Prepaid phone service: Getting hot

Cellphone parental controls are on the way, but in the meantime prepaid phone service is it for parental control, it appears (you know, the phone that works like a store gift card - pay a specified amount up front). And teenagers are warming up to this kind of phone. "Two years ago, 17-year-old Brittney Brooks would never have considered carrying a prepaid cellular phone, which shouted its cheap-o status through bulky, unattractive handsets twice as big as most cell phones today," the Washington Post reports. Now, the high school junior "proudly carries around a small Kyocera K9 phone from Virgin Mobile USA, a prepaid phone service. It helps her control the cost, she said, and the K9 is a silver, ergonomic little number that comes with text messaging and an array of accessories." And Brittney told the Post that she thought about 60% of her friends use prepaid service. It accounts for 95% of wireless users in Italy, or 50-55% in Germany and the UK, and only 10% of the US wireless market. But the Post says it's becoming "the next big wireless thing" in this country. For more on this at NFN, see "Young phoners in debt" and "Phone parental controls in the works."