Sprint’s newly-christened president and CEO Marcelo Claure made his desires known when he told employees during a company-wide meeting that his objectives involve price cuts, simplified plans, and improved network quality. Now, it appears that the price cutting involves new plans. Sprint announced the revamped Framily plans on Monday.
Updated on 8-19-2014 by Malarie Gokey: Sprint unveiled an updated Framily plan, which offers 20GB of data for $100 a month.
To set up a Framily plan at Sprint, users must first choose how much data they want. Then, they can add up to 10 lines, which will each have unlimited talk and text. Lastly, they can add a few tablets for $10 a month per tablet or mobile broadband devices for $20 a month each. Sprint will no longer charge an early termination fee and there will be “no annual service contract with non-discounted phones.”
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In other words, the new Framily plan allows Sprint customers to set up four lines with unlimited talk and text, as well as 20GB of data for $160 a month. print also introduced a limited-time promotion called the Sprint Family Share Pack. The promotion gives a family with as many as 10 lines to get 20GB of shared data and unlimited talk text for $100 a month to the end of 2015. Sprint will also tack on an additional 2GB to each line for as many as 10 lines.
Sprint is also offering a promotion for customers who leave their carrier for Sprint if they bring their number. So long as the new customer purchases the Sprint Family Share Pack, Sprint will buy out the new customer’s contracts with a Visa Prepaid Card “worth up to $350.” To qualify for the buyout deal, customers have to buy their devices through Sprint Easy Pay. The carrier will charge a fee of $25 per phone that you bring along with you, though, and $40 for the new subsidized phones you’re still paying off.
On Monday, a Wall Street Journal report claimed that Sprint’s first move would be the unveiling of new wireless service plans, which proved true. That report said Sprint would offer a $50 plan that offers unlimited voice, text, and data. The plan has reportedly been in testing in Chicago. By comparison, Sprint’s current unlimited everything plan costs $80 per month, with a similar plan on T-Mobile coming in at $80 per month. A $50 per month plan on Verizon will only give you 250MB of data.
However, Sprint did not unveil any unlimited plan in its Monday announcement.
The report also claimed that Sprint is testing a new family plan in Portland, Oregon. The new family plan would offer four lines and 20GB of shareable data for $160. This report proved true. While Verizon and AT&T have similar family plans, their plans contain half the data. Meanwhile, T-Mobile offers four lines, each with 5GB of data, for $180.
The last plan mentioned in the earlier report involves a new Framily plan that offers $10 off each line. This plan, having been tested in Buffalo, NY, means that a group of five people could end up only paying $25 each to get unlimited talk and text, as well as 1GB of data.
Sprint recently invited members of the press to an event in New York City on August 19, so we could hear more about these new wireless plans then.
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