What was the total operating revenues for the first quarter of 2019 
are investing on many fronts. First, we're investing to meet the increased amount of data usage on our network. At the end of March, 67% of our postpaid customer base was total plans and 30% on unlimited plans. We expect daily usage to continue to drive capital investment for increased capacity. Second, we are on track to roll-out Voice over LTE to our New England and Mid-Atlantic markets later this year. And third, we are executing our network modernization program, which will enable our first 5G commercial launches in 2020. We believe the investments we are making now to ready our networks for 5G, will also provides benefits such as increased speed and capacity.
Our first 5G markets will be using our 600-megahertz spectrum with the expectation that we will to augment that in the future with mid and high band spectrum.
And last, to grow our business, we are expanding our footprint in emerging out into Northern Wisconsin and Sioux City later this year. As you can see our network engineers are management number of concurrent projects that are all very important to the organization. And even with spending $102 million in the first quarter many of these projects will be implemented in the second half of 2019. And so we expect our spend to ramp up throughout the year.
Now with that, let me turn the call over to Steven Campbell. Steven?
Steve Campbell -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Ken and good morning everyone. I'll begin my comments by talking about postpaid connections. As shown on Slide 5 of the presentation, total postpaid gross additions for the first quarter of 2019, were 137,000 up 6% year-over-year. Gross additions of both handsets and connected devices were higher year-over-year. The increase in gross additions was partly offset by slightly higher disconnects but drove a modest improvement in net postpaid activity on a year-over-year basis. We ended the quarter with 4.4 million postpaid connections, which represented 90% of our total retail base. Postpaid handsets are our primary focus, so let's go next to that detail.
Postpaid handset gross additions and net losses for the first quarter were 102,000 and negative 14,000 respectively. Both improving year-over-year, albeit as Ken mentioned a bit earlier, not at the level we'd like (ph) . The increase in handset gross additions resulted from more aggressive promotions offered in the first quarter of 2019, compared to the prior year. We continue to have handset customers upgrading from feature phones to smartphones, that helps to drive more service revenue given that ARPU for a smartphone is running about $22 more than for a feature phones. Including the upgrades, total smartphone connections increased by 12,000 during the first quarter of 2019.
Along with the growth in gross additions that we've achieved postpaid churn has consistently been at a low level as shown on the next chart. Handset churn depicted by the blue bars was 0.99% for the first quarter of 2019. Fairly flat both year-over-year and sequentially. Churn for connected devices was just over 3% still elevated as heavily discounted tablets sold in connection with various past promotions, continue to roll out of contract. Total postpaid churn, combining handsets and connected devices was 1.26% for the first quarter of 2019, again fairly flat both year-over-year and sequentially.
Now let's turn to the financial results.
Total operating revenues for the first quarter were $966 million, up $24 million or 3% year-over-year. Retail service revenues, the blue portion of the bars, increased by 2% year-over-year to $659 million. The increase was due largely to higher average revenue per user, which I'll cover separately in a minute. Inbound roaming revenue, which is included in the gray portion of the bars was $34 million, that reflects an increase of 22% year-over-year, driven by higher volume. Equipment sales revenues, the green portion of the bars, increased by $7 million or about 3% year-over-year. This was driven by an increase in the average revenue per device sold. The impact
are investing on many fronts. First, we're investing to meet the increased amount of data usage on our network. At the end of March, 67% of our postpaid customer base was total plans and 30% on unlimited plans. We expect daily usage to continue to drive capital investment for increased capacity. Second, we are on track to roll-out Voice over LTE to our New England and Mid-Atlantic markets later this year. And third, we are executing our network modernization program, which will enable our first 5G commercial launches in 2020. We believe the investments we are making now to ready our networks for 5G, will also provides benefits such as increased speed and capacity.
Our first 5G markets will be using our 600-megahertz spectrum with the expectation that we will to augment that in the future with mid and high band spectrum.
And last, to grow our business, we are expanding our footprint in emerging out into Northern Wisconsin and Sioux City later this year. As you can see our network engineers are management number of concurrent projects that are all very important to the organization. And even with spending $102 million in the first quarter many of these projects will be implemented in the second half of 2019. And so we expect our spend to ramp up throughout the year.
Now with that, let me turn the call over to Steven Campbell. Steven?
Steve Campbell -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Ken and good morning everyone. I'll begin my comments by talking about postpaid connections. As shown on Slide 5 of the presentation, total postpaid gross additions for the first quarter of 2019, were 137,000 up 6% year-over-year. Gross additions of both handsets and connected devices were higher year-over-year. The increase in gross additions was partly offset by slightly higher disconnects but drove a modest improvement in net postpaid activity on a year-over-year basis. We ended the quarter with 4.4 million postpaid connections, which represented 90% of our total retail base. Postpaid handsets are our primary focus, so let's go next to that detail.
 Postpaid handset gross additions and net losses for the first quarter were 102,000 and negative 14,000 respectively. Both improving year-over-year, albeit as Ken mentioned a bit earlier, not at the level we'd like (ph) . The increase in handset gross additions resulted from more aggressive promotions offered in the first quarter of 2019, compared to the prior year. We continue to have handset customers upgrading from feature phones to smartphones, that helps to drive more service revenue given that ARPU for a smartphone is running about $22 more than for a feature phones. Including the upgrades, total smartphone connections increased by 12,000 during the first quarter of 2019.
Along with the growth in gross additions that we've achieved postpaid churn has consistently been at a low level as shown on the next chart. Handset churn depicted by the blue bars was 0.99% for the first quarter of 2019. Fairly flat both year-over-year and sequentially. Churn for connected devices was just over 3% still elevated as heavily discounted tablets sold in connection with various past promotions, continue to roll out of contract. Total postpaid churn, combining handsets and connected devices was 1.26% for the first quarter of 2019, again fairly flat both year-over-year and sequentially.
Now let's turn to the financial results.
Total operating revenues for the first quarter were $966 million, up $24 million or 3% year-over-year. Retail service revenues, the blue portion of the bars, increased by 2% year-over-year to $659 million. The increase was due largely to higher average revenue per user, which I'll cover separately in a minute. Inbound roaming revenue, which is included in the gray portion of the bars was $34 million, that reflects an increase of 22% year-over-year, driven by higher volume. Equipment sales revenues, the green portion of the bars, increased by $7 million or about 3% year-over-year. This was driven by an increase in the average revenue per device sold. The impact