by Zoë Pollock
Brian X. Chen wonders why more people don't use prepaid phones:
The iPhone with a two-year contract on AT&T, for example, costs $200 for the handset and then upward of $90 a month for the plan; over two years, including the cost of the phone, customers pay at least $2,360. With a prepaid plan on Virgin Mobile, which is owned by Sprint, the iPhone costs $650 for the handset, and then $30 a month, including unlimited data (the type of data plan that people are happier with, according to J.D. Power). Over two years, that would cost about $1,370.
So why don't cell users go for the cheaper plan?:
“Right now, consumers don’t do the math, and they have a lot of resistance to paying $500 to $600 upfront, and they’d rather pay $100 upfront and then overspend,” [analyst Tero Kuittinen] said. “That psychology has worked for hundreds of years, and it’s still working.”
The Dish 