Who will be the first Nationwide Carrier to offer Unlimited Airtime?

[WirelessBeachBum]

6-7 years ago many larger carriers offered unlimited price plans in the $200+ dollar price range...Alltel (Centel Cellular>Sprint>360>Alltel) and United States Cellular (US Cellular...what a big name change by the way.)

In order to offer unlimited airtime plans today (SEE Cricket, Hargray Wireless, Nebraska Wireless...etc) a carrier has to have:

1.)Have great network capacity, not only on their cell sites (over the air) but also most importantly on the trunks connecting those sites with the switch, and with the trunks connecting their switch to the wireline network.

2.) The willingness to see any rate plans above their chosen unlimited price point disappear, For example when Hargray Wireless launched its $50.00 per month rate plan they ended up moving most customers above that price point down to $50.00, however they also moved the bulk of their customers below that price plan ($20.00 per month average) up to the $50 level.

3.) The nerve to roll out that type of rate...and risk everything...

Which Nationwide carrier will have the ability/nerve to launch an Unlimited Plan?

Could it be Sprint PCS with their Added network Capacity with 1xrtt?
Alltel? They have done it before in limited select markets, to compete....
T-Mode/Voice Stream?...Not much difference between 3000 minutes (50 hours per month) for 50.00 and Unlimited.....
US Cellular?...most of their markets are rural markets, and their profits depend allot on Roaming revenue...but they are very proactive on rates......
Verizon, big roaming agreements in recent history with Alltel....
Cingular?

[ComicalMoodyDan]

SunCom (Triton PCS) already has a unlimited plan. I'm not sure about the details and they do NOT sell it online it's only avaible at select authorized resellar's and maybe at the main SunCom building.

Unfortunely I don't have details on the plan, I'm not even sure of the price but I think it's $79 a month. I know I saw it one time though not too long ago at a resellar in the mall. I believe this plan is still offered.

[Kenny]

Hey Beachbum, are you currently still using Hargray Wireless? How are they doing these days?
Just wondering cause a while back I had setup a couple of servers for them. At that time, Tellabs was doing some contract work for them setting up some switches -- when I finished what I was doing they were still in the process of setting up a new site (Tellabs switches and fiber optics run).

Yeah I was just curious to know...nice bunch of guys there that really knew their ____ about telecommunication engineering. Also, they took me to Beaufort -- a very nice little town with a typical old southern look and feel. A great place to take sit back and slow down the pace in life by enjoying a nice lunch/dinner on the patio overlooking the water/lake.

[WirelessBeachBum]

Kenny, Yes, I'm still using Hargray Wireless (until I start my new job with a different carrier), Sounds like you did some work for the CLEC/Wireless division...I was the Sales Manager of their CLEC/Wireless division until I resigned three months ago. I would usually eat lunch on the waterfront just about every day (that is when I had time to eat lunch), very nice market to work in, laid back is a good description...except for all of the wireless competition.

[ComicalMoodyDan]

Sounds like a nice place to take a vacation [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

I could use one of those myself. By the way when are you going to start working for the new carrier and which one?

[ComicalMoodyDan]

Ok, well I just found out today about SunCom's unlimited plans. Apparently they have 2 I will list the details below.

SunCom Keep Talking Plan:

$49 a month Unlimited Minutes phone only works on the SunCom (Triton PCS) Network.
Nationwide Long Distance: 7 cents a minute.
VoiceMail/Caller ID/3-Way Calling/Text Messaging/Detailed Billing/Call Waiting: $4 a month for each feature.
Enhanced VoiceMail: $6 a month.


SunCom Unlimited Plan:

$79 a month Unlimited Minutes with long distance included to Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee on all calls from the SunCom (Triton PCS) Network.
Long Distance to all other states is 10 cents a minute, roaming is avaible on this plan for 50 cents a minute when off the SunCom network.
Enhanced VoiceMail, Caller ID, and Text Messanging as well as long distance to a 5 state area are included.
Call Waiting/3-Way Calling: $4 a month.

[coalminer]

I think that sometime in the future every carrier will offer some kind of unlimited service plans. Now will those plans include long distance and roaming? I would say no, but hey you never know. The question is how much would someone pay for an unlimited nationwide plan? If there was such a plan that was around $100 a month, I would go for it. Think of all the paper that would save, not having to have detailed bills with every call. Hmmm, and no customers calling because there are calls they dont remember making.

Right now I use the unlimited service provider here in Clevland, Northcoast PCS, and their coverage is very good in the areas that they cover, and they are still working to improve coverage. They own licenses to serve every county in Ohio, now if there were to build out the entire state, and were to offer the entire state for one flat rate, who could compete with that? They also started to offer pre-paid long distance for 5 cents a minute, which was a big improvement.

Just throwing my 2 cents worth in.......

[Jack]

Alltel offered a unlimited service

Nextel offered a unlimited about 2yrs ago for $99.99 which was a good deal. I wish they still had it

coalminer: Northcoase PCS was supposed to have all of ohio covered by 2002. (Will never happen)

Jack

[coalminer]

Yes, Alltel does offer an unlimited plan for 69.99 and they are advertising it alot lately, but it is only a local plan.

Now that you mention it, I do remember Nextel offering that plan, but they didnt offer it for long.

As for Northcoast, I know that right now they are concentrating on New York City, so maybe after that, they will be back to building out in Ohio, they have numbers reserved for them in Columbus, but they are still not active. They must be not far away from launching in New York, their numbers that they have reserved for them play a Northcoast recording if you call them. Why dont you think that they will have service in all of Ohio?

[Jack]

with nextel though I think that the unlimited was ONLY for the 1st year of a 2 yr contract.

Northcoast said that they would have ALL of ohio serviced by the beginning of 2002 (never happened). I agree that they are expanding there coverage but there are some areas in the cleveland region where there is still NO service for a Northcoast pcs phone. There are some gaps in Medina County that there should not be.

Jack

[coalminer]

I have not been in Medina for a while, but I remember on the website there were a few new sites that were going to be in that area. I do remember seeing that they are starting to give out numbers that are local to Medina, might have to take a ride out that way to see how it is. I live in Elyria so I am at the west end of the coverage, I go any further west and I dont get anything.

Last weekend I was traveling to Conneaut way up in Astabula county, and I was surprised that there was service on 90 for the most part good all the way until about 5 miles before the Conneaut exit. That is way off of their coverage map.

I think after they get New York out of the way, they will concentrate on Columbus, but who knows.

Nextel and Sprint pcs are in good position to do it, they don`t have to pay roaming charges to other carriers..

First Cellular of Southern Illinois offers unlimited for $39.99/month. It used to be $34.99/month when it first came out for the first year.

You get:
unlimited incoming minutes
unlimited outgoing minutes...coverage area is the 24 counties in southern illinois, otherwise
long distance is .09/minute
free caller id
voice mail is extra $1.99/month

It's nice to have. :-)

I think most of the small, local wireless players are offering the unlimited just to compete with the big boys. plus most of these small carriers have better coverage locally since they don't have to concentrate their resources across the country to keep up with deman.