Boost Mobile this morning announced a new middle-ground between its pay as you go and all-unlimited offering. The Unlimited Talk & Text Plan will deliver unlimited voice and unlimited text messaging for $45 per month.
The area of unlimited talk and text, without data, has been hotly contested by second-tier and MVNO brands. Straight Talk, Family Mobile, Simple Mobile, and Page Plus Cellular all offer unlimited voice plans in the $40 range, with text messaging either being low-cost or included.
Sprint’s competitive advantage here, is with Boost Mobile’s Shrinkage offering. The Shrinkage offering allows for $5 bill reductions every six months of timely payments. This will deliver a minimum wireless bill of $30 per month after a customer has been using Unlimited Talk & Text for 18 months.
At $30, Sprint’s Boost Mobile will have the cheapest unlimited voice plan in the country. The news comes as Sprint continues to face embattled positions in postpay, and is likely to help Sprint in one key area: increasing subscriber count.
While some financial analysts have said a Sprint bankruptcy is possible in recent weeks, those forecasts miss Sprint’s ability to undersell the competition in the areas of prepaid and wholesale rates. With a new line of feature phones from LG, Motorola, and Kyocera, Boost Mobile will be able to immediately combat MVNOs that are not owned by the first-party.
At $30 per month, no MVNO today will likely be able to immediately answer Boost Mobile’s Shrinkage. However, they may not have to. Eighteen months is a long duration int he wireless industry, for any customer. As such, the impetus on Sprint will be to encourage customers to lock in and see the long-term financial savings. In 18 months time, MVNOs may be able to deliver $30 prepaid, unlimited voice and text plans, but not any time soon.
Boost Mobile’s press release does not provide a rate for mobile web as an add-on. We have contacted Sprint for a clarification on what Boost Mobile will offer there, and follow-up when we hear back. Boost Mobile did confirm that their popular $5 International Connect and $15 International Connect Plus reduced cost calling add-ons will be available with the Unlimited Talk & Text plan.
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