“Sprint Corp. introduced an ‘iPhone for Life’ plan that lets customers get a new version of Apple Inc.’s smartphone every two years for a fee of $70 a month,” Peter Burrows and Scott Moritz report for Bloomberg. “The service also includes unlimited data, Sprint said today on its website. Customers make no initial payment for the phone or related taxes on the device because they are essentially renting it, the company said.”
“Chief Executive Officer Marcelo Claure is counting on the new iPhone 6 to help Sprint start adding subscribers again after a seven-year streak of customer losses. By tying promotions to Apple’s device, Sprint is following in the footsteps of controlling shareholder SoftBank Corp., which used an exclusive iPhone deal to gain market share in Japan,” Burrows and Moritz report. “‘I challenge anyone in this industry to beat this,’ Claure said today in an interview. ‘Nobody is going to do it.'”
“After spending his first week at Sprint talking to employees, Claure, who took over Aug. 11, said he’s been chatting with customers ever since. That’s what led him to conclude they’d be attracted to unlimited-data plans for the iPhone, eliminating their concern that they could go over their alloted megabytes each month,” Burrows and Moritz report. “‘I’m skipping my employees and going straight to my customers,’ he said. ‘We’re going to play unlimited, because we have the capacity to offer unlimited.'”
Read more in the full article here.
Now that is a deal I might switch to Fran my grandfathered ATT plan, assuming the coverage area is there.
I’m with you. I gotta figure out how to get the rest on my family plan to switch!
I have a shared plan with AT&T and I can barely reach the 10 G limit every month and I am a big user. Using iPhone and iPad at the same time. I think that unlimited notion is purely theoretical. It’s good to have for the sake of running netflix iTunes Radio and more all at the same time, on several devices obviously, but really is not that important.
If I watch TV (such as from a SlingBox, Hulu, or Netflix) while on the treadmill to catch up my weeks TV watching, I’d blow right through any monthly GB limit.
The real issue is the coverage and sustained performance f the cell network.
If they can deliver that, I’m happy to pay that price, especially with no upfront pricing for the phone.
My only gripe – CDMA does not support multitasking.
Sprint and Verizon are both CDMA.
The phone is capable of VoLTE, I’ll wait to see if the company is.
In my area, Verizon has the best spectrum and coverage, especially for my new office location.
The same in my case and I will be getting new iPhones and switch from AT&T to Verizon. But that Sprint deal looks nice, if only they had better coverage.
Me too. I’m so sick of ATT’s dropped calls and lies that there’s no problem with their 3G Cisco Micro Cell and iPhone I’m ready to leave. If u don’t know about the ATT Micro Cell & iPhone saga, google: Forbes + Micro Cell + iPhone you’ll be amazed what’s been going on these past years. Made a FCC Complaint and got a call from the President’s office. They are so lame their rep can’t authorize a thing for compensation. I’m done. ATT so sucks!
Please don’t do Sprint. I’m jumping to T-mobile since they’ll be the only carrier to offer WiFi calling on the iphone6. I had Sprint for 2 years. Poor coverage and the data speeds are SLOW! Also, Once you buy thei phone, they will NEVER unlock it so the resale value takes a hit. Twitter: @wireless_corner
Why does the resale value matter when you’re getting a brand new phone every two years.
You aren’t getting a brand new phone for free. You are paying for it with your own money (over the two-year contract). The phone costs $650.
Resale value matters quite a lot. This summer, I took my one-year-old T-Mobile iPhone 5 overseas and sold it over there for close to $500. T-mobile unlocked it as soon as I asked them. I bought a new 5s for that money when I returned to the US. I wouldn’t even be able use Sprint-locked iPhone overseas. Locked to Sprint, you can only sell to another Sprint customer. Generally, this affects resale price by up to $100.
And for $70 per month?? This is exactly the same as T-Mobile (unlimited everything, plus two-year interest-free loan for the iPhone). At the end of two years, you can buy a new iPhone and sell the original one for more than the $200 downpayment you need to put. Not to mention you can have it unlocked as soon as you buy it, so you can use foreign SIM cards when overseas.
Sprint will unlock for international usage for free, even if you are under contract. You need to call about 24 hours before you leave the US. They send a computer code to your phone which unlocks it only for international usage. Once it is unlocked for international use, you can purchase and use foreign SIM cards in your phone. I’ve done this, so know it is so.
Sprint will not unlock for US use if you are still under contract unless you pay the termination fee. The fee depends on how much of your contract is left. However, once you have finished your contract, they will unlock the phone for US use for no charge.
I switched my Sprint plan to AT&T. The plan had three phones, two of which were no longer under contract and one of which had a year left on the contract. Sprint unlocked all three phones. I had to pay $160 to terminate the contract on the one phone.
Not true. Sprint does unlock phones. Just call and ask. I did. THey unlocked to let me switch to AT&T, which has better coverage.
My wife has Sprint…they could offer free iPhones for life and I wouldn’t join that piss-poor network. I have no idea how people put up with those dial-up speeds…
I’m thinking there are a bunch of Sprint and Verizon talkers visiting today.