Wireless service provider Ting on Friday announced a new deal on data costs for its subscribers: $10 per gigabyte of data on its Medium plans and higher.
According to Ting, the change means its $12 Medium plan with 500 MB of data will now cost just $10; the $19 Large plan with 1 GB of data will now be $16; the $29 XL plan with 2 GB of data will now be $20 and the XL+ plan will now run $10 per GB instead of $15 per GB.
The carrier, which provides service via Sprint’s CDMA network and T-Mobile’s GSM network, said its $6 monthly line cost for talk and text will remain unchanged.
“Ting has always been about saving people money while, at the same time, offering a smarter, friendlier and ultimately happier mobile experience,” said Elliot Noss, CEO of Ting parent company Tucows. “This new data pricing means people can save even more on their mobile bills while needing to think about their data use less.”
The move from Ting echoes a similar change from Verizon last month when it introduced new plan pricing that dropped the cost per GB across the board.
As Wells Fargo Senior Analyst Jennifer M. Frtizsche pointed out in a July research note, Verizon lowered the cost of data on its low end plans from around $30 per GB to around $18 per GB. The cost on its higher end plans also dipped from around $6 per GB to around $5 per GB.
“Put another way, while it is extracting a higher monthly fee from consumers, more data is being thrown into each plan,” Fritzsche wrote.
Fritzsche said the move could indicate competition is hurting Verizon and improving its data pricing represented a way for it to catch up to the offerings provided by its rivals.