Future of Nationwide Unlimited plans (on & off network)

[WirelessBeachBum]

I was thinking today about where Wireless is eventually going...Unlimited Minutes. I think the possibilites within the next couple of years to see some major players come out with Nationwide Unlimited ON Network minutes are very good. (Unless some industry consolidation happens and lowers the number of competitors in each market.) (I know some carriers have Regional and local Unlimited plans, but no large carriers to my knowledge currently offer an Unlimited Plan on all of their network.)

The first carrier to have the guts to lay it ALL on the line and offer an Unlimited Nationwide ON Network plan at even a high price point (say $150-200 per month) is going to win all. (If they don't get slammed by investors, but most carriers are already bottomed out in stock prices anyway.) Imagine if a Sprint or Verizon could suddenly double or triple their ARPU. Of course capacity concerns would have to be dealt with, but double your ARPU and increase your customer base, you can then reroute allot of money toward your network. And with 3G networks that's not as big a deal as with the 2G systems.


I don't ever expect to see an Unlimited Nationwide OFF NETWORK (UNLIMITED Roaming plan) The carriers would need to look at where their customers are traveling now, and really have a very accurate "guess" of how much roaming they might incure, which is impossible once you give someone unlimited. Unfortunalty it probably is not going to happen, figure if a Roaming partner charges your customers 30 cents per minute. In a given month your customer could theoretically run up as much as 145k on just one phone if they used all of their time 24x7 calling off network. The only possiblities that might be forseable for this type of plan would be between really strong roaming partners such as Alltel and Verizon, they are already paying each other dirt cheap prices for roaming, so they could move in that direction.

[jmccrane]

Well, Cingular had the off-netowrk Nation plan with N/W mins for awhile...

But they had to stop it because they were losing money in roaming charges. Still, for anyone who got it it truly is the best nationwide plan in terms of coverage and value.

[roamer1]

Nextel has a national unlimited plan (again) -- $149/mo, unlimited incoming and outgoing calls (including free LD) and unlimited Direct Connect.

(I believe this plan is not yet available in Nextel Partners markets, just Nextel Communications markets.)

-SC

[WirelessBeachBum]

Didn't know about the Nextel unlimited plan, of course since they are just now getting into targeting consumers a little more, we'll see where they go with that.

[ComicalMoodyDan]

Nice, I just plugged in my zip code on Nextel's website and I see that the Unlmited Plan is avaible in my area. Seems like a pretty good deal to me if you travel a lot and use your phone frequently.

$149.99 a month

Unlimited Minutes
Unlimited Direct Connect
Unlimited Numeric Messaging
Long Distance
Voice Mail
Call Waiting
Caller ID
3- Way Calling

[roamer1]

Then it looks like the Partners markets -- the Tri-Cities is one -- are offering it too now... [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

(I just checked using zips in two other Partners markets and both showed the plan as available.)

-SC

[ILUVSOCAL]

Except for the fact Nextel phones won't work at all off their network, they don't have service in huge chunks of the west.