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Wireless Federation » archive for 'PAYG'

Virgin Mobile’s ARPU falls to $20.19 in Q3′08 (USA)

  • November 11th, 2008
  • 5:54 am

Virgin Mobile USA, posts its net earning in Q3′08, where its profits rose, in contrast with the economy crisis, driven by Helio’s acquisition.
“These results clearly demonstrate that we’ve done quite a good job in making the Helio customers immediately profitable,” says CEO Dan Schulman.
“We’re at the beginning of what could be a deep and long recessionary period and so I think it would be quite optimistic to think we’re coming out of this at the end of 2009. I think that has the potential to go on 18 to 24 months, or longer, before we see a rebound,” he said.
According to Schulman the economic crisis had made this prepaid or pay-as-you go wireless service specialist more attractive and its tariffs more lucrative making it earn net profit of $4.1 million in Q3.
Total operating revenue rose to $323.2 million, rising from $319.5 million since last year and the ARPU in the Q3 saw a downfall of 2% from a year earlier to $20.19.

   

Qtel slashes Hala’s calling charges (Qatar)

  • November 10th, 2008
  • 6:23 am

Qtel’s calling charges for Hala prepaid service are slashed as part of a massive overhaul. Subscribers of the PAYG system will benefit “immediately”, from today.
Since the launch of Hala service 2000, call charges are reduced drastically with the introduction of new services. Qtel in order to face competition with Vodafone Qatar, launch due in 2009, has been introducing a wave of promotions and special packages.

Looking at the level of competition in the country, introduction of new packages and services, when a new operator is yet to be launched next year,  there can a face a price war in near future.

   

Virgin offers free text during weekends with ‘Top Up & Get’ (UK)

  • October 17th, 2008
  • 5:25 am

Virgin Mobile launches a new prepaid package to facilitate it’s PAYG subscribers with unlimited weekend texts when they top up during the week. ‘Top Up & Get’ allows the subscribers who top up £10 between Monday and Friday, can send free unlimited texts to anynetwork during the weekend. The subscribers who top up for £10 credit will recieve a text from Vrigin Mobile making them eligible for free texts during the weekend.

Graeme Oxby, managing director of Virgin Mobile says ‘The Top Up & Get promotion is an offer that not only rewards existing PAYG customers for their loyalty, but is one that both new and old PAYG customers will find the simplest to pick up when compared to other similar offers on the market.’

   

Call at 10 cents/pm with Boost Mobile (USA)

  • October 10th, 2008
  • 8:53 am

Boost Mobile instigates a new low flat rate of 10 cents per minute for all calls, no matter what time of day, for its Pay As You Go Basic Plan. They are looking forward to serve prepaid customers with simple and affordable pricing. Boost Mobile subscribers with Pay As You Go service have the liberty to pay by the minute without any long-term commitments. Moreover this plan gives benefit to customers to have  unlimited Nationwide Boost(R) Walkie-Talkie for just $1/day. The subscribers of Boost Mobile can pay the minute, day and month. As with all Boost Mobile Pay As You Go handsets, there are no credit checks, hidden charges or monthly bills. Boost Mobile pay as you go customers decide how to pay for minutes only as they need them through the purchase of Re-Boost(R) Cards. “No traveling charges, no long distance charges and no peak/off-peak per minute pricing, it’s simple to understand and a great value,” said, Neil Lindsay, Vice President of Marketing, Boost Mobile.

Tesco Mobile launches monthly payment service and PAYG tariff (UK)

  • October 7th, 2008
  • 7:27 am

Tesco Mobile UK launches two new services, one being it’s first ever pay monthly service and the second is the new flat rate PAYG tariff. Tesco’s both the tariffs offer the subscribers with same flat rates for calls and SMS, half charged calls and SMS to five favourite numbers and 3 Clubcard points for every £1 spent on credit.
The prices are 10p calls to 5 favourite numbers, 5p texts to 5 favourite numbers, 20p calls to other UK mobiles and landlines and 10p texts to other UK mobiles.
In the contract tariff, a one monthly pay contract, subscriber who pays £15/month will receive a bonus of £45, giving them a total of £60 credit. Whereas, a £25 per month contract will give users £100 worth of flexible credit.
With the PAYG service, a subscriber spending £15 a month on top-up, will receive a bonus of £30 free airtime, giving them a total of £45 in credit to spend as they choose.

