How many users actually benefit from $99 unlimited?

Todd Allcock wrote:

> Hey, if he has to shill for someone, why not PP? They offer, hands
> down, the best prepaid plan in the industry right now, between the low
> cost, large native network, and ability to roam. T-Mo's "2Go" prepaid
> runs a close second- it has the largest coverage area of any non-MVNO
> due to it's inclusion of free roaming.

Since when does stating the facts about a carrier, prepaid or otherwise,
constitute shilling? I gain nothing if people sign up for PagePlus, or
Verizon for that matter. I just want to get the facts out there since
there are others that would benefit from them.

> Even assuming that AT&T and Verizon postpaid service has comparable
> coverage,

Don't assume that. The coverage maps may show comparable coverage, but
in reality the Verizon coverage is far superior. Just check all the
independent surveys if you have any doubts.

> AT&T's prepaid GoPhone coverage is decidedly lackluster.

Do they not allow off-AT&T roaming? I would have thought that at least
they were equivalent to AT&T's postpaid coverage.

> PagePlus has better coverage that GoPhone or any AT&T prepaid MVNO (at
> least now that Beyond Wireless TDMA is history, since it had the ability
> to roam off-net for additional cost.)

Yeah, I had Beyond Wireless TDMA for my kids' phones. Too bad they went
over to the dark side, both in terms of coverage and cost.

I wonder about 7-11 SpeakOut GSM coverage. Their literature claims to
allow roaming onto other GSM networks at extra cost, but
"http://www.cellguru.net/prepaid_compare.htm" states "Can't Roam." Some
users claim that there is some roaming in western states. Some claim
that there used to be Dobson roaming in some areas but not any more.

"SMS" <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in message
news:47be127f$0$36383$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net...

> Since when does stating the facts about a carrier, prepaid or otherwise,
> constitute shilling? I gain nothing if people sign up for PagePlus, or
> Verizon for that matter. I just want to get the facts out there since
> there are others that would benefit from them.

I apologize- I wasn't agreeing, I was just parrotting Navas' choice of words
back at him. In retrospect I should've encased it in quotes ("shill") to
emphasize I wasn't agreeing.

I appreciate the "shilling"- if not for you, I'd have never heard of them,
and I'm a happy customer.

>> Even assuming that AT&T and Verizon postpaid service has comparable
>> coverage,
>
> Don't assume that. The coverage maps may show comparable coverage, but in
> reality the Verizon coverage is far superior. Just check all the
> independent surveys if you have any doubts.

I was speaking to a specific audience. John will never concede Verizon has
wider coverage, so I was making the logical point that even if their
postpaid coverage was comparable, PagePlus is superior product offering
because it's a SUPERset of Verizon coverage (albeit with roaming charges in
some areas) while GoPhone is a SUBset of AT&T coverage.

>> AT&T's prepaid GoPhone coverage is decidedly lackluster.
>
> Do they not allow off-AT&T roaming? I would have thought that at least
> they were equivalent to AT&T's postpaid coverage.

Oh, Lord, no. The monthly GoPhone "hybrid" plans include a small amount of
roaming, but nothing like postpaid, and I don't believe the "pay as you go"
plans offer any. Go look at the online maps. Entire states are blank
except for a metro area or two!

>> PagePlus has better coverage that GoPhone or any AT&T prepaid MVNO (at
>> least now that Beyond Wireless TDMA is history, since it had the ability
>> to roam off-net for additional cost.)
>
> Yeah, I had Beyond Wireless TDMA for my kids' phones. Too bad they went
> over to the dark side, both in terms of coverage and cost.

I assume BW TDMA was operating under a legacy agreement with the old,
pre-merger, AT&T Wireless, who seemed far more agreeable to MVNOs (Beyond,
JusTalk, Locus' varied offerings, etc.) than Cingular was. Post merger, it
seems a middle ground was reached- they still entertain MVNOs but they seem
to offer lousier deals to them!


> I wonder about 7-11 SpeakOut GSM coverage. Their literature claims to
> allow roaming onto other GSM networks at extra cost, but
> "http://www.cellguru.net/prepaid_compare.htm" states "Can't Roam." Some
> users claim that there is some roaming in western states. Some claim that
> there used to be Dobson roaming in some areas but not any more.

I think the "problem" is that most of the roaming available on SpeakOut was
provided by affiliates that AT&T eventually acquired, so essentially the
very few former roam areas are now native, so SO users didn't lose much of
anything. Universal "extra cost" roaming, like BW TDMA offered and PP
currently offers, simply isn't available on any AT&T MVNO that I'm aware of.

SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> amazed us all with the following in
news:47be0c0b$0$36374$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net:

> Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
>> In article <47be02c7$0$36402$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>,
>> SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I find it amusing to see all the news reports of how the $99.99
>>> unlimited plan is a "price war." Yeah, it's a price war to get
>>> subscribers to increase their monthly expenditure for wireless.
>>
>> I work with a guy (salesman) who, last year, had a 2000 minute plan
>> (don't know with whom)--and every month he was 1000 minutes over.
>>
>> Let's see, that was probably a $125/month plan, and $0.25 overage, so
>> he was probably $375/month.
>>
>> No, I'd say plenty of people will eat this up.
>
> Yeah, I'm sure there are plenty of sales people that would benefit,
> but for the vast majority of subscribers, I don't believe that it's
> much of a deal.
>

The answer to this question is amazingly simple- look at ARPU for each
carrier. With voice ARPU generally being in the $55-60 range, $100 users
are going to represent the upper end of the scale. With the influx of
lower creditworthy customers on all networks over the last three years,
there will be more customers on the network below that line than above it.

At 21 Feb 2008 18:27:55 -0500 Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:

> > I find it amusing to see all the news reports of how the $99.99
> > unlimited plan is a "price war." Yeah, it's a price war to get
> > subscribers to increase their monthly expenditure for wireless.
>
> I work with a guy (salesman) who, last year, had a 2000 minute plan
> (don't know with whom)--and every month he was 1000 minutes over.
>
> Let's see, that was probably a $125/month plan, and $0.25 overage, so he
> was probably $375/month.
>
> No, I'd say plenty of people will eat this up.


Agreed. My cousin, a consultant back east who uses 3000 or so daytime
minutes a month is still on a grandfathered ATTWS GSM Charter plan (a $99
unlimited plan they originally used to con suckers from switching from
their excellent TDMA/analog network to their, at the time, very crummy GSM
one.)

Since the merger he's been stuck buying unlocked handsets to upgrade since
the "new" AT&T can't sell him a subsidized phone that'll accept his blue
"old" AT&T SIM, and won't switch him to a "new" orange AT&T SIM unless he
takes a new plan.

Ironically, I'll bet he'll probably switch to Ve izon- Verizon has a little
better reception in his neighborhood, and he uses a Verizon EVDO laptop
card for mobile data- it works on his boat, where the AT&T 3G card he tried
first doesn't always reach- (apparently "Extended UMTS" didn't make it to
Rhode Island!) ;-) IIRC, Verizon will knock the PC card rate down from
$79 to $59 if you also have a voice plan. The $20 savings didn't justify
dumping the AT&T Charter plan, but when Verizon offers the $99 unlimited,
he can port over and save the $20/month on the data card.

At 21 Feb 2008 20:41:32 -0600 The Bob wrote:

> The answer to this question is amazingly simple- look at ARPU for each
> carrier. With voice ARPU generally being in the $55-60 range, $100
users
> are going to represent the upper end of the scale. With the influx of
> lower creditworthy customers on all networks over the last three years,
> there will be more customers on the network below that line than above it.


True- the question is what percentage of customers are actually above the
$99 mark now- I suspect it's not too big a percentage, and can you con
enough $60-80 users to jump to $99 to offset that.

Maybe he should try extended GSM. :)

"Todd Allcock" <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote in message
news:aYsvj.37$OB5.33@fe127.usenetserver.com...
> At 21 Feb 2008 18:27:55 -0500 Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
>
>> > I find it amusing to see all the news reports of how the $99.99
>> > unlimited plan is a "price war." Yeah, it's a price war to get
>> > subscribers to increase their monthly expenditure for wireless.
>>
>> I work with a guy (salesman) who, last year, had a 2000 minute plan
>> (don't know with whom)--and every month he was 1000 minutes over.
>>
>> Let's see, that was probably a $125/month plan, and $0.25 overage, so he
>> was probably $375/month.
>>
>> No, I'd say plenty of people will eat this up.
>
>
> Agreed. My cousin, a consultant back east who uses 3000 or so daytime
> minutes a month is still on a grandfathered ATTWS GSM Charter plan (a $99
> unlimited plan they originally used to con suckers from switching from
> their excellent TDMA/analog network to their, at the time, very crummy GSM
> one.)
>
> Since the merger he's been stuck buying unlocked handsets to upgrade since
> the "new" AT&T can't sell him a subsidized phone that'll accept his blue
> "old" AT&T SIM, and won't switch him to a "new" orange AT&T SIM unless he
> takes a new plan.
>
> Ironically, I'll bet he'll probably switch to Ve izon- Verizon has a
> little
> better reception in his neighborhood, and he uses a Verizon EVDO laptop
> card for mobile data- it works on his boat, where the AT&T 3G card he
> tried
> first doesn't always reach- (apparently "Extended UMTS" didn't make it to
> Rhode Island!) ;-) IIRC, Verizon will knock the PC card rate down from
> $79 to $59 if you also have a voice plan. The $20 savings didn't justify
> dumping the AT&T Charter plan, but when Verizon offers the $99 unlimited,
> he can port over and save the $20/month on the data card.
>
>

