One question is, "Can they really make any money with those rates?" Remember, telephony is quite capital-intensive and with the coverage people expect these days...
Verizon must think it's worth the capital. They are expanding into my area for the first time by installing 1 site in each of 2 small cities (3500 and 1000 people) in Northern Idaho, and are expected to start selling service this month. Alltel has service here (previously Western Wireless), so I am interested in how this all shakes out.
reply to datwell1 actually yes they do make money (Cricket, Revol, MetroPCS), Cricket is actually publicly traded under their parent company Leap Wireless who also owns JumpWireless.
The thing is though that once VZW sheds the spectrum that over laps someone is going to pick it up and it won't be Sprint so the only others left really are the unlimited providers. Someone is going to face some serious price wars and the big boys won't compete. Because if they could they would have already done it.
Revol actually trims costs by not mailing bills they actually charge you $2 for your bill to be mail. Why? It's the same every month. Also the bill is not detailed. It's just a couple pages at most.
People want unlimited flat rate calling and that's what it is going to come to. Too many people have the unlimited plans for $99 so why not unlimited local. long distance, nationwide coverage, texting for $47 add picture mail for an extra $5
check out Revol.com for pricing. Pricing is great and they'd have it made if they would just merge with someone else or started picking up small CDMA carriers or take over what Alltel/VZW gets rid of.