MetroPCS (PCS) joined a handful of its competitors by instituting throttled data plans for its LTE-based cellular network. The offering includes four rate plans running between $40 and $70 per month with increasing amounts of access to go along with the carrier’s traditional unlimited talk and messaging plans.
The $40 plan offers up 250 megabytes of LTE access before customers are throttled down to either CDMA2000 1x or EV-DO speeds depending on market; moving to $50 for 2.5 gigabytes of LTE access. The $60 per month plan includes 5 GB of LTE access as well as the carrier’s Rhapsody Unlimited Music offering; and $70 per month provides for unlimited LTE access and access to the carrier’s MetroStudio Video On Demand service. The unlimited data pricing is a $10 increase for the carrier from its previous offering.
The capped plans could be a boost for consumers as MetroPCS’ previous offerings were hard caps that once hit prevented customers from accessing data content on their device unless they used a Wi-Fi connection. Analysts also noted that the move could provide an average revenue per user boost for the carrier.
“While this move to a higher price point for [MetroPCS’] unlimited monthly plan does not come as a complete surprise … we view this as a positive for prepay pricing overall and longer term ARPU trends,” explained Wells Fargo Securities Senior Analyst Jennifer Fritzsche in a research note.
MetroPCS’ stock price was trading up nearly 1.5% in early Tuesday trading.
Despite the spectral efficiencies inherent in the LTE standard, most wireless operators have chosen to continue data caps on wireless plans. The most common reason is to prevent customers from taking advantage of the higher speed capabilities of the LTE service to stream large amounts of data that can in turn hamper network quality.
MetroPCS’ case could be an extreme as the carrier has but a limited amount of spectrum in many markets in which it’s attempting to support both CDMA and LTE services hosting its “unlimited” offerings. Recent reports indicated that the carrier was recently nearly gobbled up by Sprint Nextel, which itself is looking to expand its spectrum portfolio to support its own LTE rollout.
MetroPCS soul mate Leap Wireless (LEAP) has taken LTE network management to the next level with its recent network launch in Tucson, Ariz. The carrier has instituted both data caps and speed throttling for its LTE service, with plans beginning at $50 per month for 5 GB of data throttled to 3 megabits per second, or $60 per month for the same 5 GB at 6 Mbps.
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