Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote in
news:hLXgj.50$R22.35@fe099.usenetserver.com:

> At 08 Jan 2008 17:53:26 -0600 clifto wrote:
>> Joel Koltner wrote:
>> > The pay-as-you-go phones tend to make significantly more money on a
> "per
>> > minute of usage" basis than "regular" (contract) phones, so the
> marketing idea
>> > there is that it doesn't take nearly as long for the manufacturer
>> > to re-
> coop
>> > the "discount" they gave you on the phone, so even if you lose or
>> > throw
> away
>> > or otherwise stop using the phone (and go get another one for $50)
> there's a
>> > decent chance they'll have already made some money off of you
>> > overall.
>>
>> That's hard for me to see, considering T-Mobile wants $30 for 300
>> minutes post-pay (use 'em or lose 'em in a month), vs. $100 for 1,000
>> minutes pre-pay (use 'em any time in a year).
>
>
> But you cherry-picked the most expensive (per minute) rate plan for
> your comparison, not to mention the $30/300 minute plan includes free
> weekends. T-Mo offers 1000 minutes for $40- a more attractive plan for
> heavy users- a 700 min./month postpaid user, for example, pays
> $40/month instead of $70 on prepaid.
>
> Having said that, unlike most carriers who seem to offer prepaid as a
> "last resort" for credit-challenged consumers, and at a price designed
> not to cannibalize their bread-n-butter postpaid biz, T-Mo
> aggressively pursues the pre-paid market, seeming to assume that
> anyone their prepaid offering lures from pstpaid is likely a high
> enough volume user that it'll be worth it. That seems to work for
> them, considering that their prepaid ARPU is (relatively) high, and
> their total ARPU is also relatively high considering their high
> percentage of prepaid customers compared to other carriers.
>
>
>
>

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't T-Mo prepaid only work on their
network, while postpaid does roam? That would seem to make the comparison
apples-to-oranges.