Are fears of a wireless price war proving to be legitimate? The latest evidence comes from Alltel Wireless, which has launched an option to add a secondary wireless Internet connection for PCs to its service bundles for $40 per month.
That option was previously priced at $60 per month. Rather than touting it as a home broadband replacement option, Alltel is simply marketing the change as saving customers about $250 per year in broadband charges – a marketing strategy that taps into a general trend to provide discounted wireless options in economically unsure times in order to hang onto customers and potentially find new ones.
Wireless Internet – which provides 3.1mbps in throughput – can be added to a range of Alltel’s “Smart Choice Packs,” which are bundles of national voice minutes, an unlimited data plan and other features like My Circle friends-and-family calling and texting.
Those packages start at $70, bringing the total for the service bundle + broadband to $130 per month as a starting point. The pricing undercuts rival Sprint-Nextel Corp.’s “Simply Everything Plan + Mobile Broadband” offering, which starts at $149.99 per month.
Analysts are watching the wireless space and are expecting ongoing price competition within it, as the economy continues to contract.
