Pleasurepays

http://www.boostpremiumprepaid.com

a mobile phone for people who don't have credit and can't subscribe to normal cellular services in the US due to bad credit history... so they have to buy a prepaid phone/phone cards.

i distracted myself by playing "count the black stereotypes" with this site for at least a half hour today.

Spunky

What's with the darkie running all the time?

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scouser

Are pay as you go phones not out in US then? If they do (like in UK) I don't see why they can't save up not even $40, go to a phone shop, buy a budget pay as you go phone (with probably $5 credit) and then not even bother with that company.

And it isnt racist btw. Just targetted. Like 99% of media

StarkReality

Well, would it be racist to say they know their target group quite well apparently ?

aico

renting rims can fuck up anyones' credit.

Pleasurepays

in europe, you buy the phone and pay as you go. in the US, you sign a contract with the carrier for 1-2 years, get the phone at a very cheap price, pay various monthly fees and the per minute rates for call time and you are locked in to that carrier for the term of the contract. another one of many reasons US mobile companies have fucked themselves into a corner. tell the average american to pay 750.00 for that new, cool "must have phone" and they will never believe they even cost that much.

Pleasurepays

i had some interesting conversations with some execs from T-Mobile and Nokia at the gym about why the mobile phone industry is so fucked here all the time. actually... there are a lot of very interesting reasons for it.

tony286

Arent they the "Where you at ?" people

interracialtoons

Nah, nothing is racist on this board.

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scouser

PAYG (What we have over in europe) is perfect for kids really. US companies must be missing out on a lot of the market compared to Europe.

I can't see many parents paying $x a month for their kid to have a mobile that they (well, why the parent bought it) got just to be safe.

Literally every kid from about 10yrs old probably has their own mobile now over here ...

Sly

A good portion of kids do here. The cell companies offer family plans, 3-5 phones all tied into a larger family package. Different numbers for each phone of course.

My step-brother is 13 and he's had a phone for probably 2 years now, so do most of his friends.

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Webby

I've forgotten all about cellphones in the EU - it has been a long time since moving out But remember it was no big deal...

Tho always remember living in the US and amazed at the lack of decent service (connection) in comparison to the EU and was surprised the US was not far ahead in cell technology - tho suspect it has improved a lot since that time.

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Sly

Its getting better. Always have to keep in mind the geographical differences between EU and US when comparing cell programs.

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starpimps

boost mobile "for blacks"
that would be racist

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Webby

Yea... I remember problems connecting and the sales folks explained there was a lack of cellphone towers (and signal breaks between em).

It's was obviously more of a challenge covering all states, coupled with the actual usage of cellphones at the time - and economic viability.

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Pleasurepays

my gym is about 4 blocks away from Zango/180 solutions. Right next to them is T-Mobiles US headquarters. On the other side of the gym is the west coast headquarters for Verizon... another good friend of mine that i play racquetball with is an exec from Nokia. One day, 5-6 of us were talking and everyone realized they all worked for the mobile phone companies. I asked them why the mobile market and technology is always so fucked up here. People in the US who don't travel extensively probably have no idea that US cell phone carriers/service is always about 3-5 years behind Europe and Japan/Korea. It has always been that way since the beginning.

its was interesting to hear the answers. I might be fucking up some of the details but basically they said it has to do with a few core issues, the first of which is the fact that all these carriers here were competing for so many years with different technologies trying to become the standard (whereas, everywhere else, GSM is the standard). Another factor is that they typically don't cooperate with each other on any level (vs. other countries cooperating extensively across borders) Another huge factor is the size of the country and how spread out shit is... with the level of competition here, they all basically have build their own networks across the entire country, fighting each state, environmentalists etc.

Ask someone here what 3G is and they will look at you like you are retarded, yet it was common in Europe 5 years ago and is light years ahead in terms of how much data can be handled across a network... yet for these guys here, each carrier will basically have to build their own 3G network across the country... so its not going to be commonplace here anytime soon.

i remember being out of the country for several years and coming back in about 1999 and tried to buy a GSM phone here in Seattle. no one knew what "GSM" meant. no one knew what a SIM card was. I was trying to buy a triband GSM phone so i could travel and they were staring at me as if i was trying to explain that i was a robot from the future.

i have seen maybe 4 TV commericials in my life for ringtones. maybe 5 or so for sms chat/dating. from europe, thats probably hard to imagine.

Sly

Ringtone commercials are all over late night TV, but its a newer thing. Maybe last 9-15 months.

A friend of mine went to Germany 2-3 years ago and couldn't believe how many ringtone commercials there were. I think that amazed him more than anything else from Germany, lol.

I graduated from high school in 2001 and at that point very few people in my classes had cells, it was mainly the drug dealers. Now my brothers are just finishing up HS and they've had cells throughout all 4 years.

Kind of funny. I was just commenting about this a couple weeks ago with a friend... a little over a year ago the guitarist from Pantera, Dimebag, was murdered in a club. There were TONS of 911 calls from everyone with a cell. Very few pictures from what I have seen and even less videos. If that were to happen tonight, there would be hundreds of pictures and dozens of videos using the new cell technology. So, compared to more dense markets (Asia and Europe), yeh we are still way behind with cell technology, but it is showing progress.

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Pleasurepays

i remember going to korea in about 1998 and i was totally blown away... while americans were still crazy about their motorola flip phones or carrying the big brick phones... those guys had phones as big as my thumb... all colors, shapes, sizes, accessories etc. i was blown away. the entire country it seemed had broadband as well at the time.


i dont notice ringtone commercials. if you go to many big cities in europe, thats all there is at night. in many countries, they don't play a music video on tv without a small number at the bottom to get the ringtone for it.



funny you mentioned that about dimebag... i was looking for a video of it the other day and couldnt find it. my friend said that its online... you bastard... now i got to go look again.

Sly

I was watching Behind the Music about a month ago with Pantera, and there was an on-stage video of that show. I about shat myself. I didn't know the tape existed til then.

The video is from the opposite side of the stage looking out at the crowd. You don't see any killing but you do see the cop running out from behind stage and shooting the killer. Pretty wild.

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Martin3

There's plenty of pay as you go services here in the states.
The only problem is the service isn't that good, for reasons already stated, competing networks and no one wanting to share towers.

And, back on topic for the thread. Yes, boost clearly markets towards the black and urban crowd.

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DWB

They just know who to target.

Webby

Ah.. remember that PP We had GSM phones and there was no service at the time (at least in Florida) - and ended up buying new phones usable within the US.

Sure, can see there is going to be conflicts/competition in covering all states and each trying to cut the throat of the other.

You are prob aware stuff like SMS has been active in Europe for a good few years - and a fairly profitable extension to "phone sex" operations.

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