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$60 Unlimited Plan to Appeal to New Customer Group; Also Adding Sleeker Cell Phone Designs
Irvine's Boost Mobile LLC is trying to shed the remnants of its low-end image by introducing the BlackBerry Curve into its lineup of lower-cost phone plans.
Although the phone isn't quite cutting edge, the addition has the potential to expand the smartphone market and Boost's business to a new set of customers.
For Boost, a marketer of no-contract cell phones that's part of Sprint Nextel Corp.'s prepaid business unit, getting a BlackBerry is "huge," said John Voltava, spokesman for Sprint's prepaid group.
"In the past, the biggest knock on Boost Mobile was a weak handset offering," he said.
Boost previously only sold inexpensive phones made by Motorola Inc.
The phones had a blocky, rugged look and all of them had Sprint's "push-to-talk" feature that functions like a walkie-talkie.
For the past year or so, Boost has been aggressively marketing a plan that allows for monthly unlimited text, voice and data pre-paid plans for a $50 flat rate.
The catch is that the Motorola phones only worked on a less robust Sprint network, known as the "integrated digital enhanced network," or iDEN for short.
IDEN was developed by Motorola in the 1990s.
Boost, amid a push to attract more customers,...