There has been a bevy of complaints flying around the internet about Sprint’s new $10 premium data charge that will be arriving on all data phones in February. Unfortunately, Sprint handled this entire situation terribly. What should have been said is a very simple, any plan that includes a data package will be increasing $10 per line, per month. They began the confusion with the 4G/Premium Data charge on the Evo, and they still haven’t learned their marketing lesson.
Let’s take a few minutes now to correct the damage that Sprint has done with all the terms, confusion and what this will do to your bill.
1) The EVO has always had the Premium Data Charge on it. There is no additional $10 charge coming to anyone that is using the EVO, Epic or Evo Shift.
2) The $10 charge never had anything to do with the 4G service. The internet blogs began this rumor when the EVO was announced and have continued to fuel the issue by not correcting their original posts.
3) The $10 charge is due to the fact that the newer devices feature Flash, HTML5, HD YouTube and other data intensive programs that will consume data as fast as your home computer. This means that the average data user has gone from 150MB to 1.5GB a month and the carriers need additional revenue to maintain and expand.
4) The family of 4 price for the Any Mobile/Any Time with Data Plan will increase $10 per line from $169.97 to $209.97. This is still $10 cheaper than any other carrier’s offerings – and allows 4G access, unlimited data with no 4G cap (5GB – 3G soft cap), and unlimited texting. It also includes 1500 anytime minutes and night and weekends beginning at 7:00 PM. The other carriers $10-$40 more expensive plans offer 450-700 minutes, nights and weekends being at 9:00 PM and caps as low as 2GB (AT&T).
5) The individual plan, if you have an EVO is already priced at $69.99, plus the $10 premium data fee, or $79.99. This will be the same price you pay when you renew your contract and get a new device. Your bill will not change.
6) These changes will only happen if you upgrade AFTER the changes take effect. You can continue to use your normal 3G data phones for as long as they function for the same price. If you are happy with your phone, order some batteries, cases and screen protectors to keep it new and fresh. Of course, if you are reading this, you probably have the EVO already – so this is a non-issue.
Overall, the issue of Sprint’s “price increase” really has more to do with them being an incredible value for far too long, and now that the devices are coming in at lower prices, they need to make up that $100-200 price point that they are losing on these new devices.
Sprint used to charge a much higher fee for their devices in exchange for lower monthly pricing. An example of this would be the HTC Touch Pro 2 that was available on all four major US carriers. The T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T version was $199.99 after rebates. The Sprint version was $349.99 after rebate. Sprint charged more for the device, and less for the service. As the other carriers dropped their smartphone prices (thanks iPhone!) to that $200 price point, Sprint was forced to follow. Now they have to recoup a bit of that ‘loss’ by adding a bit to their plans.
So, to make an extremely long story short, Sprint should be announcing a simplistic $10 per line increase to their Any Mobile/Any Time with data plans. Instead they used this stupid “Premium Data Charge” language and have the forums in an uproar. Let’s just say it in the simple way of, Sprint just got to be $10 more expensive if you have a data phone of any kind.
No comments:
Post a Comment