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Don’t fall for Sprint’s $20 ‘unlimited’ data plan

Updated Dec 19th, 2018 9:07PM EST
Sprint Unlimited Data Plan

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Earlier this week, Sprint surprised everyone by announcing a new unlimited data plan that would cost subscribers just $20 per month. Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, that’s because it is.

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Although the “unlimited” part of Sprint’s Starter Unlimited Data Plan is technically accurate, only the first gigabyte of data will be high-speed data. Once you’ve hit 1GB, your data will slow to 2G speeds, effectively limiting your access to streaming video and other content that requires high-speed data.

So yes, you can get unlimited data for $20 per month, but it’s not the data you want.

For customers who only use around 1GB of data over the course of 30 days, this might not be a bad option. After all, if in the last few days of your billing cycle you happen to go over that 1GB allowance, you won’t have to worry about paying overage fees — you’ll just have to deal with 2G speeds.

It’s just a shame that carriers feel the need to trick customers into thinking they’re getting something they’re not, however. T-Mobile has a similar plan called Simple Choice, and the only real difference between the two is that T-Mobile doesn’t include the word “unlimited” in the name of its plan.

Quit trying to fool us, mobile carriers.

Jacob Siegal
Jacob Siegal Associate Editor

Jacob Siegal is Associate Editor at BGR, having joined the news team in 2013. He has over a decade of professional writing and editing experience, and helps to lead our technology and entertainment product launch and movie release coverage.