The Sprint Boost Mobile platform looks to re-invigorate lagging prepaid efforts
Sprint’s Boost Mobile prepaid brand picked up new rate plans targeting multiline accounts and is now offering to pay customers to watch advertising content through a downloadable application.
The new Boost Family Plan provides two lines of service with unlimited voice calling, text messaging and 5 gigabytes of unthrottled data per line for $70 per month. Customers can add up to two additional lines for $25 each.
Another option is a three-line plan priced at $90 per month, but limits unthrottled data to 1.5 GB per line, with a four-line plan with the same data limitation priced at $100 per month. Customers can also add roaming in Mexico for $5 per month, which includes unlimited voice calls, text messaging and up to 8 GB of 2G/3G data services.
The new deals continue to offer a $5 per month discount for customers signing up for Boost’s automatic payment option.
A more interesting discount is the Boost Dealz application, which allows customers with devices running Google’s Android operating system to view “offers, special deals and ads” in return for a $5 per month discount on their Boost service. Sprint claims if downloaded, the application displays the content “various times customers unlock their screen to use their smartphone.”
If the lower priced rate plans and possible discounts are not enough, Boost also said it would now allow customers a 14-day “grace” period in paying their monthly bills in which the carrier will not shutdown a customer’s service. More delinquent customers will continue to receive free incoming calls and text messages for up to 60 days after their bill is due.
For those customers paying their bill on time, Boost is offering 500 megabytes of unthrottled data for every third on-time payment up to a maximum of 3 GB of additional data per month. As the carrier explained “after 18 on-time payments, customers on the $35 plan will get 5 GB of high-speed data, or, if on the $45 plan, 8 GB of high-speed data.”
Boost is also including mobile hot spot service free of charge on its rate plans as well as access to a streaming music platform that does not count against a customer’s data allotment. The platform is similar to one launched by fellow Sprint prepaid brand Virgin Mobile USA last year, which itself is similar to one launched by T-Mobile US in mid-2014 and expanded to select MetroPCS rate plans late last year.
Sprint said it lost 491,000 direct prepaid customers during the final three months of last year, which in turn dragged down what would have been a strong quarter of growth for the beleaguered carrier. Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure excused the dip by stating the carrier was not interested in chasing lower profit customers, which look to have found refuge in the arms of T-Mobile US and AT&T Mobility, both of which reported an identical 469,000 net prepaid additions during the fourth quarter of last year.
“Prepaid has been fiercely competitive,” Claure said. “We had to decide where we wanted to compete and that was more focus on postpaid. We have a good value proposition in prepaid, but are not going to fight for unprofitable customers. Not adding customers for the sake of adding customers.”
However, Claure did say Sprint was looking to reposition its prepaid efforts, with a short-term focus on the Boost Mobile brand while it planned to go in a new direction for its Virgin Mobile brand.
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