> Also, in natural disasters, often the wireless networks are overloaded
> or go down, but landlines still work.

Actually, just the opposite is true. Granted, as usual you showed an
exception to the rule in order to pass it along as the rule. However,
during most natural disasters it's the landlines that go down first.

Janet Wilder wrote:

> Since so many of the people we call are also Verizon users, the IN
> calling saves gallons of minutes. We hardly eat in to our paid minutes
> with nights and weekends and IN. It would make no sense for us to go to
> "unlimited"

Yes, I have a feeling that between off-peak and MTM, very few
subscribers will benefit from a move up to $100 unlimited, while nearly
_all_ of the heavy users (not using smart phones) will move down to $100
unlimited. I notice the same scenario as your's around here. Most of my
relatives, friends, and co-workers have Verizon so I don't even use up
my measly 300 peak minutes.

The carriers also better hope that the heavy users don't find out about
the ways to get unlimited use at much lower cost. PagePlus offers
unlimited for about $75 per month, and that $75 isn't burdened with
extra fees and taxes like the $100 unlimited plans are. With Sprint and
Voicestick, unlimited is $52 plus taxes and fees paid to Sprint, and
Voicestick offers a lot of other advantages as well.

SMS wrote:
> George wrote:
>
>> But frankly I find the business model of raping customers when they go
>> over just plain wrong. Just imagine if other services operated in a
>> similar fashion. Say you needed to cross a bridge every day and you
>> could buy a monthly pass that cost say $50 that entitled to cross once
>> each day. You are a loyal customer and have been using the bridge for
>> years. Some event happens where you need to cross more often and they
>> charge you $7 for each additional crossing. I doubt anyone would put
>> up with it.
>>
>> Cell phones are no longer something magical. The days of having to
>> accept whatever is offered are winding down..
>
> Well I hope that the winding down doesn't mean moving to an unlimited
> model at $99 from a metered use at various tiers. I don't like the model
> of high overage charges either, but the alternative may be worse for
> relatively low-usage users.

It seems that is the direction it is going.

I am sure that the tiers will be just as disingenuous as the various
current ones are now. I imagine the "cellphone buffet" when I read the
prices. This month's special is one serving on a 3" plate for $9 or
unlimited for $10.50 .

I am a heavy user but unlimited is of no value to me because of free
m2m. All of my family and most of my friends and associates are on VZW.
So an unlimited package would cost me even more.


>
> If I were a new low-usage user then I wouldn't be a postpaid customer.
> T-Mobile and PagePlus offer reasonable per-minute rates (5.3-8.8¢). The
> downside is no free nights and weekends, but in reality the only reason
> people talk so much on their cell phones on N&W is because it's free.
> They could get a 2¢/minute long distance service and still be better off
> in most cases.

Todd Allcock wrote:
>
>
> "George" <george@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
> news:m4idnREMiOSZdyDanZ2dnUVZ_uSdnZ2d@comcast.com. ..
>
>> Can I suggest that isn't much of a test? I think every carrier has the
>> PA & Jersey pike lit up.
>
> True, but in many ways, that's sort of the point. I'll be the first to
> admit that my T-Mo phone doesn't work "everywhere." But it works where
> I am 99% of the time. Since I pay T-Mo $72/month for what would cost me
> $150 on Verizon, the real question, for me, is what is that last 1%
> worth to me in terms of cost? (And the answer to that, apparently, is
> "$2.50/month" since I activated an eBay phone on PagePlus as a glovebox
> backup just in case! So far I've used 0 minutes on it since activating
> it in November.)
>
>
>
I need my phone to work when I am out so it isn't worth it to me. There
are just too many places where tmobile lacks coverage as soon as you
leave the core city area or go away from the highway.