As is becoming tradition, Sprint rolled out a bunch of “limited-time” offers on data plans for Black Friday. As it turns out, the only time limit is “as long as people want the deal.”
Considering that the plans Sprint are offering are a steal — provided you like Sprint and live somewhere with good service — it’s not a surprise the network is extending the offer for an unspecified amount of time. That surprise shouldn’t stop you from taking a good look at your Verizon bill and considering if it’s worth it, though.
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Sprint’s offer is exactly the same as it was over Black Friday: port at least one line to Sprint, and you’ll get unlimited text, talk and data for $20 per line if you have five lines. The price breakdown only makes good sense if you’re an account with four or five lines. You pay $60 for one line, $100 for two, and then the third, fourth and fifth lines are free. That’s $33/line for three lines, $25/line for four, or $20/line for five. To be honest, I’d probably just start carrying around three cellphones, all with unlimited data.
Of course, Sprint’s plan, just like T-Mobile’s (and everyone else) isn’t actually unlimited — your video and music is throttled, hotspot data is limited, and heavy users are subject to throttling at peak times. But provided you don’t rely heavily on the mobile network to watch HD Netflix videos, it should provide all the mobile data you need for a small amount of money per month.
There’s a catch, though, and that’s Sprint’s network performance. The latest report from OpenSignal, a company that uses crowdsourced data to show real-world performance of cell networks, puts Sprint firmly in last place among the big four networks. Sprint’s the worst on network availability and download speeds across the country, although city-by-city performance varies a little. Other network tests, which generally rely on testing networks at a bunch of pre-determined spots and are arguably less representative of the nation as a whole, show Sprint to be much closer (and sometimes better!) to the other networks in speed and coverage.
Still, if Sprint’s service isn’t bad in your home city and you have a couple of lines on the same account, this deal could be a particularly cheap way to get plans for the next year. The $20-per-line pricing lasts until January 31st 2018, so you’re only tied into Sprint for the next year.
