Pocket Communications
Billboards for a new mobile carrier – Pocket Communications – have started popping up in San Antonio. Am looking forward to following how a local wireless provider can compete against the national big 4 here in San Antonio – T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon and Cingular.
Unlimited calling for $28 month. No contracts. Sounds interesting, but what about data? I visited pocket.com but saw no mention in their FAQ’s about data packages so thought I would I call that extremely lucky sounding 777.7777 number for more info.
My first attempt at a phone call left me feeling less than fortunate though. Was put into a hold loop with a rapidly repeating announcement that one of their reps would be with me shortly. After a couple of minutes I was in a daze and eventually I think the message said something to the effect that call volume is high and to leave a message.
One can appreciate how hard it is to start up a new company so I cut them some slack and called back a little later. This time I am happy to report that the call was answered quickly by a friendly rep, but there was no firm information available yet on data packages. She thought it was going to be $5 flat rate for unlimited web use. If that is what it indeed turns out to be, that will be competitive, but it is worth noting that, according to the business section of the Pocket website, their network is built on CDMAs 1xRTT, a 2.5G approach similar to Sprint’s and Verizon’s non EVDO offerings.
The Pocket list of available phones indicates they’ll be offering the Treo 650 soon. Well, it’s not the 700 but with only 2.5G the 650 still makes sense, and it is good to see they’ll be offering a reasonably full range of devices to choose from.
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Hey DC, have you heard anything new about Pocket or the data services they might offer?
Hi Smiley:
I checked in with Pocket this morning to see how their data offerings were developing. According to the rep I spoke with they are still not offering any data plans but she said they have a couple hundred users testing the data service now and hope to be offering it sometime in the near future. Word is that it will still be $5 a month for unlimited data.
When I was visiting pocket.com today also noticed that they started a new $10 for 200 minutes plan as well.
I asked them if users will be able to combine this deal with the unlimited $5 data plan which would be a great deal for a heavy data user/ light voice user, but if I understood them correctly you won’t be able to bundle these two services like that.