Sprint Nextel and Wal-Mart yesterday announced that they would offer a seven-cents-per-minute prepaid calling or text message plan. It's the latest move by one of the large wireless carriers into a
market that was once considered niche -- consumers who cannot afford or don't want contracts -- and it portends further price wars and a consolidation among smaller carriers, Niraj Sheth and Roger
Cheng report.
About 20% of Americans with a cell phone had a prepaid plan at the end of 2009, compared with 15% in 2007, according to trade group CTIA. TracFone is the largest U.S.
prepaid provider with 15.5 million customers; Sprint is No. 2 with about 11 million.
Some of the bigger players are in the game obliquely. AT&T offers a prepaid service under the
GoPhone moniker, and Verizon Wireless rents space on its network out to other companies such as TracFone. "It's not attractive for me to go after it with our brand and our stores but it is the other
way [through resellers]," says Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam.
advertisement
advertisement
Read the whole story at Wall Street Journal »