Verizon to launch $50/month pre-paid everything plan

According to the WSJ, Verizon is readying Prepaid plans to rival Sprint’s Virgin and Boost as well as T-Mobile.:

Verizon Wireless will begin offering the plan–which includes unlimited talk, text and Web use for $50 a month–on Thursday, said spokeswoman Brenda Raney. In addition to Verizon stores, it will be sold at Best Buy Co. (BBY), Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) and Target Corp. (TGT) locations.

That compares favorable with plans from Virgin and Boost which come in around $50-55/month. The story only mentions a few low end phones that will work with the new plan, but a new low end iPhone could be tacked on later:

New Verizon customers will be limited to four phones from LG Electronics Inc. (066570.SE), Samsung Electronics Co. (SSNHY, 005930.SE) and Pantech Co., though some older prepaid phones can be used for the unlimited plan.

We know Apple CEO Tim Cook loves the idea of pre-paid plans and he recently told an analyst:

While Tim stopped short of explicitly stating that Apple would pursue a lower price iPhone, he did state that Apple was working hard to “figure out” the prepaid market and that Apple didn’t want its products to be “just for the rich,” but “for everyone”; he also stated that Apple “understood price is big factor in the prepaid market” and that the company was “not ceding any market.” Cook noted that Apple executives – including himself – had spent “huge energy” in China, noting that it is “a classic prepaid market.” He further noted that the handset distribution model was poorly constructed and that Apple would look to “innovate” and do “clever” things in addressing that market.