Boost Mobile
Boost Mobile, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sprint, today announced that they would be offering new plans for those looking to get cheaper unlimited pricing. Boost Mobile has traditionally been Sprint’s budget carrier offering, offering cheaper devices and cheaper plans, so it comes as no surprise that they are now coming out with an offering designed to compete with T-Mobile’s latest ultra-cheap offerings.
Boost Mobile’s new unlimited plans
However, keep in mind that Boost Mobile is Sprint’s biggest pre-paid user base, which does not help with post-paid numbers but does ultimately affect the bottom line. In the past, Boost Mobile offered users to lower their bills by $10 a month until they reached a certain low price if they paid their bills on time. However, that plan appears to have been thrown out the window in favor of these new “unlimited” plans which effectively mimic T-Mobile’s unlimited plans that offer a certain set amount of high speed data followed by an unlimited amount of slower 2G/3G data. With Boost Mobile’s approach, they appear to be considering 4G/3G service as high speed (which Sprint’s CDMA network is not) and 2G as throttled, which is really worthless.
By coming in $10 cheaper than T-Mobile, Sprint is enabling themselves to gain more users even if they are only offering 500MB a month, which in today’s world is only possible for older people or people that haven’t discovered the internet yet. Either way, 500MB will get evaporated quite quickly which is why AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile all offer different prices for all of their plans. For AT&T prepaid, you can get 500 minutes of talk and unlimited texting and 500 MB of data for $40 a month, but this does not compare with Boost Mobile’s service because it is capped data and you don’t get unlimited talk. For Verizon’s prepaid, you pay $45 a month, but you get unlimited talk and text as well as 500 MB of data, which is very comparable to Boost Mobile’s plan, especially when you consider that you’ll effectively have worthless internet once you’re kicked off 4G/3G on Sprint. So, here, Sprint and Verizon are equally as competitive in my eyes. And last but not least, you’ve got T-Mobile, which offers a $40 plan that has unlimited talk and text like Boost Mobile and Verizon, but also offers 500 MB of high speed data with no overages, perfectly mimicking Sprint’s plan. Except, T-Mobile’s plan is probably better because you will get better throttled speeds than what Boost Mobile has to offer, and you can basically buy any phone and it’ll probably work on T-Mobile, unlike Boost Mobile, which has to be CDMA.
However, if you go for the $50 plan, Boost will give you the better deal, because you get 2.5 GB of 3G/4G data rather than 1GB, which is what most of their competitors are offering. The same goes for their $60 plan, which gives you 5GB of data, which T-Mobile only gives you 3GB of data for. But, let’s also remember that Sprint’s network is VASTLY slower than T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon’s networks and the probability that you will be able to even achieve 5GB a month of data on that network is probably as possible as finding a unicorn under a rainbow. But there is still no denying the fundamental value of Boost’s plans if you want a little more than 500MB of data, which is admittedly a joke for anyone doing any real internet usage on their phones. The 2.5 GB plan is the most attractive at $50 a month and is without a doubt the best value in mobile, if you have decent speeds on Sprint in your area.
Either way, we’re glad to see that Boost Mobile has adjusted their plan pricing to properly reflect the competition within the industry and we have to thank T-Mobile once again for forcing their competitors to wake up and be more competitive because they’ve been stealing so many subscribers, they’ve basically forced them to react. I really hope that this trend continues and that T-Mobile is able to continue to check AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, and this is a perfect example of why Sprint should not be allowed to acquire T-Mobile. If it weren’t for T-Mobile, Sprint wouldn’t be forced to change their pricing on their Boost Mobile prepaid subsidiary.
