prepaid

T-Mobile-compatible phones coming to MetroPCS stores

T-Mobile will begin selling phones compatible with its network at MetroPCS stores later this quarter, according to T-Mobile Chief Marketing Officer Mike Sievert.

The goal is to sell only T-Mobile-compatible phones at MetroPCS stores by the end of the year. The move will help accelerate the migration of customers from the MetroPCS network to that of T-Mobile, Sievert told CNET on Wednesday.

T-Mobile was reborn today, appearing for the first time under the ticker TMUS as an independent and U.S.-based publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. This follows the company's merger with MetroPCS. The … Read more

Verizon unveils $35 prepaid mobile phone plan

Verizon has kicked off a new prepaid plan to lure in feature phone buyers.

Launched yesterday, the new no-contract plan costs $35 a month and offers 500 anytime minutes of talk as well as unlimited text and Internet. Tipping over the 500 monthly minutes will ring up an extra 25 cents per minute.

The deal is geared strictly toward feature phones, so smartphone owners need not apply.

Verizon offers four feature phones along with the plan -- the LG Cosmos 2, the Samsung Gusto 2, the Samsung Intensity 3, and the LG Extravert. All four phones are heavily discounted when … Read more

Virgin Mobile fires salvo at T-Mobile, offers $100 to switch

Virgin Mobile wants consumers to know that it's a major player in the no-contract wireless game too, and isn't afraid to spend a little money to show it.

Virgin set its sights directly on T-Mobile, offering $100 to T-Mobile customers willing to switch their number over and buy a smartphone before May 31.

Carriers will often provide incentives to switch, but rarely do they target a specific company. T-Mobile has made a lot of noise about its move to abolish contracts and subsidies, and Virgin Mobile, a business built on prepaid service and a unit of Sprint Nextel, … Read more

T-Mobile undercuts Apple with iPhone prices

T-Mobile's new service plans mark a huge change for wireless carriers. In addition to ditching contracts, the nation's fourth largest wireless provider also has dropped handset subsidies completely. So now, when you buy a new phone from T-Mobile, you'll pay much more for your device than you did when you signed two years of your life away. You have the option of paying the full cost at the time of purchase, or paying a deposit with monthly installments, but the phone's price is the same either way. And, of course, you won't be tied to … Read more

Prepaid or postpaid?: The fight for your cell phone dollars (Smartphones Unlocked)

This article originally published 11/11/2012 and was updated most recently on 3/25/2013.

Now that T-Mobile has smashed into the center of the no-contract wireless game, the tussle for your business between the contract and no-contract carrier model is even more urgent.

There's no question that the prepaid model is designed to save you money over a two-year contract agreement, but how much do you really gain by going prepaid, and what might you lose from the subscriber experience?

For the sake of comparison, I'm going to break down the cost of ownership over a … Read more

Get more out of your old Sprint phone

Sprint today announced a new initiative that allows customers to activate old Sprint-branded handsets on a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO).

Sprint says that the program, called Bring Your Own Sprint Device, aims to cut down on the volume of cell phones being thrown away or improperly disposed of each year. Customers, of course, benefit by not having to pay the full retail price for a new handset.

Some MVNO partners, such as EcoMobile, already offer a similar reprogramming service in the past. With today's announcement, Sprint is giving a more broad stamp of approval.

There are a number … Read more

iPhone sales at Leap Wireless are half of what was forecast

Leap Wireless, which operates Cricket Wireless, told the Wall Street Journal that it's sluggishly behind in its prepaid iPhone sales. In fact, by the time the carrier completes its yearlong contract with Apple in June, it will most likely have sold only half of the iPhones it committed to sell.

This is bad news for both Leap and Apple. For Leap, the company will be in the hole for around $100 million worth of unsold iPhones, according to the Wall Street Journal; and it doesn't bode well for Apple either, as the company partners with prepaid carriers in … Read more

Boost, Virgin Mobile get first LTE smartphones

Sprint subsidiaries Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile finally joined the LTE wave today by acquiring their first devices compatible with Sprint's growing network. Though both carriers carry WiMax handsets, Sprint began phasing out that network in favor of LTE last year.

Virgin's Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE is another member of the company's ever-expanding Galaxy family. Its feature set shows that Virgin continues to up the ante on its smartphone lineup.

Running on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, it has a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, a 5-megapixel camera with HD video capture, a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, … Read more

Solavei offers unlimited, no-contract phone service for $49 per month

It costs me around $80 per month to operate my iPhone 4S, which will soon be out of contract.

When that joyous day comes, I will very likely ditch AT&T in favor of something like Solavei, one of a growing number of companies offering cheaper, no-contract mobile service.

Specifically, Solavei gives you unlimited voice, text, and 4G data for $49 per month. OK, there's an asterisk next to "unlimited": the 4G data bounty ends at 4GB, after which Solavei throttles you back to 2G-level service. More on that in a bit.

Unlike Walmart's AT&… Read more