cellphone.jpgBy Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

Earlier in the month, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile all launched $99 unlimited voice calling plans (T-Mobile’s included text messaging). Sprint waited a week, but they fired back with their own salvo on Thursday.

Sprint’s plan is called “Simply Everything.” And when they say everything, they mean everything. They are offering just about every service they can for $99.99. The press release says:

In an industry-defining move, Sprint today announced it will launch a domestic unlimited pricing plan that gives customers unlimited voice, data, text, e-mail, Web-surfing, Sprint TV, Sprint Music, GPS Navigation, Direct Connect and Group Connect for $99.99 a month. The new pricing plan is available to existing and new customers beginning tomorrow.

There’s even a family discount. Families will get a discount of $5 per month on every “Simply Everything” service that is added to the same bill for up to five additional lines.

To be honest, this is the type of plan I wished the other carriers had offered: everything for one price. However, Sprint has been sagging of late, announcing a $29.45 billion quarterly loss Thursday. It was mostly due to a huge goodwill write-off, but Sprint also forecast further customer losses.

Will this cause the other carriers to follow suit, with a real price war ensuing? Time will tell.