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Verizon Communications United States

Sprint's New Unlimited Plan Adds HD Streaming, Four Lines For $90 (zdnet.com) 84

Posted by msmash from the best-unlimited-HD-plan dept.
Take that, Verizon! Sprint's unlimited data plan now has HD video too. From a report: On February 16, Sprint upped its unlimited plan, launching the "best unlimited HD plan ever", according to its press release. The new plan matches Verizon Wireless' new unlimited plan by offering unlimited calls, text, data, HD video streaming, and 10 GB of mobile hotspot for $22.50 per line, for four lines. That equates to $90 per month for four lines, or half of what Verizon Wireless is charging. Sprint's plan requires the account owner to enable AutoPay, ensuring the bill is paid on time each month. For those who don't need four lines, the first line will set you back $50 per month, two lines of service will bump it $90 per month.
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Sprint's New Unlimited Plan Adds HD Streaming, Four Lines For $90 More

Sprint's New Unlimited Plan Adds HD Streaming, Four Lines For $90

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  • Competition is good! (Score:5, Informative)

    by rsborg ( 111459 ) on Thursday February 16, 2017 @01:03PM (#53880863) Homepage

    Thanks TMobile and Sprint for keeping the majors in line :)

    • Yep...this is great.

      I'm on Verizon, and at Xmas I found I was about to run over my data, so I bumped it from 6-8GB...which was at $70/mo.

      I fired up the Verizon app on my iPhone and checked and switching from that to unlimited, actually saved me $5 a month...dropped me down to $65/mo for data.

    • Re:Competition is good! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Jhon ( 241832 ) on Thursday February 16, 2017 @01:26PM (#53881009) Homepage Journal

      "Thanks TMobile and Sprint for keeping the majors in line :)"

      Yeah... it's a great price! But... it's Sprint.

      • I live in Las Vegas, And work in a lot of Towers and Casions.. I have sprint. Most of the time i can make or receive calls and use data with decent speed.. while others(t-mobile, verizon) have no service, or very slow intermittent service.
    • I tried Sprint when I first moved to the SF Bay Area in 2001. Bad mistake -- even with this "bargain" I don't think I would ever go back Poor coverage, and they stuck me on this tiny little price plan and refused to offer me anything higher. After getting a cell bill for $700 I said eff it and left. Paying the early termination fee after only a couple months was far more affordable than continuing to use them
      • In Las Vegas in the early 2000's Sprint was decent, They merged with Nexttel and turned to garbage. As of the last 3 years or so they have become the best here.

    • Re:Competition is good! (Score:5, Informative)

      by butchersong ( 1222796 ) on Thursday February 16, 2017 @02:34PM (#53881427)
      I'm sure this wasn't a paid posting... but ignoring that, this is just a promotional rate. "until the promotional pricing expires on March 31, 2018. After which pricing goes up to $160". Personally, I'd rather go with a straight forward tmobile plan.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rsborg ( 111459 )

        I'm sure this wasn't a paid posting... but ignoring that, this is just a promotional rate. "until the promotional pricing expires on March 31, 2018. After which pricing goes up to $160". Personally, I'd rather go with a straight forward tmobile plan.

        Is it just a contract rate offered for signups during that period? I'm too lazy to look, but my TMO Simple Choice plan prices are still honored for ongoing monthly charges and including the new-line rate - meaning I can add a new line for $10/mo and still pay the same rates I did when I signed up 4 years ago ($160 total for 10 lines excluding extras, all with 2.5GB base).

        So maybe this just means that Sprint will cease offering this pricing in 2018.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by galabar ( 518411 )
      Damn those free markets to heck! ;)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I don't get how they can charge for HD video though. Do they actively sabotage HD video streams if you don't pay.

      • Most data is subject to throttling after you reach a usage threshold. Video streaming is completely unlimited; it won't get slowed down no matter how much you use. But it's also the first candidate to be dropped altogether if the network is congested.

  • WTF is going on! That's borderline unAmerican.

  • Promotional Pricing (Score:4, Informative)

    by MiniMike ( 234881 ) on Thursday February 16, 2017 @01:12PM (#53880925)

    From TFA:

    ... until the promotional pricing expires on March 31, 2018. After which pricing goes up to $160 a month for the same four lines.

    Still not bad pricing for a year. Was just looking into switching away, this adds more weight to staying. Hope they improve their network soon, otherwise it won't be a price-based decision.

    • Mintsim's standard price for 5GB and unlimited voice/text is $299/year (+3% regulatory fees) or about $25/month. For four lines, that's 20GB. Their 2GB offering is $199 or $16.58/month per line, versus about 2.5GB per line to match that 10GB.

      You can do better than $22.50 per line.

    • Staying? Why would you....As a loyal Sprint current customer, you DON'T GET this plan.......yoyu can't switch to it, only it's non-discounted version (for $160, as quoted above)....

      • Well, was already planning on switching to T-Mobile, if they don't give us the deal we want at Sprint we will continue with that plan. We're adding a line, which should be justification enough- at the local Sprint store they're pretty flexible. We're off contract so we can just walk away if we want to.

  • 2 lines and 4 lines cost the same? or do need to buy new 4 phones to get that price?

  • ...if you can't get to it? Sprint's coverage is crap compared to Verizon's.

  • Sprint uses CDMA. No thank you. I like being able to buy my own Phones. GSM or GTFO.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cdrudge ( 68377 )

      Psst. You can buy phones from most major manufacturers that are both CDMA and GSM frequency compatible. Just drop a sim card in it and go.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Jhon ( 241832 )

        Maybe things have changed but Sprint at least used to make it impossible to bring non-sprint phones to their network.

