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Sprint may be following in the footsteps of T-Mobile and AT&T, and offering up some free content to those that subscribe to its unlimited plan. AT&T offers all unlimited data customers HBO for free, but that is because AT&T bought (or is buying) Time Warner, the company that owns HBO. T-Mobile is doing the same thing but with Netflix, T-Mobile did not buy Netflix but is working with Netflix to do this deal. And now Sprint could do the same, at least according to market research firm Wave7.
Wave7 wrote in a research note that “Dealers have been told that this is ‘coming soon.’ There will be one subscription per account and it will be described as a $7.99 value.” This seems to mean that those on a family plan will only be able to get one Hulu account, which means you’ll need to share it with the others on your plan. It also means that Sprint is giving everyone the lowest-tier plan, which includes ads. By the wording here, it looks to be something similar to T-Mobile, where you will connect your Hulu account to your Sprint account, and will be given a $7.99 credit each month to cover Hulu. So that if you do sign up for the more expensive plans (like the one without ads which is $11.99).
The offering from T-Mobile for Netflix has been a big deal in the market, according to the research firm, which is what is leading Sprint to offering this feature in the near future. At this time, there’s no word on when exactly this will be launching, but if Sprint is looking to a leg up on the competition and have a good holiday quarter, it’ll want to launch this before the holiday shopping season starts – which is actually next month. With carriers offering up free content (don’t forget, Verizon has go90 at its disposal) to customers now, it could be a differentiator that forces some to jump ship, but it’s likely to be a very small number of people that jump ship from one carrier to another based on the content deal it has – whether that’s go90, Hulu, Netflix or HBO.