Regional wireless operator U.S. Cellular announced that online retail giant Amazon.com would begin carrying prepaid devices compatible with the carrier’s network. The move comes just ahead of increasingly important holiday shopping season.
The U.S. Cellular devices that will be available through Amazon.com include the LG Splendor, Freesom and Envoy II; Motorola Defy XT; Alcatel Shockwave; ZTE Director; Huawei Ascend II; Samsung Freeform 5; and Kyocera Dura Pro. The carrier noted the devices will range between $30 and $230. Customers will be able to purchase the devices and select rate plans from Amazon.com, then must call U.S. Cellular directly to activate services.
U.S. Cellular’s prepaid plans include pay-as-you-go options beginning at $10 per month; 400 calling minutes, 400 text messages and 400 picture messages for $35 per month; or unlimited voice and text plans with one gigabyte of data for $50 per month per month or 2 GB of data for $65 per month.
U.S. Cellular, which abruptly changed CEOs earlier this year following the resignation of Mary Dillon, has seen its once promising prepaid offerings suffer customer losses over the past two quarters due to a drop in gross customer additions and increased churn. The carrier ended the third quarter of this year with approximately 370,000 total prepaid customers, or less than 9% of its total customer base.
The carrier did recently add Apple’s iPhone line to its postpaid offering, a move that could help the carrier shore up more dramatic customer losses across that segment.
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