Sprint has been in a constant state of flux lately, and not in a good way – their plans to purchase T-Mobile fell through, they were relegated into fourth place when T-Mobile recently passed them by and they are losing current subscribers and nobody new wants to sign up with them. Their network has a lingering reputation, which was gained honestly, of being slow and with poor coverage. When Softbank purchased Sprint just a year ago in July, with Softbank’s legendary founder and CEO Masayoshi Son at the helm, we expected big things from this brilliant, bold and successful business executive. However, the former CEO of Sprint, Dan Hesse, had a totally different personality and way of doing business that was more methodical than bold and the two CEO’s just did not work well together.
Enter Dan Hesse’s replacement, Marcelo Claure, another dynamic individual that has a personal working relationship with CEO Son when they bought BrightStar off Claure – together, we are expecting big things from the ‘new’ Sprint and the team of Son and Claure. Sprint has already announced that there will be a real shake-up in the plans and their pricing while at the same time getting Sprint’s network in the shape that is needed in order to compete with Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile – concentrating first with the smaller T-Mobile.
The announcements of Sprint’s new plans will most like be made public on Tuesday, August 19 when they have a planned event. Exactly what changes will be made are still not known, but word is that there will be a $50 a month Unlimited Plan that is now being tested in Chicago and could certainly be the bold move they are looking for. As other carriers are trying to limit data, an unlimited plan would really shake up the industry. That same plan would now cost $110 on Sprint and $80 a month on T-Mobile – Verizon and AT&T don’t even offer one…$50 will get you 250MB of data on Verizon!
Sprint is also testing a new family plan in Portland, Oregon (I wonder how they decide where they will test these products) that would offer four lines and 20GB of Data for $160. This is similar to AT&T’s plan, except that you only get 10GB of data. T-Mobile does not offer shared plans, but four lines with 5GB of data each would run you $180. It is anybody’s guess what CEO Claure will announce next week, but the $50 a month unlimited plan would certainly be a show-stopper.
Please hook up with us on our Google+ Page and let us know what you think about the ‘new’ Sprint – are you excited about the possibilities or is Sprint entirely out of the question…as always, we would love to hear from you.