Earlier this week, Sprint introduced a new offer for current Verizon and AT&T customers looking to switch service — same amount of data at half the price. We noted at the time that the major catch to this deal is that you have to pay full price for your new phone when you switch (or pay $200), but how much would that cut into your savings? According to one top Sprint exec, quite a lot. [More]
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Sprint Exec Admits That “Half-Off” Offer Will Likely Only Result In Savings Of Around 20%
By 12.5.14
FCC Releases Massive Study On Mobile Phone Theft, Asks Wireless Companies To Start Making Changes
By 12.5.14
Smartphones are amazingly convenient: tiny little hand-sized computers that make it easy to organize our lives on the go. They’re also amazingly good targets for theft: tiny, portable, expensive, and full of personal information. Mobile device theft is on the rise, just as mobile devices are, and the FCC has been trying to find ways to protect consumers when their devices get yanked from their hands. [More]
Sprint Offers To Cut Verizon, AT&T Customers’ Bills In Half If They Switch
By 12.2.14
Sprint really wants your business. First it tried throwing free data (that you’ll never use and which can be painfully slow) at new customers, but now it’s targeting your wallet, offering to slash the monthly rates of AT&T and Verizon Wireless customers willing to jump ship. [More]
Mobile Companies Leaping To Sell You A New Phone — With A New Contract — On Black Friday
By 11.26.14
Is your phone getting old? Has it met with the unfortunate confluence of liquids, young children, and boisterous pets lately? If you’re in the market for a replacement or upgrade, it looks like Black Friday might be your day… as long as you’re willing to sign a contract. [More]
Man Responsible For “Framily” Is Being Frired By Sprint
By 11.14.14
Anyone who champions an ad campaign that features: a talking hamster voiced by Andrew Dice Clay; a French-speaking Girl Scout; a jerky, lanky goth named Gord-on; and the sadly wasted comedic talents of Judy Greer — and then tries to introduce the term “framily” into the lexicon — does not deserve to be a top executive at a major wireless provider. Which is why Sprint is already planning to say goodbye to its Chief Marketing Officer after less than one year on the job. [More]
T-Mobile CEO: Apple SIM That Should Let Users Switch Mobile Carriers Is Crippled By Mobile Carriers
By 10.27.14
Apple included a very consumer-friendly item in their new iPad Air 2: the Apple SIM. As designed, the Apple SIM lets iPad owners switch cellular carriers without going into phone stores or having to get any new parts. But in reality, mobile carriers are doing their best to prevent any actual real-world consumers from doing so. [More]
Sprint Will Lease Loyal Customers An iPhone 6 For $5/Month
By 10.14.14
While other carriers are looking to eliminate phone subsidies, Sprint has an interesting plan for people who like to upgrade their handsets annually: the “iPhone for Life” program lets you lease a phone instead of purchasing or financing one. Now, the carrier is rewarding loyal customers who have stuck with the carrier through its years of spotty coverage and slow data speeds. [More]
T-Mobile CEO “Sick And Tired” Of Takeover Talk
By 10.7.14
T-Mobile has long been considered a juicy, low-hanging magenta fruit that some bigger company could pick off and devour. But after years of being wooed by suitors from the Death Star, Japan, and France, T-Mobile CEO John Legere says it’s time to stop talking about his company being acquired by someone else. [More]
Sprint Doubles AT&T’s Data-Doubling Promotion
By 10.1.14
Over the weekend, AT&T announced a promotion on its biggest and priciest family plans for data: during October, they will double the amount of data that users on most expensive plans, starting at the 15 GB tier, get with their monthly plan. “Oh, yeah?” said competitor Sprint. “We’ll DOUBLE their double data!” [More]
The Only Way To Avoid Paying A Fee For iPhone Upgrade Is To Pay Full Price
By 9.12.14
Earlier this week, we looked at the various offers being thrown out by the four major wireless carriers in their attempts to attract people switching to the iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus. What was left out of that discussion — and which seems to be catching a number of customers by surprise today — is that some of them must pay a fee to upgrade. [More]
Sprint CEO On Failed “Framily” Plans: It’s Hard To Sell A Talking Hamster
By 9.12.14
If you’ve watched TV in the last year, you’ve likely caught one of the many, overly quirky ads for Sprint’s former “Framily” plans. Between the francophile daughter, random goth hanger-on Gord-on, and a hamster patriarch voiced by Andrew Dice Clay, the company’s new CEO admits that it was all just a bit too much for what was otherwise a cruddy group data plan on a really slow network. [More]
Your Guide To The Major Carriers’ iPhone 6 Offers
By 9.10.14
Apple announced a couple of new phones yesterday, triggering a Pavlovian response in some consumers that can only be eased by the acquisition of one of these new phones. It also pits the four national wireless carriers against each other in a battle for Apple-hungry customers. [More]
Sprint Offers $60 Unlimited Data Plan That Won’t Interest Real Data Hogs
By 8.21.14
Earlier this week, Sprint’s new CEO Marcelo Claure tried to take a swing at its bigger and/or faster competition by announcing a shared data plan that gives you a ton of data… on a network that’s currently so slow you’ll never get to use it all. Now Claure and company are trying again, offering an unlimited data plan that’s cheaper than the competition but probably won’t win over savvy data devourers. [More]
Sprint Slashes Prices On Gigabytes, But New Plans Don’t Offer Real Value For Most Consumers
By 8.19.14
As expected following the recent change in leadership at Sprint, the nation’s third-largest wireless provider is slashing prices on group plans. But since Sprint admits that its network isn’t competitive with the other big players, the new plan only offers value to heavy data users with lots of patience. [More]
Comcast Says that Mobile Data is Competitive, but it Costs $2k to Stream ‘Breaking Bad’ Over LTE
By 8.18.14
Comcast keeps on claiming that mobile broadband is real competition for wired home broadband. But for most users, it’s just plain not. Not only is the speed and reliability of mobile broadband still hugely variable depending on location and time of day, but also mobile data is still clearly not competitive on price. [More]
Sprint Is Prepping To Start A Price War, But Will Competitors Take The Bet?
By 8.8.14
Earlier this week, Sprint abandoned months of planning for a takeover of T-Mobile and fired CEO Dan Hesse after seven years of failing to make the company competitive with Verizon or AT&T. Now Sprint’s Chairman says the new CEO is prepping to start a price war to win over customers, but is Sprint really in a position to pick that fight? [More]
T-Mobile, Where Second Place = “Undisputed” Champ
By 8.7.14
Yesterday, T-Mobile sent out a press release claiming that it is now the industry leader in prepaid wireless (we’ll get to that later). The statement from the magenta mobile provider also included the boast that T-Mobile “has maintained the undisputed title of America’s fastest nationwide 4G LTE network” and links to a recent test as evidence. Problem is, the results of that test don’t seem to back up T-Mobile’s horn-tooting. [More]
All Four National Wireless Companies Accused Of Breaking FCC Rules By Hiding Information About Data Throttling
By 8.7.14
Just over two weeks ago, the FCC not-so-gently reminded all four big wireless carriers that although true “net neutrality” might not apply to them, there are still rules about transparency and disclosures that they have to follow. At the time, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said that companies had no excuse to think the FCC wasn’t watching them — and the FCC isn’t the only group putting wireless companies on notice over their lack of transparency. [More]
