It really wasn’t all that long ago (i.e. yesterday) that we were talking about the possibility of Verizon offering prepaid plans for the Pre Plus, Pixi Plus, and other smartphones. Instead of spinning off a new sub-brand (ala Sprint and Boost Mobile), Verizon’s leveraging their own brand name and phones to offer prepaid contract-free wares, and now they’re adding smartphones to the mix.

The list of phones is by no means exhaustive, but it is comprehensive. In addition to Verizon’s webOS offerings, customers can also pick up their entire Android line-up and a whole slew of BlackBerry smartphones and several multimedia feature phones. All of these phones are eligible for a $30-a-month unlimited data pack (multimedia phones can opt for a $10 for 25MB (really) data pack) to be added onto one of Verizon’s already-existing pre-paid options.

If you’re mostly using your phone for web access and run with limited calls and texts, then this might be the option for you, as Verizon’s prepaid voice plans work on a day-by-day system where if you don’t use the service for a day, your pre-paid allotment isn’t charged for that day. In fact, if your peeps are on Verizon you could get away with paying $40 a month for unlimited Verizon-to-Verizon calls and texts ($10) and unlimited data ($30). Not a bad call, eh?

Source: Verizon; Via: PhoneScoop

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While Palm is getting access to a big pile of cash courtesy of HP, their webOS launch partner is continuing to lose money and subscribers hand over fist, but at least Sprint’s now looking at smaller hands over fists. As of the end of the last quarter Sprint had lost another 578,000 postpaid (contract) subscribers, but picked up enough prepaid (i.e. Boost Mobile) subscribers to bump their net customer loss down to 75,000.

That’s better than the loss of 148,000 from the preceding quarter, but with more and more of Sprint’s subscribers becoming the prepaid variety, you’d think that Sprint’s revenue would be taking a hit as well. It’s not so, as Sprint saw its first rise in revenue in more than three years, bringing in $8.1 billion compared to $7.8 billion the earlier quarter. The bump in revenue corresponds to a drop in the net loss (or a rise in profit, albeit still negative, if you prefer). Sprint lost $865 million in the quarter, compared to $980 million the quarter before. It’s better, but not great, but Sprint’s still working off the bad mojo from the merger with Nextel in 2005.

[via: Engadget]

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You’ve got to feel a bit of pity for Sprint. They’ve improved their network, coverage, stores, plans, phones, and customer service only to keep losing customers and money every quarter. As noted at eWeek, at least the losses are getting to the less painful stage: Sprint’s post-paid (traditional contract) subscriber count dropped by 148,000 in last quarter of 2009, though that’s nowhere near as bad as the 545,000 subscriber loss posted the previous quarter. Sprint’s also losing less money, with $980 million disappearing from the coffers, as compared to $1.6 billion the same quarter last year.

Additionally, Sprint’s also posted gains in their pre-paid count, adding 435,000 customers to their Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile brands. But those brands operate at a pretty hefty discount, and that’s not helping Sprint’s bottom line. It is worth noting that the bottom line has been affected by large costs related to the acquisition of the previously-mentioned Virgin Mobile and regional sub-operater iPCS, as well as investments in WiMax quasi-subsidiary/provider Clearwire.

At the very least CEO Dan Hesse and Sprint investors have to be happy that the pace of losses has slowed. Whether they’re just thinning out the herd so that only Sprint loyalists remain, or we’re looking at a slow change in the public’s perception of Sprint remains to be seen.

[via: MobileCrunch]

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Sprint Nextel announced via press release that they are purchasing Virgin Mobile USA for around $483 million USD. This is a sound move for Sprint, who already owned a 13.1% stake in the company and …

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