MetroPCS drops plan pricing, adds features

MetroPCS will shortly be updating their website to reflect a $5 per month drop in rates for their $45 and $50 plans. The now-$45 plan gets social networking, navigation and e-mail, whereas the $40 plan now includes unlimited local, long distance, text messaging and web access. Our information page on MetroPCS will be updated as soon as the company’s website is.

Read more at CNet

Showdown of pay-as-you-go providers Boost and Cricket

With a slate of new stores, aggressive marketing campaigns and even a celebrity endorsement, fast-growing pay-as-you-go mobile phone providers Boost and Cricket are going head-to-head to snap up customers in the Baltimore area.

Boost Mobile opened its first exclusive retail store on East Monument Street last week, joining competitor Cricket, which started offering cellular service in the Baltimore-Washington region through its stores at the end of June. Both companies also have networks of independent dealers that sell phones and minutes.

“The Baltimore market has always been one of our key markets,” said Traci Jovanoic, Boost Mobile director of indirect sales. “It has been in our top 10 for locations.”

One of the bright spots in the telecom industry has been the no contract phone service providers like Boost, a subsidiary of Sprint Nextel Corp., and Cricket, owned by publicly traded Leap Wireless Inc. The companies’ marketing strategy is to charge one monthly fee for unlimited calling and texting, or a la carte options to build customized plans.

Read more at The Daily Record

Ready Mobile Offers Three- and Seven-Day Wireless Plans

Near a Town and Country or Stripes store? They are now stocking Ready Mobile PCS refills in three-day and seven-day denominations. Both refills provide unlimited voice and texting and cost $9.99 and $19.99, respectively. That works out to $3.33 per day (or $99.90 per month) for the three-day card, or about $2.86 per day ($85.68 per month) for the seven-day refill.

Ready Mobile PCS’s new rates aren’t the most competitive out there, with Tracfone’s Straight Talk service weighing in at a mere $45 per month on Verizon’s network, but the rates are better than contract customers are paying on AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon. Plus, if you like Sprint’s netowrk but don’t want to budget for a whole month of serice, Ready Mobile PCS fits the bill nicely with their new refills.

If you want a little more info, the press release detailing the new plans is here.

Straight Talk Goes Unlimited for $45

The sound you just heard was the gauntlet being slammed down in the wireless industry. Tracfone’s Straight Talk brand, based like Page Plus Cellular on Verizon’s nationwide network, just launched an unlimited talk-and-text offering to augment its previous single-plan lineup. The price: a rather impressive $45.

The $45 price point is impressive because it undercuts all other prepaid unlimited offerings, and in some cases even those of unlimited-only providers like MetroPCS and CricKet. The Straight Talk plan includes unlimited voice, text and directory assistance, with 30MB of data access thrown in for web browsing and picture messaging.

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MetroPCS Launches $5 Unlimited International Calling

MetroPCS recently added flat-rate international calling to their stable of additional features available with their unlimited service plans. The cost: $5 per month.

Though their site doesn’t show a direct table as to which destinations are included in the unlimited plan, MetroPCS does include a tool to check whether a given phone unmber would be included in the plan. They also state that the destinations covered number over one thousand, in more than one hundred countries.

The unlimited direct-dial international calling feature (no 800 numbers or PINs to remember) is even available when using coverage provided by MetroPCS partner carriers, which include, among other providers, CricKet.

With features like this one and phones like the Samsung Finesse coming to MetroPCS, they’re more and more becoming a solid alternative to contract-based carriers on a feature, as well as a price, basis.