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Sprint Follows Rivals By Complicating Its Unlimited Mobile Data Plans (fortune.com)
Sprint on Thursday unveiled a new, more complicated lineup of unlimited mobile data plans. Sprint goes from having one plan starting at $60 per month to four different options costing $50 to $70 a month. "The main price hike hits customers who want to watch streaming video at HD quality instead of being reduced to DVD quality," reports Fortune. From the report: A new "Unlimited Plus" plan most resembles the carrier's current one, with subscribers allowed to use up to 15 GB monthly before experiencing slowed download speeds, receiving HD-quality streaming video, and getting free Hulu and Tidal subscriptions. It costs $70 for one line, rising to $180 for four lines. But Sprint also added a "limited time" promotion that cuts the price to $50 to $100 per month for customers who buy a new phone or bring their own device. A cheaper "unlimited basic" plan, starting at $60 for one line and up to $140 for four lines, slows downloads to 3G speeds after just 500 MB, downgrades streaming to DVD-quality, and offers just a Hulu subscription, but no Tidal account.
Although consumers no longer get cut off or have to pay expensive overage charges when they run through a monthly data allowance, they face an increasing array of restrictions and conditions on all but the most expensive unlimited plans, including slowed download speeds. Sprint's four-page press release announcing the new plans included 11 footnotes, signaling just how complicated they are.
Although consumers no longer get cut off or have to pay expensive overage charges when they run through a monthly data allowance, they face an increasing array of restrictions and conditions on all but the most expensive unlimited plans, including slowed download speeds. Sprint's four-page press release announcing the new plans included 11 footnotes, signaling just how complicated they are.
T-Mobile ONE is the best plan in the US currently. Bar none. Unlimited everything and $60 a month and includes Netflix.
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Well T-Mobile is buying them...
And the citizens will as usual bend over and enjoy the corporations ass fucking them.
What a shithole 3rd world country Retardistan has become.
Time for the coastal areas to secede and let the deplorable rot in their own inbreeding.
Sad.
>"The main price hike hits customers who want to watch streaming video at HD quality instead of being reduced to DVD quality,
I must be in a tiny, tiny, tiny minority. I have never watched much "streaming video" on my phones, other than the occasional YouTube video here and there. And usually on WiFi. Why would anyone give a damn what resolution over "DVD quality" they are watching on a tiny 5 inch screen?
Anyway, I can certainly understand WHY mobile carriers want to limit resolution and bitrate of video, since video uses TONS AND TONS more data than anything else you could do on a phone. Still, the word "unlimited" is now so abused, probably making it second place only to the word "free" (which is almost totally meaningless now).
As an aside, still very happy with T-Mobile. Simple plans, cheap, great coverage, fantastic customer service, convenient and helpful people at the numerous stores around here, no problems with the technology. Was with Sprint for a very long time (17 years?) before switching 4 years ago. Sprint had constant technological problems- messed up towers, repeating and lost or delayed text messages, disconnected calls, activating phones was a nightmare of frustration, data so slow I couldn't hardly do anything much of the time in half the places I went, bad customer service (over and over), few stores and with tremendously long waits, numerous billing issues, whew. I hope this merger doesn't contaminate/degrade the T-Mobile experience. Some things I want to leave in the past.
> I have never watched much "streaming video" on my phones, other than the occasional YouTube video here and there. And usually on WiFi. Why would anyone give a damn what resolution over ""DVD quality" they are watching on a tiny 5 inch screen?
Sam's here. What TV and movies I watch, I watch at home, using a home connection. Are people using their phone as their *only* connection, with no home internet or TV service? That's a pretty inefficient / silly use the technology - fiber or coax has a lot more bandwidth available.
They say "a picture is worth a thousand words" and that's true in terms of bandwidth. Several thousand words equals one high-resolution photo. Video is a million pictures.
