Sprint's Prepaid service revamps with new tiered data plans

You'd be fine with a landline then. That ain't why I got a smartphone.

Seems to be the pattern with pre-paid. You can have a smartphone for only $35 bucks a month! ...with a paltry amount of data. Want more data? Pay as much as AT&T (or at least, that's what my family plan costs when split evenly).

I like it. The $45 plan is the same as Straight Talk. Do they allow BYOD though? If not, no thanks. Posted via the Xperia Z4

no BYOD unless it's Sprint branded

And even if it's Sprint branded I think they only have like 4 or 5 smartphones to choose from for Sprint Prepaid.

except on straight talk after the 3 gigs your not cut off just slowed down

Virgin Mobile is even better. $35/month for 2.5GB of 4G, throttled thereafter.

Yeah, Virgin is definitely cheaper. And, if you don't mind being restricted to Virgin's phones, then you can save some serious cash. I remember when they had the $25 per month plan. I almost signed up with them, then.

CDMA means no Nexus 5! :( If the new Moto G comes in a CDMA variant, and if it's compatible with Virgin... aw, yeah. :P

Actually the Nexus 5 is one of the few phones that is both GSM and CDMA for 3 of the major US carriers (excluding Verizon). I am using mine on Sprint right now.

Except that it has to be a Nexus 5 bought from Google Play or Sprint. No go for any other N5 bought from anywhere else.

Aren't they all identical? Who else would be selling it anyway? I doubt Tmo's is any different and I don't even think AT&T sells it themselves... Why/how would some smaller carrier sell a different Nexus 5? This was kind of the point of the Nexus 5, one of the first phones with LTE to work across multiple carriers (first Android one I think, iPhone did it first tho).

Yes, they are all completely identical. But Sprint would only activate the phone if it's registered on their database. And only the N5 sold by Google Play and Sprint (and their affiliated vendors who sells N5s to be activated on Sprint ala Best Buy) are registered on this specific database. Phones sold from other carriers and other third party vendors (yes, there are retailers other than GP that sell the N5) can only be activated on the other GSM carriers (once/if unlocked). Trust me! I know what I'm talking about. I've learned it the hard way. The only truly guaranteed way for the phone to go across all multiple carriers is if you buy it from GP store.

Ok, are they cheaper anywhere else tho? I'm just struggling to see why you wouldn't buy it from Play,I didn't even pay tax or shipping on mine (tho I think that's a small loophole, them not charging tax to PR).

Yes, they can be quite a bit cheaper. Haven't you seen deals posted here in Android Central recently? A 16GB N5 can be bought for $315 (total, no shipping, no tax). Whereas the total in GP would be around $390 (GP charges shipping+tax for places other than PR). The $315 brand new unlocked sealed device sells like hot cakes. But when I tried to activate one of them on the Sprint network, it was a no-go. Add to that, if you bought a N5 from/through Sprint (or Best Buy to activate with Sprint), the phone is currently "locked" until November (one year after Sprint acquired them).

They are copying Cricket but for 55 you get 10gb Posted via my Sony Xperia Z2

It's a lot worse, actually. If Sprint is restricting video streaming to 3G speeds, then video streaming will be practically impossible, since Sprint's 3G is absolute garbage. Posted from my Nexus 5, behind seven proxies

So true.

3G speeds, not 3G network. If you're connected to LTE, then a steady 3Mbps is plenty for video streaming on a phone. Posted via Android Central App

That's BS and you know it. 3G means just that, 3G. A 3G network provides 3G speeds, a 4G network provides 4G speeds. If Sprint were referencing a 3mbps speed limit for streaming video, then that would be specified. So, no, stop spreading lies.

+1 Thank you from typing it Posted by my soon to be retired Note 3

I like the signature, lol. Going to check out the Note 4, as soon as it hits Best Buy and carrier stores.

