
> as in network (not sure if AT&T's own prepaid customers can be called
> as in-network by a post paid AT&T customer).


Actually they can. MVNO customers are treated as AT&T customers for M2M.

> If you're buying by price, and know about SERO, Sprint is the best deal,
> as long as you buy a handset that you can force to roam on Verizon.


If not you can still use Sprint's perfectly adequate network. <Insert anti-
1900MHz reply here...>