        If that's still the case, change your "Psst" to "Pffft" and keep walking.

        • I bought a Craigslist Nexus 5X to replace the Google Store 5X I killed. The CL one had been used on T-Mobile last, but after a 1-2 day wait (while still using backup phone), Sprint was able to provision it for service on their network again. Not painless, but they did do it, and willingly.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Maybe things have changed but Sprint at least used to make it impossible to bring non-sprint phones to their network.

          Something did change, apparently: Sprint they decided they wanted to continue to exist as a phone company. That game is pretty much keep up or die now.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by dj245 ( 732906 )

          Maybe things have changed but Sprint at least used to make it impossible to bring non-sprint phones to their network.

          If that's still the case, change your "Psst" to "Pffft" and keep walking.

          This could be because Spring uses LTE bands that basically nobody else uses [phonearena.com]. It then depends on your phone model supporting those bands. It may have nothing to do with Sprint being evil, and more to do with the fact that their frequency allocation is different from everyone else.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • UMTS [wikipedia.org] (and HSPDA and HSPA+) is based on wideband CDMA. That's right, CDMA won the CDMA vs GSM war. GSM ended up licensing CDMA from Qualcomm and adding it to the GSM spec for 3G data.

      In fact, 4G LTE service probably wouldn't have been possible without CDMA. Most LTE implementations use OFDMA - the tower tells the phones apart by assigning them orthogonal frequencies. All phones can transmit at the same time, the tower tells them apart because each phone generates orthogonal frequencies (i.e. the same

      • In case it's not clear, the grandparent was bitching about CDMA the Qualcomm standard, not CDMA the technology. CDMA tech is great; then Qualcomm went and made a terrible standard based on it.

  • Unfortunately it's still on Sprint's CRAPPY network. What good is having all that unlimited bandwidth when you can't use it. The city I live in (a suburb of Los Angeles) the service is so terrible I couldn't even make a call. And the funny thing is they have a Sprint store there (where they have one of those mobile hot spots, so your phone works inside the store, but walk 50 feet down the street and you're met with reality.

    • Sprint contracted with another company to build the towers in the Los Angeles area. That company tried to save on costs by building the towers with the maximum separation the manufacturer specified as allowable. Since that maximum separation was for ideal situations, the network ended up with a lot of blind spots in between towers with poor or no coverage.

      Since the towers were already built, they couldn't pick up the towers and move them closer. And adding new towers in between all the existing towers

  • Verizon? (Score:3)

    by John Napkintosh ( 140126 ) on Thursday February 16, 2017 @01:49PM (#53881137) Homepage

    I don't see this option on Verizon's site at all. They're still pushing 45/line/mo for each of four lines.. $180/mo is very different to $90/mo.

    • Hell, even Sprint's site says it's $50 for one, $90 for two, and 3-5 are free....until 3/31 when it changes to $60 for 1, unknown amount for two, and $30 for each 3-5. You might be going from $90/mo for 5 lines to as much as $190/mo as soon as that date rolls around.

    • I don't see this option on Verizon's site at all. They're still pushing 45/line/mo for each of four lines.. $180/mo is very different to $90/mo.

      You don't see it on Verizon's site because that's Sprint's deal. Verizon's is 45/line for 4 lines, or double the cost of Sprint, which was the point.

  • T-MOBILE offered me a great price and then tacked on undisclosed fees they try to pass off as taxes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sims 2 ( 994794 )

      Tmobile (at least according to their own site) has been all in since january 5th.

      When did you try and get service?

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Now if they could actually get a usable signal into my house.... Come on guys, I live in the suburbs of a major city where we have houses packed in like cord wood. You really should have excellent coverage here...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SeaFox ( 739806 )

      If the houses are that close together, maybe that's why they can't get good coverage. Coverage requires towers and capacity feeding them.
      No place to put up towers in an area jam-packed with NIMBYs.

  • The pricing is great. But It's Sprint (and I bet half the people who saw the OP said the same thing).

    I had Project Fi for a while and loved having T-Mobile and Sprint networks, but I could tell instantly which network was active. There was a HUGE difference. And it wasn't because Sprint was better. Now I get service from TMO directly because their rate plans beat Project Fi by a mile and I don't need Sprint.

    All of this is weird for me because I WAS a happy Sprint user for years. Had a voice line, smar

  • news for nerds and stuff that matters for readers in:
    UK?
    Germany?
    Canada?
    Australia?
    New Zealand?
    Brazil?
    Rusia?
    India?
    China?
    South Africa?
    Mexico?
    Spain?
    France?
    Austria?
    Japan?
    Venezula?

    Or a long etcetera (basicaly)?

    I mean, like many sites, slashdot started in the US, but have international following. Would be interesting to know if the US readership is bigger than the rest of the world combined.

    I get it that the Advertisements could be targetd to the US if they are the most receptive. But this is suppoed to be an arti

  • HD Streaming, oh cool! (Score:3)

    by FunkSoulBrother ( 140893 ) on Thursday February 16, 2017 @04:10PM (#53881939)

    That totally works when I host the HD video on my home server, right?

  • I tried Sprint once and got burned. Never again. I don't care how cheap they are.

  • >"Sprint's plan requires the account owner to enable AutoPay, ensuring the bill is paid on time each month"

    Yep, and the other carriers are doing this too. And it is WRONG. They are all slipping this anti-consumer crap into their plans. How about not trying to force this type of s*** down our throats and punish people who actually SHOW they are irresponsible by penalizing JUST THOSE PEOPLE instead of everyone?

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