Troy Wolverton: Unlimited data plans offer boon to consumers

Sprint never stopped offering an all-you-can-eat data plan even as the other carriers started discontinuing theirs six year ago.All of them except for AT&T's discount-priced Unlimited Choice deal include the ability to use your phone as a mobile Wi-Fi access point for other devices.Except f...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inTCA News Service
Main Author Wolverton, Troy
Format Newsletter
LanguageEnglish
Published Chicago Tribune Content Agency LLC 15.03.2017
Subjects
Anderson, Derek
Bills
Customer services
Discounts
Fees & charges
Prices
Smartphones
Wireless carriers
Canada
United States > US
Northern California
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Sprint never stopped offering an all-you-can-eat data plan even as the other carriers started discontinuing theirs six year ago.All of them except for AT&T's discount-priced Unlimited Choice deal include the ability to use your phone as a mobile Wi-Fi access point for other devices.Except for the Unlimited Choice plan, all the plans allow users to stream videos in high-definition quality and to access the internet at the highest speeds available on their networks.By contrast, AT&T limits Unlimited Choice customers' speeds to a relatively slow 3 megabits per second, even before they hit the data cap, and restricts them to relatively low-resolution standard-definition videos.Sprint will lease you an iPhone 7 for free -- meaning all you'll pay each month is your monthly service bill -- if you trade in a somewhat recent smartphone, like an iPhone 6 or 6s, from another carrier.All the plans except AT&T's Unlimited Choice allow you to use your phone as a Wi-Fi access point and access as much as 10 gigabytes of data that way.The charges don't include the cost of purchasing or leasing a phone, except with Sprint's Unlimited plan, which is offering a cost-free iPhone 7 lease with the trade in of another high-end smartphone.