2009: Cell phone sales will be down, but not out

In-home options
Two wireless carriers, T-Mobile and Sprint are making it easier for customers to drop their landline service. Neither have landline businesses like AT&T and Verizon, so any growth they get from these additional services is gravy.

T-Mobile is offering its “HotSpot@Home” program, which lets customers keep their landline number for $10 a month by using a home wireless network. To be eligible, customers must already have a T-Mobile cell phone plan that costs at least $39.99 a month.

Sprint is using femtocells, which resemble routers, to help improve wireless coverage inside the home, an oft-heard complaint of cell phone users and one reason many do not give up their landlines.

The company tested femtocells in Denver, Indianapolis and Nashville, and recently expanded availability to other areas of the country. 

The femtocell, plugged directly into a cable or DSL modem, or a wireless router, sends voice and data through the Internet connection to Sprint’s network, which then routes the signal to its destination. It’s similar to the technology of Voice over Internet Protocol, used by phone services like Vonage and Skype.

Sprint is charging $100 for the femtocell, $4.99 a month for the service, and $10 a month for a single phone line, or $20 for families, on top of the monthly cell phone bill.

Prepaid phones
“More Americans say they can do without phone service,” according to a recent survey by Online Resources Corp., a financial resources company that polled more than 1,000 households nationally.

The firm said 26 percent of households say they put their phone bills “on the bottom of the stack,” after mortgage, insurance, loans, utilities and health care payments. The company did not ask respondents whether those phone bills were for landline or wireless accounts.

Still, it’s a marker that if push comes to shove for some consumers in 2009, and they choose not to renew their cell phone contracts, or to drop their landlines, prepaid phones are an option. And all the major wireless companies offer prepaid, or pay-as-you-go, phones.

“T-Mobile does a good job of that with its FlexPay plan, introduced last year,” said Ho of Current Analysis. “It essentially mirrors their whole (regular wireless) plan without the commitment. For the most part, I think it addresses those consumers who don’t want a contract or who have fallen off the credit radar, or whose credit has been challenged.”

With FlexPay, customers can choose the phone they want, although they will pay full retail price; no discounts or rebates, and get the same monthly plan choices as those offered to contract subscribers — but without the contract.

FlexPay is different from T-Mobile’s Prepaid Plan, which does not allow plan choices, and instead offers two options: pay by the day or pay as you go. For example, the company's pay-by-the-day plan is a $1 a day use charge — only on the days you use it — and 10 cents a minute for calls.

Consumers may also want to consider using prepaid services from smaller companies like MetroPCS and Leap Wireless, which have expanded and improved their wireless networks around the country, said Ho.

MetroPCS, for example, has plans that increase in $5-a-month increments, starting at $30 and topping out at $50 a month for unlimited minutes.

No matter what you decide to do for cell service in 2009, odds are good you won't be going without it. It may pay to investigate some fresh — and possibly cheaper — options.

MORE FROM CELL PHONES

Cell phones Section Front

Review: Motorola's Cliq is a social butterfly Unspoken rules govern cell phone etiquette Evolution of the cell phone 8 cool phones you can’t get here ... yet Schwarzenegger to Shriver: Put down the phone ‘Open’ for business: Android phones Mobile banking on the rise during recession Vonage releases app for iPhone, BlackBerry Newsweek: 10 ways to improve the iPhone AT&T signal booster may help, but could add to bill Cell phones Section Front   Add Cell phones headlines to your news reader: