Newsletter
There was once a time where contracts were the norm’ when it came to wireless service here in the U.S. Literally every single carrier had two-year contracts which could end up extended for any number of reasons depending on the changes you made to your account. T-Mobile shook up the industry by completely getting rid of two-year contracts some years back with their Uncarrier initiative, and it was only going to be so long before other carriers likely started to follow suit with this trend. Earlier in the month, Verizon Wireless officially announced they too, would be getting rid of contracted plans, and those changes started taking effect on August 13th which was just last week Thursday. Now, Sprint is officially announcing they will also be getting rid of two-year contracts.
Sprint’s announcement to change their plan structure is really not that surprising considering T-Mobile who is now the third largest carrier in the U.S. has already made the change to this plan structure years ago and considering the largest carrier in the U.S. (Verizon Wireless) altered their contract approach last week. Sprint’s changes will mean the end of contract agreements and subsidized phone prices, and instead Sprint will be moving over to a phone leasing option completely. Sprint already offers phone leasing so this particular detail is nothing new, but once they get rid of the agreements it will be the only option for subscribers for picking up new devices going forward.
The other important detail to take note of is that Sprint says they will get rid of contracted plans by the end of 2015, which means it won’t be too long before three of major carriers only offer month to month pricing plans with phone leasing options for upgrading and picking up new devices. That will leave AT&T as the last remaining carrier which still offers options for contracted plans and discounted devices, although it wouldn’t be surprising to see them get rid of them as well at some point in the future if pressure mounts up from the competition. In addition to this announcement from Sprint, they will be offering a new phone leasing plan called iPhone Forerver which comes with a starting price tag of $22 a month for iPhone users. This new plan strategy should work well with the launch of Samsung’s two new devices which are set to launch on the 21st of August, the Galaxy Note 5 and the Galaxy S6 Edge+.