Verizon has so far shrugged off the idea of offering unlimited, pre-paid broadband service, and their recently unveiled $80 for 5GB prepaid plan looks ridiculously uncompetitive next to new offers from Virgin Mobile, Clearwire's new Rover prepaid brand, Millenicom and soon, MetroPCS' looming prepaid LTE services. One analyst tells Light Reading that Verizon's reluctance to compete in the space is because once they begin competing on price -- they'll have to continue to do so:As such, Verizon will be throwing a limited number of prepaid-fueled Droid, Palm and Blackberry handsets at the problem. Verizon and AT&T have been able to avoid taking a hit from this prepaid space because of coverage -- and because they've generally had a better selection of handsets, though this is slowly changing. As handset availability broadens and Verizon and AT&T make their hard turn toward the postpaid low caps and high overage plan pricing model, a growing number of users may find prepaid appealing.

Update: Of course if you're Verizon, you might not need to bother competing in the space, given the kinds of problems users are having with Virgin Mobile's newest prepaid offer.