Minute Packs
I was in a VZW store and found something called "minute packs" or something to that effect. The plan was $40 for 400 min. with no long term committment and unlim. night and weekends, this plan looks alot like ATTWS Go Phone plans. They also have $60 for 750 min. with unlim. night and weekends. Has anyone else seen this plan and could someone give me more info on this? I live in the Houston/Galveston area if that helps. Any help is appriciated!
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Minute Packs are in fact very similar to what ATTWS marketed as GoPhone. VZW is testing the service a few major markets. Detroit and Chicago are among them.
Minute Packs meet a demand for something customers have wanted for a while: Prepaid service that offers postpaid features and prices.
Minute packs come with unlimited nights and weekends. But they don't have mobile-to-mobile. Not sure about text, pix, or Get It Now.
No credit check, no contract, no cancellation fee. Pay for your pack at the beginning of the month. Phone actually stops working during peak hours if you run out of minutes. But of course you can still dial 911. And the night and weekend minutes are still available.
Pay over the phone or in a store at the beginnin...
(continues)
Minute Packs meet a demand for something customers have wanted for a while: Prepaid service that offers postpaid features and prices.
Minute packs come with unlimited nights and weekends. But they don't have mobile-to-mobile. Not sure about text, pix, or Get It Now.
No credit check, no contract, no cancellation fee. Pay for your pack at the beginning of the month. Phone actually stops working during peak hours if you run out of minutes. But of course you can still dial 911. And the night and weekend minutes are still available.
Pay over the phone or in a store at the beginnin...
(continues)
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Sounds like a great idea. The traditional cellphone market in the US seems near saturation, so a lot of the future growth should be coming from prepay/pay-as-you-go. Analysts are saying that within three years, one in four US cellular customers will be prepay.
ATT GoPhone seems like a good way to go in prepay wireless, one of the few things I liked about them. VZW and other carriers would be wise to copy 'em on that.
ATT GoPhone seems like a good way to go in prepay wireless, one of the few things I liked about them. VZW and other carriers would be wise to copy 'em on that.
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No mobile-to-mobile, no Get It Now, and I'm pretty sure no text messaging either. It's definitely better than the other prepaid plans VZW has offered in the past.
The trick is going to be making it profitable. Prepaid churn (among all carriers) is supposedly pretty high, so I expect if you make the handsets expensive enough, people will not want to throw that kind of money into a drawer when they get bored with it...
I seem to remember seeing that the US has hit 50% saturation in terms of cell phones... I'm guessing the people who're left have either terrible credit or absolutely NO use for a cell phone...
The trick is going to be making it profitable. Prepaid churn (among all carriers) is supposedly pretty high, so I expect if you make the handsets expensive enough, people will not want to throw that kind of money into a drawer when they get bored with it...
I seem to remember seeing that the US has hit 50% saturation in terms of cell phones... I'm guessing the people who're left have either terrible credit or absolutely NO use for a cell phone...
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More like 60% saturation, which is still lots lower than in Europe or some places in Asia. But I don't think we'll ever be as much of a 'cell phone culture' as they are... geography in the US (i.e. large swaths of land with very low population) prevents some folks from finding cell phones all that useful, due to coverage and/or price issues. Plus there's some senior citizens who just plain don't understand or want the things.
But I think you hit the nail on the head in implying that bad credit/no credit customers are going to a big source of potential growth. Its gonna take a good prepay plan to get them, plus a lot of good targeted marketing. Thats why MVNOs are starting to take off, I think.
But I think you hit the nail on the head in implying that bad credit/no credit customers are going to a big source of potential growth. Its gonna take a good prepay plan to get them, plus a lot of good targeted marketing. Thats why MVNOs are starting to take off, I think.
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Heres a link if your interested
http://www.verizonwireless.com/pdfs/user_guides/Minu ... »
http://www.verizonwireless.com/pdfs/user_guides/Minu ... »
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Sounds exactly like US Cellular's prepaid plans to me. They've already had those exact same prepaid plans. $40 = 400 min, unl N & W, and so on. They do well with it, so Verizon is smart.
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TenuredVZWrep said:
Heres a link if your interested
http://www.verizonwireless.com/pdfs/user_guides/Minu ... »
That's pretty cool... its about time Verizon had an ATT GoPhone-like set of plans for all the bad credit/no credit ppl. VZw's regular prepay isn't that good a deal for anybody but very light users, due to that 25 cents-per-call 'connection fee'.
However, its kinda disappointing that $40 is the cheapest plan... GoPhone went down to $20. Presumably some of these bad credit/no credit ppl are rather poor... which would explain part of their bad credit/no credit, after all.
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Minute Packs:
Phone:
Any phone at the advertised 1yr pricing
Plans:
$40 - 400 Anytime | Unlim N&W | Long Distance
$60 - 750 Anytime | Unlim N&W | Long Distance
Coverage:
Standard Pay-As-You-Go Coverage
Additional Fees:
$35 Setup fee (same as if you did a 1yr contract)
Other stuff to know:
* You can setup automatic payment to purchase a new month when the time comes.
* ATTWS GoPhone and Cingular TakeCharge require automatic payment to be setup, this does not REQUIRE it.
* If you run out of anytime minutes prior to the month ending you have two options: purchase another "month" or use during free n&w until the end of the month.
How purchasing minutes mid-cycle works...
Jan 11th you purchase a Minute Packs package. ...
(continues)
Phone:
Any phone at the advertised 1yr pricing
Plans:
$40 - 400 Anytime | Unlim N&W | Long Distance
$60 - 750 Anytime | Unlim N&W | Long Distance
Coverage:
Standard Pay-As-You-Go Coverage
Additional Fees:
$35 Setup fee (same as if you did a 1yr contract)
Other stuff to know:
* You can setup automatic payment to purchase a new month when the time comes.
* ATTWS GoPhone and Cingular TakeCharge require automatic payment to be setup, this does not REQUIRE it.
* If you run out of anytime minutes prior to the month ending you have two options: purchase another "month" or use during free n&w until the end of the month.
How purchasing minutes mid-cycle works...
Jan 11th you purchase a Minute Packs package. ...
(continues)
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mycool said:
Jan 11th you purchase a Minute Packs package. You're cycle in turn is on the 10th of every month (that's when it ends). If you ran out of minutes and purchased another month Jan 20th then you have another 400/750 until Feb 10th. If you purchase another month Feb 11th then unused minutes from the mid-month purchase continue over. Normally minutes do not roll over, only mid-month purchased minutes.
This sounds very similar to the way a GoPhone works. You're basically "forced" to setup recurring payment if you don't want to lose any of your minutes/money. So really you're almost better off with a postpaid account. (if you can get one and don't mind the contract of course)
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