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Virgin Mobile USA has entered the prepaid iPhone world just a few days after Cricket announced a similar arrangement with Apple. Virgin's plan is different from Cricket's in two ways. The phones cost more, but the monthly prepaid rates are lower.
With Virgin Mobile, which is a subsidiary of Sprint and uses Sprint's CDMA network, the 16GB iPhone 4S costs $649, which is the same as a contract-free, unlocked GSM phone purchased from Apple. The two major GSM carriers in the United States are AT&T and T-Mobile. Virgin is also offering an 8GB iPhone 4 for $549. Apple sells an unlocked GSM iPhone 4 for the same price. Apple will also sell you an unlocked iPhone 3GS for $375.
Virgin's edge in the prepaid phone space is that its monthly rates are lower than Cricket's. All of Virgin's plans include unlimited data, although that data will be throttled after 3.5GB. Virgin Mobile's least expensive plan gives you 300 voice minutes for $30 per month. An unlimited voice and data plan costs $50 per month. Cricket sells its unlimited voice and data plan for $55 per month.
As enticing as these plans may sound, they're not as new as they seem. Apple customers have been able to buy the unlocked GSM phones online or at Apple stores for quite a while, and they've been able to get similar rates from T-Mobile, which has been pushing prepaid phones and plans recently, and from AT&T, which has had prepaid plans for years. For example, T-Mobile will give you unlimited voice and data also for $50 per month, although the data will be throttled after 100MB to less than 4G speeds. Since the iPhone doesn't do 4G, that may not matter.
AT&T also has a $50 unlimited voice and data plan. But for smartphones, there's a surcharge for data ranging from $5 to $25 depending on the amount of data. AT&T also has a $25 limited voice and data plan, and it offers plans by the day or by the minute.
What this really means is that the CDMA world, except for Verizon Wireless, has now joined the GSM world in the ability to have a prepaid iPhone. The biggest difference is that you can use the GSM iPhone anywhere in the world simply by buying a local SIM from a phone store. CDMA doesn't work everywhere.
Bangladesh telecom users to see 2 percent tax on mobile phone bills - telecomlead.com
Mobile Phone
Telecom Lead Asia: Bangladesh is planning to impose 2 percent tax on mobile phone bills.
"The tax on mobile-phone bills will further punish the
mobile industry," said Abu Saeed Khan, secretary general of the Association of
Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh.
Bangladesh had almost 91 million mobile subscribers at
the end of April, according to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory
Authority.
Top 5 telecom operators in Bangladesh in 2011
The total number of mobile phone active subscribers in Bangladesh has reached 85.45 million at the end of December 2011.
The Telenor Group owned Grameen Phone is leading the mobile market with 36.49 million mobile users, while the second largest player is Banglalink with 23.75 million users.
Robi Axiata has 16.13 million users. Airtel Bangladesh has 6.02 million users. Citycell and Teletalk have 1.82 million and 1.21 million users, respectively.
Marketresearch.com forecasts 158.94 million subscribers in Bangladesh telecom market at the end of 2016, with a penetration rate of 99.2 percent.
It forecasts 9.71 million internet users and 4.72 million
broadband (fixed and mobile) subscribers in Bangladesh at the end of
2016.
The Bangladeshi telecoms industry has been a significant
revenue contributor to the government's coffers through initiatives such as
revenue-sharing and the social obligation fund. However, recent decisions by
the government suggest it is trying to squeeze more out of the operators,
especially considering that many firms are backed by major international
telecoms firms.
Virgin Mobile gets iPhone for $549 - Nashville Tennessean
NEW YORK — Virgin Mobile USA, one of Sprints brands for prepaid, no-contract phone service, said Thursday it will start selling the iPhone on June 29, charging $549 for a basic model.
The high price of the phone comes with an upside: service will start at $30 per month.
That means the phone, plus two years of service, will cost $1,269, excluding taxes. Thats nearly $800 less than a subscriber would pay for the same phone, an iPhone 4 with 8 gigabytes of memory, if buying it under the Sprint Nextel Corp. brand. Sprint charges $100 for the phone and $80 per month for service, excluding taxes.
The iPhone has until recently been restricted to contract-based plans. Now, the floodgates appear open for the phone to enter the prepaid, no-contract market, which is aimed at people with low incomes and poor credit. However, the high initial cost of the phone is likely to be an obstacle. Virgin Mobile sells other smartphones for as little as $80.
Last week, Leap Wireless International Inc., the parent of the Cricket prepaid service, said it would start selling the phone on June 22, starting at $400 and $55 per month. Leaps CEO said the phone would likely account for about 10 percent of the phones it sells over the next few years.
