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Sprint prepaid brands Boost, Virgin Mobile add high-speed data bucket option

Sprint prepaid brands offer high-speed data buckets for customers in need of more speed

Sprint unveiled extra-cost data buckets for its Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile USA prepaid brands that allow customers to add either 1 gigabyte or 2 GB of access to the carrier’s 3G and LTE network.

The plans are priced at $5 per GB and are designed to provide additional high-speed data services for customers who tap out their included data buckets. The current data buckets throttle network speeds once a customer hits the allotment.

Boost Mobile’s current “Data Boost” plans include unlimited calling and text messaging, plus 2 GB of unthrottled data for as low as $30 per month, or up to 10 GB of data for $55 per month. Virgin Mobile USA’s “Unlimited” plans start at $35 per month for 2.5 GB of unthrottled data, up to $45 per month for 3 GB of data.

Sprint’s move looks to bolster its competitive position in the increasingly volatile prepaid space. Boost Mobile had been running a “Slash Your Payment in Half” promotion, which expired on July 20, targeting AT&T Mobility’s Cricket and T-Mobile US’ MetroPCS brands. Sprint also recently launched a data rollover option for its branded prepaid service that allows customers to keep up to 30 gigabytes of unused data for an unlimited amount of time.

Sprint continues to rely heavily on its prepaid brands, with its latest quarterly results showing it added 546,000 net prepaid connections during its most recent quarter compared with a loss of 364,000 connections for the same quarter last year. That growth accounted for nearly half of the carrier’s total net connections for the quarter. Sprint is scheduled to release its fiscal first-quarter results on Aug. 4.

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