I don't know about that, are we really assuming Sprint's ROMs on phones sold for prepaid actually bounce the customer between the 3G and LTE networks any time a video stream is initiated (terrible on battery life and makes it harder to manage the network itself)... Or, isn't it far more likely that they just throttle people on LTE for certain video streams (e.g. Netflix etc), which is far easier for them to do on their end without shifting phones across networks etc? That being said, if they're gonna bother to do QoS-like throttling it'll probably bump you down to something like 1mbps (unless it's dynamic and not hard set). It's semantics, up to an extent, but getting dumped unto Sprint's 3G could mean anything between 1.5mbps to 0.250mbps depending on the area... Whereas getting throttled on LTE might very well be more reliable, depending on what you're trying to do. 1mbps will certainly not get you 4k streaming on Netflix but it'll do for YouTube. I'm not sure I'd ever bother with any of this nonsense regardless, isn't their recent fully unlimited no caveats no contract plan already $60? Seems the $55 option here is redundant... Am I missing something? I've been meaning to ask about the former at a Sprint store and whether I could retain my student discount with it.

I have nothing against prepaid Sprint, but
expensive carrier-bloated CDMA phones are a tough sell with cheap-low priced prepaid plans especially compared to the GSM unlocked phones that can be brought over to tmobile, att prepaid plans

this should make you think twice about Sprint Prepaid. *Monthly on-network data allowance. Data access ends after plan's applicable allowance reached. Video streaming limited to 3G speeds. Price, plans & offers subject to change and vary by market/retailer.

Yeah, but, if you live in an area where Sprint is better than everyone else everywhere you go, then it may be worth the tradeoff of getting throttled on another carriers network that doesn't work as good.

Is there ANY area Sprint is better than ATT/Verizon?

Believe it or not, there are some areas in Wisconsin that ONLY SPRINT COVERS. Yes, you read that right. At&t, Verizon, and T-Mobile all have considerably-sized deadspots, if you venture inland in Wisconsin towards Minnesota.

What? We on the Internet tryin to get our email on

They don't support the Nexus 5 on prepaid? That'd be dumb considering it works just fine in their network otherwise and it's still a good budget buy.

This is basically a better deal than the family plan. Sometimes I just don't understand what sprint wants to do.

I think its the new leadership. They want to react faster to the competition and hopefully stop the bleeding. T Mobile is having an effect.

Neither does Sprint!

My link to Android Central is now defaulting to mobile view. I prefer desktop view when using my tablet. All of the toggles and drop-down menus at the top of the page appear as rectangles, how can I change to desktop view? I have posted this in several forums and have had a network moderator say he has the same problem, but still no solution, so I am blasting comments sections. Sorry if this annoys you (get in line).

Why not get the app? Posted via Android Central App

I think I'll stick with my Metro PCS $60 Unlimited plan. Posted via Android Central App on The Nexus 5

I'll stick with my 45 unlimited framily plan. Posted via Android Central App

If I needed voice minutes, maybe I'd care about this. Still on T-Mobile's $30/month 5 GB plan. With the new Google Voice integration in Hangouts, I have even less need of the 100 minute T-Mobile gives everyone on that plan.

If it wasn't for it being sprint I'd snatch the $55 plan up in a second. I wish to the deepest it were AT&T. Posted via Android Central App

Check out Cricket. Similar plans to these but using the AT&T network.

They want you to pay full price for the good phones though. The plans on cricket look good though. Posted via Android Central App

Still, more often than not, Cricket offers rebates on their phones that makes them very reasonably-priced. For the money you could save every month, the upfront cost of one of Cricket's devices makes it worthy.

You have to pay full price on Sprint prepaid We on the Internet tryin to get our email on

Just signed up for Cricket. $55 a month/unlimited everything/throttled after 10GB 4G LTE.

New company with the same coverage and a much better deal. ROK Mobile offers Unlimited Talk, Text, Data and Music Streaming with over 20 million+ songs available for only $49.99/mo. No contracts, no activation fees and no hidden costs. Check out http://rokmobile.com/ and let me know what you think

Is the music included?

Sprint isn't in a place to offer low tired data plans. I'd say get the network in an actual usable state, then think about offering low tiered data plans. I'd choose cricket over this in a heart beat. Not a good plan in my opinion. Delivered by the Nexus 5 or the mighty Surface Pro 3

$35.00 per month: Unlimited Talk & Text and 1 GB of data? Sounds pretty good to me. I left Sprint in July and switched over to TING. My last month bill was $32 compared to almost $90 with Sprint...by joining TING the only thing i had to change was my data consumption habits only... used -500 mb. Does anyone know if Sprint will throttle after reaching data cap or charge per each mb over?

The good thing about Ting is that you can bring a lot of the old Sprint devices over, whereas I'm not sure if you can do it with Sprint. It looks like you have to buy these very specific Sprint devices they list on their site.

Just give me a postpaid