February 29th, 2008
Sprint Launches $99.99 “Simply Everything” Plan - and They Mean Everything
By 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.
Michael Forry says:
If you are single, this is a godsend - If you are married with more than 3 phones on a plan - you will pay out the ass for these plans!
4 lines and a broadband card would cost us over $470 a month just to have. Now as a family man (and not a moron) this is just ridiculous! Heck we pay close to $200 now and never use all of our minutes since most is in-calling with Verizon.
Mike
Sorry, but these plans are not good for families - if they kept the $10-$25 fee for each additional line, then it might be worth looking into, but at $100 PER line, they really must think people are stupid or have WAY too much money on their hands.
February 29th, 2008 at 4:32 am
Ed3 says:
I have 1000 minutes, free incoming calls, free incoming txt msgs, on three phone lines for $108/mo (that’s after taxes, fees, and needless dealer surcharge). It’s a no-frills no-Internet, no-Picture messaging, no-GPS, no-nuthing plan, but it works.
February 29th, 2008 at 7:03 am
Ed3 says:
PS - Little known company called US Cellular…
February 29th, 2008 at 7:03 am
SoloP says:
Note, however, that “everything” does not include *everything*. Specifically, the fine print in the ad explicitly disallows using the phone as a modem, in any sort of server capacity, in any way that uses large amounts of bandwidth, or as a replacement for frame relay.
They also reserve the right to drop you if the bulk of your usage is while roaming.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:39 am