Sprint announces new international add-on for Framily Plan subscribers

Sprint

Sprint's new International Connect: Call & Text $15 add-on plan lets Framily Plan subscribers use their voice and text allotments to call and text internationally at no additional charge. Except for that $15, that is. With it, Sprint Framily Plan subscribers can count international calls to 65 countries against the voice minutes they're already paying for, and texts to more than 180 countries (which is just about all of the countries there are).

There's a lot of minutiae to International Connect: Call & Text, though, so we'll break it down for you. Counted against a Framily Plan allotment are:

Calls to landline numbers in 65 countries
Calls to mobile numbers in 35 countries
"Low" per-minute calls to mobile numbers rates in the 30 landline countries not included in the mobile
"Low" per-minute calls to numbers not included in any of those 65 countries
Unlimited texts to "over 180 countries"

Sprint's been suffering substantial losses in both customers and earnings, though they noted that as of last quarter nearly 3 million had signed up for the Framily Plan (which Sprint has been advertising heavily).

Reduced international calling rates are better than nothing, but it still does little to fix the mess that is international calling and usage.

Source: Sprint

Reader comments

Sprint announces new international add-on for Framily Plan subscribers

22 Comments

savdini

Exciting stuff........

Nexus 4 - CM10.1.3

3 years ago

datdudeukno

I just can't say FRamily with a straight face no matter how hard I try. Thank God I don't work at sprint.

flychinook

Oh its bad. I actually have a difficult time saying or typing the word "family" now.

Posted via Android Central App

Impulses

Interesting, but since I don't call internationally I'm not sure it gives me any incentive to change from the 3 year old plan I'm still dragging on tho... I'm on the Everything whatever, the one they charged as $70 + $10 for premium data, but I've got a permanent student discount (23%) and all their plans since then tend to minimize the amount the discount applies to.

Gotta admit I haven't looked too closely at the Framily plans, chiefly cause I'm on a line by myself and have no intention of recruiting customers for Sprint... Looks like it'd be $5 less a month for unlimited data, tho I'd lose subsidized upgrades every two years, currently using a N5 that I bought at the Play store tho.

I pay $64 with my discount (before taxes), I think they had a no contract plan at $60 at some point but beyond that their pricing has remained almost identical thru the last four years. Not that I'm complaining, LTE upgrades in Puerto Rico went super well.

Edit: yep, after looking into it I realized my discount would only apply to the $20 unlimited data charge. I wonder if Sprint will ever kill off unlimited on old plans like mine, I'm using around 6GB/month.

2Terrible

I think Sprint is working overtime to lose customers. I too looked into their Framily plan (I have five lines fully sexed out), and found that it would actually be more expensive to switch. And that's not even counting the added expense of having to purchase the phones.

This whole shamble started when someone challenged the companies asking why after their contract period their phone bill didn't become cheaper. The companies responded by NOT lowering our bills after the contract period, but instead (in Sprints case specifically), making the base plan more expensive and making us pay for the phone outright or choosing a payment plan.

Well, the old plans still exist, so you're free to choose a contract + subsidy if you want. The rest of the carriers aren't very different, outside of Tmo.

My parents have three lines, one's a feature phone, their bill has gone down maybe $25 in the same four year span but only because they benefit from having that feature phone in the plan that doesn't really use any of the shared data... I tried to convince my mother to buy a Moto X outright and go up to the 10GB plan (from 4GB) cause the lines end up much cheaper without a subsidy but in the end the math works out roughly the same if they stayed put and bought it for $50 on contract.

I'm not quite sure what it says of a growing industry when pricing remains identical for years, just twisted every which way so the consumer thinks he has more options...

Jay Holm

Doesn't T-Mobile have unlimited international texting at no extra cost?

Daniel Pickering

Yes for texting.

Tmobile Simple Choice Plan

Includes international roaming at no extra charge. No additional service required on qualifying Simple Choice Plans.

Talking: While roaming in this country, the following charges apply:

Calls to the US:

Cellular calls: $.20 per minute.
Wi-Fi calls: FREE

Calls to countries other than the US:

Cellular calls: $.20 per minute.
Wi-Fi calls: $.20 per minute

Calls received from any country:

Texting: Unlimited, included at no extra charge.
Data: Unlimited, included at no extra charge*

Sounds like Sprint is trying to fool people into paying for something they shouldn't have to.

GiantJay

Verizon, At&t and T-Mobile have free international text on any of their new shared data plans. All for free. Sprint is late and wants to charge $15?
Posted via Android Central App

hmmm

I read an article stating T-mobile is close (maybe within a year) to overtaking Sprint as the number 3 spot. I wonder if everyone will get a hard-on for Sprint then?

moonoverparma00

Within a year they might be one company so it won't matter

**Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!**

Jabid21

Germans bombed the Pearl Harbor? If history has changed, maybe our future is doomed. Noooo

A "hard-on"? Are we talking about a wireless carrier, or a cute girl with a nice body? Hmm. . .

NoNexus

To a geek like me, they are interchangeable

MAGIC_MITTENS

yes, because the ONLY reason people like T-Mobile is that they're in last place. It's not their affordable plans with huge data allotments or the boatload of features they offer or the fact that they're changing the entire wireless industry to better suit the needs of consumers or their blazingly fast LTE. It's the last place thing.