Sprint Nextel nixes free incoming minutes on new plans

We’ve long suspected that Sprint Nextel’s “Free Incoming” call offer could be eating in to the struggling US wireless carrier’s ARPU, what with subscribers likely opting for lower-priced monthly plans with fewer allotted minutes. And, it seems that Sprint Nextel has caught on to that trend and wised up.

Sprint Nextel has announced new family-oriented calling plans, which is great and all, but the new plans are conspicuously lacking the free incoming minutes offer. Sprint is touting their new pricing structure as offering fully-optioned family plans for $40 to $50 less than similar offerings from AT&T and Verizon.

Under the new pricing structure, $100 will get you two lines sharing 1,500 anytime minutes and $150 will give you two lines with 3,000 minutes to share – both plans included unlimited messaging. Sprint will be carrying over the $70/month family plan with two lines sharing 700 minutes as the only legacy plan to make the cut with the new calling plans.

The new rates go live on June 15 (strange that the new rates go in to effect on a weekend day), so anyone looking to get in on the Free Incoming calling plans might want to sign up right quick. Of course, that means a deeply discounted Sprint Samsung Instinct is out of the question.

[Via: RCRNews]

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Will Park

Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...

Raidium

I understand that the plans they chose to keep where the most popular of the bunch but I really dont care for them. I got the new plan brochures this morning at the store and they are so confusing! Free incoming is gone and they only have like 4 different individual plans with 450, 600, 900, and unlimited minutes! And the family plans only offer 700, 1500, and 3000 and u must get messaging on the 1500 and 3000. The additional add-ons for the 700 minute plan are 9.99 while the add-ons for the others at 19.99! Not to mention the now 5GB data plans rather then unlimited.

So in my opinion when the carrier attemped to make things more simplified, they made it more complicated! I know of some of my undecided customers are going to switch becasue of this!
PineRoot

Raidium;
I understand what you mean about the confusion. However, they are cheaper than what you get for the same amount of money at a different carrier (not counting revolving discounts). The 5GB cap is only on data cards not phones as was cleared up in another blog (BG, Engadget maybe). Plus, when has Blackberry Internet service been included in a family plan? That might as well be gold to some users. The individual plans didn’t see much change to them only one was done away with I believe. Still, the thing remains that once you take the time to look over the details and start to compare with what other carriers have, T-Mo is the only one that actually competes with Sprint as far as services for your money.
Raidium

PineRoot,
Well I’ve been studying them all day today and I can see what ur talking about. I know that the 5GB is only for the aircards and I also know why they are making it a 5GB limit as I commented under the Sprint Post about it. The only thing I just didnt understand i why they didnt add another minute package to the family plan wiht more minutes and no data. Not every family plan with 1400 minutes I sold had a data plan (such as text or vision) added to it. I’m just saying that it could get alittle confusing to the Customer when I try to explain about the rate plan changes. This may as well end up being a headache for me!
Thinner

Then, Raidium, you need to become a better salesman. In fact, you should be on here(and at your store) talking up the new plans….instead of being so negative before the horse has even left the barn. You’re the one hurting your sales….not the new plans.
Sprintaholic

Thank you Thinner! Gotta love employees who don’t take the time to consider the impact of what they: say, do, or write. I hope Raidium finds his way to Verizon where it seems he’d do better for our team!