Small businesses taking advantage of prepaid wireless

Boost Mobile and MetroPCS are giving customers robust service plans for a fraction of what they’d pay for similar plans on contracts. Consumers will continue to help prepaid grow, but a new development could take it even further. A recent survey by Compass Intelligence suggest that more small businesses could use prepaid wireless services for employee usage. The survey put the number at 22 percent of small businesses, defined as those with between five and 99 employees. That’s a decent number, and should lead to yet further growth of prepaid relative to postpaid. Why would businesses choose prepaid plans when there are more full-featured postpaid plans out there — even ones designed specifically for businesses? Compass Intelligence chief strategist Kneko Burney has an idea.

The shift toward prepaid suggests a desire for more flexible contract options, likely due to a lower tolerance for long-term risk, among mobile phone buyers. In this recession, flexibility may be becoming more important than long-term cost savings or top-end devices for some customers.

Even better for prepaid, the survey question was of whether these businesses plan to buy prepaid phones before the end of 2009. This could mean even larger growth waits in the future. Cell phone contracts make it tough for users to switch on a whim. Perhaps more businesses would have said yes if the question had included plans for 2010. ]]>