If you spend all month worrying about the day the cell phone bill arrives to see if you went over your minutes (which was most likely caused because your teenage daughter racked up the minutes on the family plan when talking to her boyfriend), then listen up.

In a world that already forces you to choose between BBM, Bloo, ping and SMS, the choices just got a little harder.

Amdocs, a market leader in customer experience systems innovation, recently released the results of a global study that indicated that 73 percent of service providers have already or would like to expand their prepaid offerings to include services traditionally offered only to postpaid customers.

"Greater availability of high-end devices such as smartphones, along with services like messaging, mobile broadband and applications, are increasing customer expectations from prepaid wireless services," said Sara Kaufman, an analyst at Ovum (News - Alert), the analyst firm that conducted the research. "Prepaid wireless services are becoming even more prevalent around the world,” she said. “Ovum forecasts prepaid will grow from 75 percent of total connections worldwide in 2010 to 77 percent by 2015. Service providers understand that the prepaid wireless strategies they adopt today will have a major impact on future profitability."

So what can those wanting prepaid, or pay-as-you-go, phones expect? The ability to enjoy many more services including download and mobile broadband and messaging.

Out of the respondents surveyed, 47 percent stated they already offer high-demand consumer devices, such as smartphones, and other mobile broadband devices.

The survey also revealed that many respondents, particularly those in North America and Europe, are honing their efforts to offer hybrid payment models. Out of those surveyed, 63 percent of providers said they offer a mixture of prepaid and postpaid services, allowing customers to take advantage of a service such as on-demand viewing for a short period of time while still having a postpaid model.

Companies’ business and operational support systems (B/OSS) were also brought under scrutiny in the survey, as nearly half of the service providers polled said they needed to make moderate to large changes to their (B/OSS) in order to answer the technical challenges involved in expanding prepaid services. Forty-seven percent of service providers said their prepaid strategy would require moderate to large changes to their B/OSS systems to address technical challenges, according to the release by Amdocs (News - Alert). The inability of B/OSS systems to support fast time to market of new offerings was the technical challenge cited most frequently by respondents. Currently, 67 percent of those polled are in the process of implementing changes to accommodate new prepaid service capabilities with an additional 33 percent planning to implement changes within the next 12 to 24 months.

"To remain competitive, service providers must go to market quickly with new prepaid and hybrid services and need a charging environment that can provide this required agility and flexibility,” said Rebecca Prudhomme, vice president of product and solutions marketing at Amdocs. “Many are deploying convergent charging systems to establish these capabilities. Service providers that can offer customers a broader choice of services will drive customers to use more services, increasing customer stickiness and spend."

So who stands to benefit from cell providers aiming to expand prepaid services and different paying options? Aside from those studying abroad, those completing tasks only suitable for “24’s” Jack Bauer who are hoping to remain untraceable and criminals enjoying the black market?

Those with a tight budget.

Prepaid phones allow users to keep tabs on how much of their monthly paycheck is going to their phone bill. And, with providers announcing they will increase the amount of services for prepaid phones, users can stick to a budget while not being forced to use a cell phone from the Stone Age.

Providers, too, have benefitted from expanding their prepaid, or pay-as-you-go, plans.

Almost two years ago, Verizon (News - Alert) Wireless reported that for the first time ever during its fourth quarter of 2009, the number of new prepaid wireless customers in the United States market outnumbered new contract-based cell phone providers, according to industry data from both Ovum/Datamonitor and IDG.  

New prepaid cell phone subscribers accounted for nearly two thirds (65 percent) of the 4.2 million net subscribers added by U.S. phone carriers in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Following the wake of the Ponzi scheme, and a time in which people spent well above their means, perhaps more users should follow Jack Bauer’s suit and go for the prepaid cell phone. After all, he seemed to know what he was doing for eight seasons.