Kevin Fitchard

Prepaid has been very good for Sprint, so good that it runs multiple no-contract services from Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile brands as well as the Sprint As You Go plans launched in 2013.

Apparently you can’t have too much of a good thing because Sprint is launching yet another prepaid offering, this one with the rather unimaginative name Sprint Prepaid. Instead of going after the youth segment the way Boost and Virgin do, Sprint Prepaid will replace As You Go and is targeting the same type of subscriber who would sign on with its main brand, just without the long-term commitment.

At launch, Sprint is offering the Spark-enabled Samsung Galaxy 4 Mini, the Galaxy S3, the Moto G and the iPhone 4S . But the carrier has included an interesting twist in its service plans: You can buy a smartphone with no cellular data connection.

Just like that, in the fourth quarter of 2013 mobile data usage ticked up to reach a crossover point, making data a bigger revenue source for carriers than voice services.

From this point on data will be the primary growth driver for the US mobile industry, while voice will recede in the rearview mirror. Mobile analyst Chetan Sharma predicted this voice-data flip would occur in 2013, and he turned out to be right on target.

In the fourth quarter, mobile data revenues grew 5 percent quarter over quarter and 20 percent year over year to $24.8 billion, barely eclipsing voice revenues, according to Sharma’s most recent US Wireless Market Update. In total, US carriers brought in $90 billion from mobile data plans in 2013.

Both the President and the Federal Communications Commission made a big push for unlicensed spectrum that could boost capacity on our Wi-Fi networks and fuel new services for consumers that rely on the free-to-use airwaves. Unlike the licensed spectrum mobile carriers use in their 3G and 4G networks, unlicensed spectrum is open to any device with a Bluetooth or Wi-Fi radio -- and it’s long been the subject of a caustic political debate.

The issue that will have a more immediate impact on consumers was an item that appeared on the FCC’s docket for its March 31 open meeting. The commission will consider an order that would open up the 100 MHz in the 5 GHz band to widespread Wi-Fi use. Technically the band is already unlicensed, but it has a lot of restrictions to prevent interference with the satellite operators that use it. Last week, Globalstar lifted its objections to sharing the airwaves with more active Wi-Fi networks.

In the White House’s 2014 Economic Report, the Obama Administration called out the unlicensed airwaves as a key economic driver, used not just by companies looking to bypass cellular networks but also by mobile carriers themselves. The FCC and the administration are trying to create a more open regulatory environment that would make it easier to open up new spectrum for unlicensed use, often through sharing it with other users, the report said.

[March 11]

AT&T’s LTE network in Chicago recently got a lot more powerful. AT&T is the first carrier in the US to use a new LTE-Advanced technique called carrier aggregation to bond together two 4G networks, the end result being a big boost in speed to the device.

The new network configuration has gone live in several markets, AT&T SVP of Network Technologies Kris Rinne said, but the only specific city she would identify was my hometown of Chicago. AT&T actually isn’t doing much to tout the network upgrade, and that’s likely due to the fact that only a handful of its customers can actually take advantage of it.

Alcatel-Lucent revealed that it has started peppering Verizon Wireless with tiny little cells in both indoor and outdoor locations.

As opposed to the “big” cells transmitting from towers and rooftops, these small cells are designed to surgically implant capacity into densely populated areas of Verizon’s 3G and 4G network, where demand for voice and mobile data is greatest and congestion most severe. Verizon seems to be focusing on expanding capacity its existing macro-cellular network by piling on new bandwidth in new frequencies. Last year, Verizon began upgrading its LTE network in big dense cities, doubling or tripling its 4G capacity in major markets. While Alcatel-Lucent announced its small cell contribution, Verizon’s other major network vendor Ericsson won’t likely be far behind.