Sprint Nextel’s Boost Unlimited service has offered one of the very few customer-expanding bright spots during the company’s recent troubles.

News emerges now that the company is boosting prices for the prepaid service.

Boost Mobile is a Sprint unit that specializes in reaching out primarily to the urban youth market with a pre-paid phone service. Before Simply Everything unlimited calling plans emerged on the main Sprint network, the company began limited tests of an unlimited service with the Boost brand.

Boost operates in 12 states, largely in the southeast and western states such as California and Hawaii.

As it competes against regional flat-rate competitors such as MetroPCS and Leap Wireless, the Boost Unlimited service launched with different prices in different regions. Packages were available for about $55 in some areas.

“Now there is one common pricing,” said Leigh Horner, a spokeswoman for Sprint Nextel.

Unlimited calls are available for $50, unlimited calls and texting now are $60 and unlimited talking, texting and Web-browsing will be $70.

Romeo Reyes, an analyst at Jefferies & Co., got wind of the Boost Unlimited price increases that took effect this week.

He sees it as an opportunity for rivals such as Leap and MetroPCS. He also wondered whether Sprint was attempting to limit the loss of customers who otherwise would be attracted to the parent company’s Simply Everything unlimited calling plans, which have become a cornerstone of the current turnaround efforts.

The main Simply Everything package is available for about $99 a month.

Reyes did note that there is a difference between the plans as Boost Unlimited and the other services are limited to service within a home area while Simply Everything is nationwide.

“We believe that Sprint may be re-pricing the Boost service as it may have experienced cannibalization of its higher ARPU subscribers,” Reyes wrote in a recent report.

That certainly was one of the problems for Alltel when it “briefly rolled-out an unsuccessful unlimited Service” several years ago, he wrote.

Sprint raising the prices for Boost Unlimited should make it easier for Leap and MetroPCS to win business, Reyes stated.

“The increase in the rate plan offering by Boost, we believe, will benefit both LEAP and PCS, whose average
ARPU for unlimited regional calling is in the $45 range,” he said.

Sprint executives did not change Boost Unlimited prices because of potential conflicts with sales of Simply Everything plans, Horner said.

“We don’t view it that way at all,” she said.

Customers attracted to Boost’s pre-paid service tend to be very different from those who tend to sign up for Sprint Nextel’s core wireless service, she said.

Adjustments to Boost Unlimited are a reflection of how Sprint will continue to manage the use of its wireless network so the company brings “the right minutes at the right price point to be profitable,” Horner said.

When Sprint said that it lost 1.09 million subscribers during the first quarter, more than 540,000 of the losses came from Boost’s core pre-paid service. The losses were partially offset by the gain of 343,000 subscribers for the Boost Unlimited service.

More details are expected to emerge late this summer about how Sprint will rely on Boost Mobile and Boost Unlimited in its overall quest to return to growth.