Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Mobile
  3. News

Carriers compete: Sprint launches unlimited deal after Verizon, AT&T do

Lulu Chang
By

sprint gigabit lte can you hear me now guy
Image used with permission by copyright holder
When carriers compete, you win. Verizon’s recent reintroduction of its unlimited data plan has set off a feeding frenzy of sorts among the big four cell phone service providers, all to your benefit. The latest company to unveil a brand new unlimited deal is Sprint, who on Thursday announced a plan that promises to be 50 percent of the cost of Verizon and AT&T unlimited rates. At $22.50 a line, the company is calling the offer its best ever and it includes HD-quality video, 10GB mobile hotspot per line, and an iPhone 7 lease.

That’s right — if you switch to take advantage of this new deal, Sprint will let you lease the new iPhone 7 for $0 monthly payments for 18 months. “Only Sprint can offer the best price for unlimited — 50 percent off Verizon and AT&T unlimited plans — and a network that can handle the data demands to meet customers’ needs,” said Marcelo Claure, Sprint president and CEO. He continued, “Our unmatched spectrum position gives us a clear competitive advantage in a high-capacity unlimited world.”

Recommended Videos

We should point out that in order to secure the price of $22.50 per line, you will need to activate a total of four lines. When you sign up for Unlimited Talk, Text and Data with Sprint AutoPay, you will receive your first line for $50 a month. Two lines will set you back $90 a month, and the addition of your third and fourth lines come at no extra cost. That means that ultimately, a family of four would pay $22.50 for each line a month.

Related

Even if Sprint gets an influx of customers from its new offer, the network isn’t worried about handling the uptick in data consumption. “With more than 160MHz of 2.5GHz spectrum in the top 100 U.S. markets, Sprint has more spectrum than any other carrier across the nation,” the company noted in a release. “This is a tremendous advantage, allowing Sprint to keep adding the capacity and speed needed to serve its customers’ increasing demand for unlimited data.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Lulu Chang
Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
It’s late 2022, and Verizon and AT&T still can’t beat T-Mobile’s 5G network
The T-Mobile logo on a smartphone.

It’s been 10 months since Verizon and AT&T flipped the switch on their new C-band 5G spectrum, but it appears both carriers still have their work cut out for them if they want to catch up to T-Mobile.

Market analyses and independent tests have agreed for years that T-Mobile is the fastest and most reliable 5G carrier in the U.S. That’s not surprising as it had a massive advantage by holding licenses for the crucial midrange spectrum that provides the best balance between range and speed. While Verizon’s early high-frequency mmWave rollouts allowed it to boast raw speeds that were significantly faster, those were confined to about 1% of its subscriber base.

Read more
When did 5G come out? The long, complicated history of its release
Blue panels showing 5G logo at CES booth.

Although 2022 will likely be heralded as the year 5G truly went mainstream, we’ve traveled a long and winding road to get here. Carriers began actively working on preparing this leading-edge cellular tech as early as 2015, but it wasn’t until the end of 2018 that the first 5G mobile towers came online. It also took until 2020 before 5G was much more than a curiosity for early adopters.

Although previous cellular technologies like 4G/LTE also spent a long time in the research and development stages, those didn’t experience nearly the same growing pains that 5G has. When 4G/LTE services began rolling out broadly in 2011, it was the same basic technology across all the major U.S. carriers.

Read more
T-Mobile’s 5G Ultra Capacity network has four times the coverage of Verizon and AT&T
T-Mobile smartphone.

Last week, a report from Ookla revealed that T-Mobile's 5G and 4G LTE networks are nearly twice as fast as those of Verizon and AT&T. Today, Opensignal released the results of a new study that reveals one of the most significant reasons for T-Mobile's lead.

5G services cover a much wider range of frequencies than older cellular technologies, each with unique advantages and disadvantages. Since low-band 5G frequencies have considerably more range than higher frequencies and generally share the same airwaves as 4G/LTE services, all three carriers have leveraged this spectrum to provide their extended nationwide coverage. T-Mobile calls this its 5G Extended Range network, Verizon uses the term 5G Nationwide, and AT&T just calls it 5G.

Read more