For Apple Inc., the maker of the phone, expanding sales to the no-contract segment means a chance to reach buyers who dont have the credit for contract-based plans, or dont want to be tied down with contracts. The number of people on contract-based plans has plateaued, and actually contracted for the first time in the first quarter of this year. Meanwhile, the number of people on no-contract plans is still growing.
In addition to the iPhone 4, Virgin Mobile USA will sell the iPhone 4S, the model launched last year, for $649 with 16 gigabytes of memory.
Virgin Mobiles cheapest plan cost $35 per month, with a $5 discount possible for buyers who set up automatic monthly payment with a credit card, debit card or PayPal account. It provides 300 minutes of calling per month and unlimited texting. Data usage is also unlimited, but is slowed drastically after the customer has used 2.5 gigabytes since the start of the billing cycle.
Virgin Mobile just introduced its first 4G phone, the $300 HTC Evo V 4G, which can use Clearwire Corp.s data network in addition to Sprints. The iPhone, on the other hand, is limited to Sprints 3G, or third-generation network, which is slower than those of the big iPhone sellers: AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless.
Sprint started selling the iPhone last fall, after its two bigger competitors. Sprint said the iPhones it buys from Apple for Virgin Mobile will count toward its commitment to buy $15.5 billion worth of phones over three years.
MARKET CLOSE: NZ shares fall; Telecom departs NYSE - Scoop
MARKET CLOSE: NZ shares fall; Telecom departs NYSE, Steel & Tube gains
June 8 (BusinessDesk) – New Zealand shares fell, paced by Telecom as the biggest company on the bourse said it would delist its NYSE-traded American depositary receipts and that it would meet profit guidance by cutting costs. Steel & Tube, which is to drop out of the NZX 50 Index this month, rebounded.
The NZX 50 fell 24.48 points, or 0.7 percent, to 3449.47. Within the index, 21 stocks fell, 22 rose and seven were unchanged. Turnover was $99.7 million.
Telecom dropped 2.6 percent to $2.43. Among cost cutting measures, the company will delist its ADRs from the New York Stock Exchange, effective July 19.
“Investors are viewing it as a negative,” said Michael Milne, investment adviser at Craigs Investment Partners. “Fletchers, Telecom and the blue chips are the sort of companies that international investors tend to hold.”
Chorus, the network company spun off from Telecom in November, fell 1.9 percent to $3.14.
Shares in New Zealand Oil & Gas rose 2.7 percent to 77 cents after the energy explorer said it expects to pay a fully imputed dividend of 6 cents per share this financial year. The company had received a number of informal questions on its intention for the year.
Warehouse rose 0.8 percent to $2.53 after the country's biggest listed retailer was granted approval to delist from the Australian stock exchange. The company wants to quit the ASX to keep a lid on its costs.
Air New Zealand shares rose 1.2 percent to 86 cents after trans-Tasman rival Qantas was put on rating watch by Standard & Poor's after the Australian airline said it expects to post an annual loss of A$450 million in the 2012 financial year. Qantas has an investment grade BBB rating, and its shares fell 9 percent to 96.5 Australian cents on the ASX in afternoon trading.
Shares in Diligent Board Member Services rose 0.6 percent to $3.52 and Xero gained 4.4 percent to $4.49 as investors continued to rally behind the two newest entrants in the benchmark NZX 50 index. The tech companies will officially join the index from June 18, when they replace manufacturers Rakon, which was unchanged at 48 cents today, and Steel & Tube, which gained 2.4 percent to $2.11 today.
Kathmandu, the outdoor equipment chain, dropped almost 4 percent to $1.45. Skellerup Holdings, which makes rubber goods and milking equipment, fell 2 percent to $1.38.
(BusinessDesk)
Watchdog relieves iPhone 5 scammers of £10k - The Register
Watchdog relieves iPhone 5 scammers of £10k
Dodgy adverts earns fine from premium-rate line regulator
Posted in Crime, 8th June 2012 07:01 GMT
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A British company who offered "iPhone 5s" to punters has been slapped with a £10,000 fine by regulator PhonePayPlus, which ruled that the adverts for the non-existent phone were misleading.
According to the judgment published today, the Bumbalee service run by Mobile Minded BV used "prizes" such as the iPhone 5 to lure punters into signing up to a premium subscription service that charged them £2 every time they received a message.
In the adverts investigated by PhonePayPlus, the regulator for the UK's premium phone line industry, Mobile Minded offered £150 of "free" Morrisons vouchers in adverts put on Facebook in September/October 2011 – which turned out to be as illusory as the iPhone 5.
