Sprint is fueling another price war against rivals AT&T and Verizon. Beginning Friday, subscribers who are willingly switch to Sprint will only have to pay half the price of what their bill was from a previous carrier.
In addition to offering the lowest monthly bill subscribers could have, Sprint announced that it would also cover the early termination fees for those with existing contracts. According to the Washington Post, the company might have initiated this price war after its attempt to merge with T-Mobile failed.
Walter Piecyk, telecom analyst at BTIG, analyzed the offer, looking at Verizon's contract family plan that costs $240 a month for four devices and 10 gigabytes of shareable data. Sprint offers the same deal for only $120, but new customers would have to replace their handsets. iPhone 6 replacements come at an additional $27 per month, per device fee, making the Sprint monthly deal $228.
"It's not clear to me if the headline is going to be enough to get people to move," Piecyk told the Wall Street Journal.
The half price deal will be retained until end of contract for those who would still want to switch, but it is not a permanent offer. Sprint might not offer the same deal to T-Mobile subscribers because Sprint considers the company less of a competition, USA Today reported.
Sprint's half price deal will surely pressure AT&T and Verizon to respond with their own deals, each hoping to convince subscribers to stay put. While Sprint's network is slower and less reliable than their services, a half price offer in this economy might be worth the wait.
