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November 18, 2013

Sprint Offers Free Talk, Text, Data for Students - If They Can Afford the Phone

Best Buy and Sprint have a holiday season promotion offering 12 months of free talk, text, and 1 GB of data to a student -- if they can cough up anywhere from $250 to $700 full list price for an eligible phone.  Is this an elaborate marketing gimmick or a serious program?  I'm sure T-Mobile US is already scheming a better offer.

To qualify for the "free" rate, a phone must be purchased by/for an active student enrolled in a U.S.-based K-12 school, college, university or accredited institute.   In addition to the phone purchase (more shortly), there's a $36 activation per line, additional data above 1GB is 1.5 cents per megabyte, and up to $2.50 administrative and $0.40 registration fee per line per month.  An unlimited data plan is available for $10 per month.

Phone options range from a basic Kyocera Kona for $250 list all the way up to a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 for a whopping $750. Considering you are buying a phone that is effectively has limited to no portability outside of Sprint's U.S. network, you're kind of stuck with Sprint when you buy the phone.

Another gimmick, er, feature for the new offer is the ability to add 12 months of free service to the student lines for adding a new phone line to the same account at Best Buy, with the referral line requiring a two year service agreement.

What this offer will probably do is get a lot of budget conscious buyers into Best Buy to ask questions, get sticker shock when they see the upfront costs on the basic or smart phone, and then see them switched into a regular 24 month plan -- assuming the student already doesn't already have one setup.  Best Buy and Sprint offers any number of smart phones either "free" or from $100 to $200 with a two year contract, including the Apple iPhone 5s and the Samsung Galaxy S4 for $200. 

An alternative path might lead buyers to a pre-pay solution from Virgin Mobile -- a subsidiary that just happens to be owned by Sprint.  Under any circumstance - "free" 12 month service, post-paid 24 month contract or pre-paid phone.  If the "free" option is, somehow, selected, Sprint collects all the marketing info associated with the (presumably) new line activation and the potential to convert the "free" customer into a two year contract at the end of the first 12 months of service.

If this is one of the ways how Sprint intends to gain traction against T-Mobile US, it's going to be a long winter for parent  Softbank. 

 

 


Edited by Ryan Sartor

 

 

 

 

 



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