Morrisons disclaimed any knowledge of a vouchers deal with Bumbalee and the monitors found that it was impossible to claim the vouchers. Punters clicking on the offer were asked to fill in a survey, before being taken to the subscription site and offered the opportunity to win an iPhone 5.
Entrants paid to do surveys or quizzes and were charged £2 a message with five messages sent a week.
PhonePayPlus estimated that the scammers made between £50,000 and £100,000 out of the service.
As well as the £10,000 fine, the company have two weeks to make all their advertising compliant and have been commanded to refund all complainants for the full amount of money spent by them on the service.
Mobile Minded BV have not responded to our request for comment. ®
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Virgin Mobile Joins iPhone Prepaid Parade - E-Commerce Times
Virgin Mobile on Thursday became the second prepaid wireless carrier in a week to offer the latest versions of Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhone for its pay-as-you-go customers.
Under the Virgin plan, customers pay the full freight for a 16GB iPhone 4S (US$649) or 8GB iPhone 4 ($549) but can subscribe for voice, text and data plans that range from as low as $30 to $55 a month.
Unlike the plan announced last week by Cricket Wireless, which is affiliated with Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) spinoff Leap Wireless, Virgin Mobile's offerings have limits on their usage.
For example, the US$35 monthly plan, which can be discounted to US$30 if a user elects to auto-pay the account, offers 300 talk minutes, unlimited texting and 2.5 GB of data.
There's also a mid-tier plan with the same text and data conditions but with 1,200 talk minutes. The upper tier has unlimited talk and text, but the same 2.5 GB data limit.
Cricket Subsidies
Cricket offers unlimited talk, text and data -- although data is throttled once the user reaches 2.3 GB -- for $55 a month.
The company also slightly subsidizes its Apple offerings. A 16 GB iPhone 4S is $499 and an 8GB iPhone 4 is $399.
Both plans compare favorably with those offered by the major carriers. Post-paid plans from Verizon, AT&T (NYSE: T) and Sprint (NYSE: S), which owns Virgin, charge $200 for a 4S and $100 for a 4, but require a two-year agreement.
To offset that subsidy, carriers charge more for service. Voice, text and data plans from them are in the range of $70 to $100 a month.
Important Milestone
"Apple is working very hard to ensure that anyone that wants an iPhone will be able to get an iPhone any way they want to," Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with the Gartner (NYSE: IT) Group, told MacNewsWorld.
"What we're seeing is a tremendous flexibility on the part of Apple to make sure this device can get into as many users' hands as users want it," he added. "It's an important milestone."
Apple has invested a lot of money over the years developing the iPhone, and now it's starting to leverage that investment by adding points to its distribution channel, explained Bob Egan, founder and chief analyst of the Sepharim Group.
Apple, he explained, built the "mystique" of the iPhone with its exclusivity agreement with AT&T. With its reputation solidly in place, it set out to increase the phone's reach by signing up Verizon and Sprint.
After that, it asked itself, "What can we do now for no incremental cost?" The answer is "quite simply expanding into a tier-free distribution network," Egan told MacNewsWorld. "That's what these prepaid operators represent."
Carrier Rebellion
Apple's embrace of prepaid carriers could create problems for it down the road with the major players. That's because the prepaid carriers are getting the iPhone on favorable terms compared to some of Apple's larger partners.
For instance, Cricket reportedly paid $900 million for a two-year deal with Apple. By comparison, Sprint paid $15.5 billion for its five-year iPhone pact.
"Sprint is already feeling the pain, and anything Apple does to widen its distribution via more acceptable terms for new operators is going to cause anxiety for any of the operators it's done business with before," Egan said.
Signs of carrier dissatisfaction with Apple have already started to emerge, he maintained. For example, AT&T is spending more money marketing the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Lumia 900 that it's spending on iPhone marketing.
"You're beginning to see the carriers beginning to rebel against Apple, not just outside the U.S., where that rebellion started, but also inside the U.S.," Egan said.
Pleasing Customers
Carriers should be upset with Apple only if their customers are upset with Apple, argued Trip Chowdry, an analyst with Global Equities Research.
"Apple is not in the business to make carriers happy," he declared. "Apple is in the business of making customers happy."
That's the reason that Apple and Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) Android are so successful, he continued. "Companies that focus on the carriers -- Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), Nokia, BlackBerry -- are a total disappointment. If you're carrier-focused, you can't be customer-focused."
While Apple continues to expand its distribution into the prepaid market, a notable player has been missing from the party: T-Mobile.
"Its network is on a different frequency than the other carriers," Gartner's Gartenberg explained. "Apple would have to build a different radio for it and I suspect its customer 
base is too small to warrant that."
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