   

RCOM launches BlackBerry prepaid service for both GSM and CDMA subscribers (India)

  • September 17th, 2008
  • 8:01 am

Reliance Communication, RCOM, India, launches the nation’s first BlackBerry services both on GSM and CDMA network. According to RCOM, the BlackBerry reach will extend to over 200 million prepaid subscribers in India.
So far the BlackBerry smartphones were available with Vodafone and Bharti’s post paid connections.
The telco introduces two tariff plans for the BlackBerry smartphone - Plan Rs 1,299 and Plan Rs 1,599, in which, Reliance to Reliance mobile local and intra-circle calls are free.
In Plan 1,299 call charges range from 49 paise to 99 paise for local and STD calls from Rcom to other networks. The international calls range from Rs 6.90 a minute to Rs 40 a minute depending on the country.
RCOM introduces first ‘pay as you use’ tariff model India, a strategy for expansion of BlackBerry services for cost - effective subscribers.
“We recognise the needs of customers and believe a prepaid option enabled by Reliance Communications will significantly broaden the consumer interest in BlackBerry smartphones and expand our business opportunity,” Reliance Communications President, Mobile Data and Content Services, Mahesh Prasad said.
The handsets available for the prepaid service are: BlackBerry 8830 World Edition smartphone operates on both CDMA & GSM networks, The BlackBerry Curve 8330 smartphone on CDMA networks, The BlackBerry Curve 8300 smartphone on GSM networks and Blackberry Pearl smartphone for both GSM and CDMA network.

   

Virgin Mobile launches it’s first 3G handset, the Shuttle (USA)

  • September 11th, 2008
  • 5:28 am

Virgin Mobile, USA, announces the launch of it’s first ever 3G handset named, the Shuttle. The device will be available at the Best Buy Mobile stores and website from September 28. The jandset is priced at $79.99, and that price includes a Totally Unlimited voice plan.

Key Features:

  • Support for EV-DO data connectivity
  • 1.3MP camera with video recording
  • 2-inch display
  • Ability to stream multimedia from the Web
  • microSD slot
  • 235 minutes of talk time and almost 2-weeks of standby
  • Pay-as-you-go: $5 - 5MB of data and grants you the ability to surf the Web ; Pay $10 & $20 get 20MB & 50MB, repsectively and have unlimited access to Virgin mobile USA’s mobile Web content

   

O2 gives best offers for iPhone 3G PAYG service (UK)

  • September 4th, 2008
  • 12:14 pm

O2 is in an out of the box situation as it launches iPhone 3G on PAYG from 16 September.
The iPhone will cost 350 for the 8GB version and £400 for 16GB.
The price of the 16GB device on eBay, an online shopping site, is around £560, and O2’s price is approximately £80 cheaper than the recent trading prices, which were around £430 for 8GB and £480 for 16GB.
O2 has promised 12 months of free internet browsing over 3G, free Wi-Fi etc.
A spokeswoman for O2 said: ‘We will monitor the situation regarding box breaking very carefully and take appropriate action against any breaches of our code of conduct in this area.’

   

O2 announces the PAYG package for the iPhone 3G (UK)

  • September 2nd, 2008
  • 12:13 pm

O2 announces the pay - as - you - go iPhone 3G version which will be available to the customers from 16 September.
Within a few weeks, iPhone 3G’s 8GB version will cost the customer £349.99 and the 16GB just £50 more at £399.99.
“We wanted to make it available to as many people in the market as possible and that’s why we’ve opened it up to offer it on pre-pay,” an O2 spokesperson said.
Both the version will include unlimited browsing and Wi-Fi access for the first 12 months of ownership. After the expiry of the one year deal, customers will be able to continue enjoying the unlimited surfing package for just £10 a month.
o2 will also give it’s customers bonus goodies on the PAYG offer which will be, free texts and minutes up for grabs too. “You’ll be able to choose one of our standard Pay & Go tariffs to use with your iPhone 3G. The more you top-up each month, the more free minutes or texts you’ll receive,” the O2 site states.
The only flaw in this package is the the subscribers won’t be able to to take advantage of visual voicemail and call merging functionality.