prepaid

Facing greater expenses, the wireless industry is trying to drum up profits by relying more on such services as prepaid and mobile broadband, says a report out today from PwC.

Surveying wireless carriers in the U.S. and Canada last year, PwC found a variety of challenges to their profitability.

Rising smartphone subsidies have forced providers to pay more up front for the privilege of carrying certain smartphones. Though obviously popular, the iPhone requires carriers to pay a huge subsidy, crimping per user profit.

And though providers have been pushing smartphones to their customers, the resulting rise in data usage … Read more

Cricket has signed on to use Clearwire's forthcoming 4G LTE network to augment its own next-generation deployment.

Cricket, owned by parent Leap Wireless, and Clearwire said today that they have signed a five-year wholesale deal. While Cricket is building a 4G LTE network across two-thirds of its own territory over the next three years, it will need Clearwire's wider reach and ability to relieve its own traffic load.

Clearwire is in a strong position as the only wholesale partner left in town after the implosion of LightSquared. Clearwire secured financing from Sprint Nextel--its largest customer and investor--and has … Read more

Virgin Mobile has begun taking preorders for its next smartphone, the Gingerbread-powered PCD Venture.

The Venture is an affordable option for customers looking to scoop up their first Android device; it features a 2.8-inch display, a 600MHz processor, 512MB of RAM, and microSD expansion slot (for cards up to a 2GB). Taking a peek at the user manual reveals that the internal storage is 512MB and the digital camera 2 megapixels. While seasoned users might not get excited over the hardware, I suspect that both will matter little to the target user base.

Additional details for the Venture include … Read more

Android smartphones aren't as abundant off-contract as they are with a two-year agreement, so it's always nice to see new handsets emerge for the prepaid market.

The 3G AT&T Fusion, available now, has a 3.5-inch HVGA touch screen; Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, and GPS support; and a 5-megapixel camera. It also has e-mail, text messaging, and instant messaging, of course, and all the apps you can get from the Android Market.

The phone costs $124.99.

Heading to Europe and wondering how you can avoid coming home to a wireless bill as big as your mortgage payment?

In this edition of Ask Maggie I offer some advice about using a smartphone abroad to a reader traveling to Spain next week for the Mobile World Congress trade show. Getting a local SIM card to pop into an unlocked GSM phone is likely the cheapest option. But if used carefully, subscribers don't have to sacrifice their kids' college funds to pay for a U.S. wireless plan with international roaming. Ask Maggie shows you how. Also in … Read more

Google has patched a hole in Google Wallet that could've allowed someone to access a user's funds simply by resetting the PIN and using a prepaid card.

The company said yesterday it has issued a fix that now prevents a prepaid card from being re-provisioned to another person. It has also restored the ability to issue new prepaid cards following a move on Monday to disable the use of such cards.

Osama Bedier, vice president of Google Wallet and Payments, said that he wasn't aware of any actual incidents of people abusing the prepaid cards or Wallet … Read more

Google has put the brakes on the use of its prepaid cards for Google Wallet after two hacks were discovered that could steal money from a user's account.

Osama Bedier, vice president for Google Wallet and Payments, wrote in a blog on Saturday that the company is taking this action temporarily until it can make a more long-term correction.

"To address an issue that could have allowed unauthorized use of an existing prepaid card balance if someone recovered a lost phone without a screen lock, tonight we temporarily disabled provisioning of prepaid cards," Bedier explained. "We … Read more

Sprint Nextel saw its biggest surge in new customers in six years thanks to the iPhone, but that growth came at a hefty price.

Still, Sprint reported a loss of $1.3 billion, or 43 cents a share, on revenue of $8.72 billion in the fourth quarter. That compares with a loss of $929 million, or 31 cents a share, on revenue of $8.3 billion in the year-ago quarter.

The Q4 results included a loss of $241 million, or 8 cents a share, due to one-time costs related to asset charges on property, plant, equipment, as well as … Read more

Swapping out your SIM card on your iPhone 4S when you travel abroad is a good way to avoid expensive roaming charges. But whether you can do it, and on which carrier it's allowed, can be confusing.

In this edition of Ask Maggie I answer what should be a simple and straight-forward question about whether a Verizon Wireless iPhone 4S can be used overseas on a foreign carrier's network. I also offer some advice to another reader looking for voice-only service with a smartphone on T-Mobile's prepaid plans.

Confusion around unlocked iPhones

Hi Maggie, I love your … Read more