Boost Ready To Build On Big Quarter

DAVID TWIDDY

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The head of Boost Mobile, Sprint Nextel Corp.'s prepaid phone subsidiary, said customer reaction to its $50 unlimited calling and texting offer this winter went beyond "our wildest dreams."

"We thought that we were on to something very attractive in the marketplace. What we didn't anticipate was how popular so quickly the brand would become," Matt Carter, president of the Irvine, Calif.-based operator, said in an interview with The Associated Press this week. "We've been playing catch-up ever since we launched it."

Sprint, the nation's third-largest wireless provider, announced Monday that it added 674,000 prepaid customers — subscribers who pay for service month-to-month and don't sign annual contracts.

Most of those came through Boost, which began offering the unlimited plan in February to take advantage of the growing number of consumers looking for cheaper cell phone service.

The gain helped offset a loss of 1.25 million Sprint customers who do sign annual contracts, helping the Overland Park, Kan.-based company report the lowest number of quarterly net losses in more than a year.