metro

MetroPCS, which has recently expanded its prepaid wireless service offering to several large cities throughout the U.S., has just lowered its unlimited monthly plan to $40 a month for voice, texting and Web access.

The new lowered prices ushers in a new era of competition in the prepaid market, which is heating up as Sprint Nextel announces this week its intent to buy Virgin Mobile USA for $483 million.

Regional prepaid cell phone carrier MetroPCS announced Wednesday a new plan that allows its customers to make unlimited international calls to over 100 different countries for only $5 extra a month.

To be eligible for the $5 unlimited international calling plan, users must already be signed up to an unlimited national calling plan that costs $40, $45, or $50 a month. Making international phone calls from a cell phone has typically been rather expensive with major carriers such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

For example, AT&T offers its WorldConnect service for $3.99 extra a month, … Read more

q&a Leap Wireless is finally in the right place at the right time.

The company, which sells its prepaid service under the Cricket and Jump Mobile brands, has been in the wireless service market since 1998, when it was spun off from mobile chipmaker Qualcomm. It filed for Chapter 11 protection in 2003 and was restructured and emerged from bankruptcy protection a year later.

Now the company is strategically expanding its network into 14 new markets with spectrum it won in two recent Federal Communications Commission auctions. It now operates in 29 states and holds licenses in 35 of the top 50 U.S. markets, including Chicago and Philadelphia, where it recently launched service, and in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, where it plans to launch soon.

And all of this happening as Americans are getting fed up with lengthy and expensive wireless contracts from national carriers, such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless. And as finances tighten, people are looking to reduce their monthly expenses by finding cheaper options for phone service. Prepaid service plans, which allow customers to pay in advance for service without signing a contract, provide a good alternative. Low-cost unlimited plans, from Leap and others, make it an easy choice even for wireless subscribers who talk and text a lot.

I recently chatted with Leap CEO Doug Hutcheson to get his take on the prepaid wireless market and get his thoughts on the future of the industry. Below is an edited version of our conversation.

Q: Prepaid cell phone plans are getting a lot of attention lately. Why do you think that is? Hutcheson: The prepaid cell phone market is in its third or fourth phase of development right now in the U.S. And it's at the same phase that the European market entered about five or six years ago. Prepaid really started to take off in Europe as wireless penetration started to reach 100 percent. And of course the economic realities of today are also a factor. For a number of people, prepaid wireless is the best value.

Do you think prepaid carriers, such as Leap Wireless, are in a position to threaten the nationwide incumbents, such as AT&T or Verizon Wireless? Hutcheson: I don't think we are a material threat to either AT&T or Verizon Wireless. They have built great, broad franchises with 80 million customers. What we are trying to do is focus on our customer base, which tends to be younger and more ethnically diverse with people at the median to below median household income level. We serve this market really well. And this is a customer base that others aren't as interested in serving or aren't able to focus on. These operators have their own prepaid products, but I think AT&T's primary focus is on selling iPhones and two-year contracts. And Verizon is focused on its 4G rollout and combining those services with its Fios fiber network.… Read more

Correction: Virgin Mobile began selling its $50 unlimited plan in April after the first quarter had ended.

Competition in the prepaid cell phone market is heating up, making it more difficult for companies, like Virgin Mobile USA, to hold onto subscribers in an increasingly crowded market.

Virgin Mobile USA, a longtime player in the prepaid cell phone market, reported Monday it had lost a total of 133,292 net customers during the quarter to end the period with 5.2 million subscribers. Even though subscribers were up 2.8 percent compared with last year, the company's losses during the … Read more

Ultimate Ears has been a familiar name to musicians and other audio professionals for a decade, but the company has gained quite a following with its consumer line as well. Earphones in its various lines range in affordability and scale nicely, from those geared toward casual but discerning listeners to sets for audiophiles. At the bottom end, you have the MetroFi line, which has recently enjoyed a refresh in the form of the 220 and 170 earphones, the former being the subject of this review.

The MetroFi 220 Noise Isolating Earphones are a step up from the bottom of the … Read more

Prepaid wireless providers are scooping up subscribers as cash strapped consumers downgrade to lower cost cell phone service.

First quarter earnings reports from MetroPCS Communications and Leap Wireless on Thursday provided further evidence that consumers are flocking toward no-contract, unlimited prepaid services. These carriers, which operate primarily in smaller urban areas, each reported they had nearly doubled their subscription rate compared to a year ago.

MetroPCS said its new subscriber additions increase 51 percent compared to the same quarter a year earlier. In total it added 684,000 new subscribers, bringing its customer base to 6 million. This was the … Read more

MetroPCS recently released the Samsung Tint, a simple clamshell with features like GPS, voice recognition, a camera (we're guessing VGA), text and multimedia messaging, e-mail, Bluetooth, and a speakerphone. It also supports MetroPCS's "push-to-talk social networking tool" called ChatLink.

The Tint comes with interchangeable faceplates as well, in case you want to jazz up the look of your phone. No word on pricing yet, but we'll check on that once the Tint goes live on MetroPCS' site.

(Via Engadget Mobile)

Motorola's texting phone Hint has made the journey from Alltel to regional budget carrier MetroPCS. The square slider offers a full QWERTY keyboard and a midrange feature set that includes stereo Bluetooth, USB connectivity with PC syncing, a music player, a microSD card slot, 140MB of internal memory, personal organizer options, support for 3G, a speakerphone, and a 2-megapixel camera.

Once an exclusive purveyor of basic phones with minimalist designs, MetroPCS has made its handset lineup a bit more interesting in recent months. First it introduced the Samsung Messager, another QWERTY messaging phone. Then last month it offered its … Read more