Prepaid service: The next wireless frontier?

With European and Asian wireless penetration rates well above 60% in major markets, the US looks like a backwater at 50%. The big difference, especially in Europe, is that carriers went after consumers earlier in the game by offering prepaid service. US carriers have typically focused on high value business users. But as the business market gets rapidly saturated prepaid might be the way to boost penetration with new classes of subscribers. Carriers are using prepay plans to attract the youth market. But the next step is to offer prepaid data services. The youth market will quickly tire of basic voice and text messaging services. These kids live online and are beyond tech savvy. Technology is just a part of them.