It was only a couple of days ago that I wrote about Sprint dropping the concept of its Framily Plan and creating a plan called the Family Share Pack. This took place about a week after Sprint’s new CEO Marcelo Claure took hold of the reins. One question that arose from this move was whether or not such a decision would lead to a new round of pricing wars, with each of the carriers attempting to outdo each other.
It certainly did not take long to get a clear cut answer to that question. Just three days after Sprint announced that it was lowering its mobile data prices, T-Mobile fired back with an offer of its own. The company, which has been referred to as the Un-carrier network, due to having no yearly contracts, is offering a year of unlimited LTE data to Simple Choice customers.
If these customers bring in a new customer from any other carrier, although I’m guessing that they would prefer to have Sprint customers, they will be eligible for the unlimited offer. Customers who take advantage of the plan will get unlimited LTE at no additional charge, which will also be the case for the new subscribers they recruit. The offer goes into effect at the end of the month on August 29.
You may recall that a few months ago Sprint and T-Mobile were attempting to strike a deal in which the two companies would merge into one large company that, in turn, would be able to go head to head with AT&T and Verizon. Unfortunately, there were some antitrust concerns with quickly put an end to the deal. This seems to have led to the two carriers “duking it out” with each other, establishing the pricing war that I alluded to earlier.
About a month ago, toward the end of July, T-Mobile took a potshot at AT&T’s claim of having the “best ever family plan” by creating its own. T-Mobile’s best ever family plan included four lines per month with 10 GB of data for $100 per month. The new plan would give existing T-Mobile Simple Choice customers who take advantage of the new promotion a $10 credit on their account for 12 months.
Although Sprint is not giving away data for free with its new plan, it is also launching a new unlimited plan that offers unlimited talk, text and data for $60 per month. The company points out that this is $20 less than T-Mobile charges for the same type of service. This means that theoretically T-Mobile customers could save about $240 a year by switching to Sprint. Another thing to keep in mind is that there would be no need to convince any friends to come with you.
While it is true that Verizon does not have an unlimited data offer, the company does not want to be left out war. Verizon mentioned that its network was recently ranked the best in California and in the U.S. by RootMetrics, which is a network testing firm.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times Ken Muche, a Verizon spokesman, said "Consumers make decisions on a variety of factors not just price. They want to know what their experience is going to be like on a network and they're going to ask themselves, 'Is this truly unlimited if it doesn't work where I'm at or if it's slow?'"
This is a valid question. If you cannot take advantage of what the carrier is offering due to the fact that you do not have service, are you getting quality for your money? You may be paying less for more, but if you get nothing, then how does that figure into the equation? Of course, Verizon has its own similar issue when in October it will begin to apply what it is referring to as its “network optimization” practices. Beginning on October 1, 2014, Verizon will slow down your data speed if you are connected to cell sites experiencing heavy demand.
There are lots of issues that do need to be looked at when choosing a carrier, I myself, prefer to have a network that is always up and running and I can have access regardless of my location. Irrespective of whether you prefer connection, connection speed, price, or possibly something else, it does seem clear that carrier pricing wars are on their way.
Edited by
Alisen Downey