Sprint announced the Sprint Family Share Pack, a new set of shared data plans that start at 600MB and reach all the way up to 60GB. Under Sprint’s new offer, four lines with unlimited talk and text plus 20GB costs $160, doubling the data allowance packages with similarly priced plans from AT&T and Verizon.
To celebrate the new plans, available starting Aug. 22, Sprint has a limited-time offer of 20GB for $100 to families with up to 10 lines through 2015. The carrier is tacking on an additional 2GB per line with the offer, meaning that a family with 10 lines can pay $100 for 40GB a month. The $100 limited-time deal, available through September, is similar to a deal T-Mobile currently has going where a family with four lines can get through September unlimited talk and text plus 2.5GB per line for $100 a month.
Customers buying their devices through Sprint Easy Pay will incur a $25 per line fee with buckets of 16GB or less and $15 per line with buckets of 20GB or more. Skipping Easy Pay and subsidizing a device will carry a $40 per line cost.
Sprint is also offering to pay ETFs up to $350 for families porting over their numbers. The carrier is also for a limited time waiving data access charges for phones, tablets and hotspots for customers opting into 20GB buckets or higher.
The new aggressive pricing, targeting popular four-line plans, comes less than two weeks after new Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure took over for long-time chief Dan Hesse. Last week, Claure reportedly addressed Sprint employees and promised “very disruptive” pricing.
BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk said Sprint’s high-profile push into four-line plans will make the carrier look good on the graphics comparing similar offers from AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. But offering more data for the same price could be problematic for Sprint.
“However, it’s unclear whether a 4-line AT&T or Verizon customer (to the extent that they exist) will move if they don’t even use the 10 GB that is included in their current plan AND have concerns about Sprint’s network,” Piecyk wrote in a post. “Being offered double the amount of data when the network is slower and doesn’t work near your house is not a concept that is lost on the educated consumer.”
During the company call, Claure said establishing new rate plans to challenge the other carriers was the top priority. But he also emphasized putting the carrier’s large amount of spectrum to work in improving network quality.