Since I don't use / abuse the cellular spectrum to stream HD video all day, I'm glad I don't have to pay for such usage. I pay $30/month for Boost mobile, which meets my needs fine. Occasionally I listen to YouTube in the car (Bluetooth). Sometimes I remember to set it to low-pressure video while I'm listening.
Once in a while I have a couple days of slower internet when I hit my high-speed limit for the month. Figure maybe two or three days every three months - so about 3% of the time. I wouldn't mind paying another $5/month to increase it a bit so I never hit it.
They advertise $35/month, but it's only $30 after you pay your bill on time for a few months. Apparently that's different from most phone companies - the actual price is lower than the advertised price.
Cockroaches are remarkably successful.
It wasn't their looks that made parasites ugly, he realised, so much as their enthusiasm... - `Hotwire', Simon Ings
Why would you ever watch video on mobile data?
Being alive/conscious and paying attention to my surroundings and doing stuff is so boring, I must be entertained at all times. I must be spoon-fed a constant stream of vapid garbage video, even if I have to ruin my eyes watching it on a dinky little phone screen. I can't just, you know, do something else. Life is meaningless outside of watching video.
I signed on to Sprint for a 20GB Family plan. With a special promotion of an additional 20GB of data. That's 40GB on my plan. We have had up to 5 lines on our plan and never got close to 40GB per month. Sprint kept offering "Unlimited" plans to me at varying prices but I always say, "Thanks, but no". I bypassed the "Unlimited" trap and have a defined 40GB. Sprint works well for me -- more data than Unlimited and at a fixed rate. Hopefully, T-Mobile will make Sprint even better. I initially picked Sprint because they covered areas that I frequent.
Orwellian f^cking language. Why is this even legal?
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Google Fi
Won't be long until they start doing this with the regular internet too.
The price rises mark the end of net neutrality. Data costs will first rise. Selected streaming packages will be sold as channels with free data. Use of selected partner marketing tools such as search engines will be free of charge for data. Consumer looses as usual.
Once you hit 40, it all looks like crap without bifocals anyway. Dvd quality streaming is as good as anything else. They should drop the quality and pricing even more for us.
In the US cellular and satellite actually have healthy competition happening. Mobile plans have consistent gotten leaps and bounds better every year where last-mile monopoly holders have improved at sluggish rates. It's food for thought as to why granting monopolies without regulation isn't effective. That said, is this round of throttled "unlimited" frustrating? Why yes, yes it is... But, like the phone plans of yesteryear, I expect the limits to continuously improve.
Don't forget some enlightened states in the interior.
Sprint is desperate for customers. I took advantage of their "switch to Sprint for a year for free plan" and moved my family to Sprint in such a debacle that I wrote about it online, and it got their CEO's attention, a personal e-mail, then his executive services team involved to fix my account.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Sprin...
I'm currently four months into my free year, and when it's over, I'll be switching to Verizon, simply for the fact that Sprint has shitty coverage. There's a tower 3 miles from my house so that I can at least get a signal (but bad data), but data (and thus streaming music) is unavailable for most of my trips to other towns.
I called Sprint Executive Services back a month or two ago to ask if they had any magic boxes - so that I could put one on my property and at least have good reception at home, but they were out of stock and the support person suggested I consider changing carriers. T-Mobile uses the same network, so it doesn't matter how much people chirp about how awesome they are....if they don't have coverage, you don't get to use them.
Customer service. I've rarely had an issue with Sprint, but whenever I've sent in some feedback, they've given me a month of free service. When there has been an issue, they've found a solution AND checked up with the results. Example: I moved to a new area last year. Plenty of AT&T and Verizon coverage but very lacking in Sprint coverage in my home. I asked if they have plans to expand. They said they didn't, but were looking for people to test out a new program. This is the program: https://www.cnet.com/news/spri...
Totally free microcell (and travel battery to keep). Perfect reception for 30,000 sq ft.
Verizon and AT&T are rivals to Sprint in the sense that a lion is rivaled by a cockroach.
I do not think it means what you think it means.