By As if Sprint customers weren’t already happy enough to have an Android headed their way with the Sprint HTC Hero, today Sprint just announced a service plan that they teased as “revolutionary”. I might not go that far myself… but it kicks butt indeed.
The bottom line: your “Everything Plan” just got a little more of Everything. For $69.99 you’ll get unlimited calls to ANY carrier along with unlimited data, SMS, MMS, GPS nav, Sprint TV, etc… it’s called “Any Mobile, Anytime” (AMA). If you’ve currently got “Everything Data” your plan will automatically transitioned over to the new sweet deal.
This went from rumor to Official in record time. Last night I got a tip from a reader who sent in the following online conversation with a Sprint rep – important parts highlighted in red:
First of all, completely hilarious how he informed the rep about the HTC Hero launch date. The entire conversation is pretty amusing – definitely worth the read. When I went through this I thought it was interesting… but its from an online chat representative and let’s face it, they didn’t even know when the Sprint HTC Hero launched!
But shortly after we got another tip (BGR) informing us of an EMail Sprint sent out concerning some “wireless revolution” they would announce the following day. The lingo referred to service plans and suddenly that initial tip had a whole lot more substance:
But the impatient bunch that we are, tech media couldn’t wait for tomorrow. Within a few more hours, rumored details of the upcoming announcement were leaked by TechVi:
An anonymous tipster tells TechVi Sprint will be launching a calling plan which will allow customers to call any other cell phone from any other carrier for free. Any Sprint customer on the base $70 / month plan, which includes unlimited data, text and MMS messages, and 450 minutes, will be able to call any other cell phone on T-Mobile, Verizon, or AT&T without using plan minutes.
Callers have one caveat, according to our source, if roaming on another network, such as Verizon’s network when no Sprint coverage is available, they’ll end up using plan minutes. However, when in any Sprint coverage area, all cell-to-cell calls will be free of charge.
Sheesh. Sprint was SO close to keeping and delivering that secret and it all unraveled in an instant! The rumor factory was pumping at full capacity and they gave it a much needed rest by Officially announcing “Any Mobile, Anytime” as promised:
And there you have it. Sprint announces an awesome service plan to improve their already pretty awesome service plans. Now the question is… will Verizon/AT&T/T-Mobile respond?
[Via Sprint, IntoMobile]
Holly Hana! Man makes me want to move to the states!
This is great news. I’m not a Sprint customer but I do hope T-Mobile tries to match this plan.
I’m still holding out for the Samsung Galaxy although Nokia N900 is looking a lot better
I will be so happy when I finally have my Hero with this sweet new plan! :)
It will be even more wonderful if Sprint can let Hero works on SERO plan :)
The ad on the right is asking me to vote whether McDonalds’ or Burger King’s fries are better. As a stimulus, they are offering me $1000 in grocery coupons. First of all, I hate fake offers. Second, that is like asking me which species of parasitic worm would win the Chicago Marathon.
Haha here in Italy we don’t even DREAM of anything like that!
Meaning the offer and being able to actually get useful info from the website -.-
Great, one more reason to hate VZW. No Android phone, no good phones, expensive plans, crippled phones. Only reason I have them is the 22% discount through work.
If this is true, which I assume it is, then my VZW plan just went to pure crap even with the 22% discount.
oh mannn …sprint is pulllllling me innnnnnn!
It’s about time for a new phone, i been thru 2 motoq9c’s and 4 instincts,lets see how the new android comes to use.Thankyou Sprint gods!!
@Moe not sure where you work, but I’d check to see if you get a sprint discount also. My job get’s a 22% VZW discount but we also get a 27% discount from sprint. I’m paying under 120 bucks a month for two smartphones. And sprint continues to sweeten the pot that’s why I’ve yet to change carriers.
@Moe
I have stayed with Verizon for the 22% discount as well. I was talking to a Sprint rep after the Hero was announced asking if there was any discount they could give me to switch over. They told me that if you bank with a credit union, you automatically get 25% off your monthly bill.
I do bank with a credit union so they asked me which one and looked it up and said I would qualify for 25% off. I asked if i needed to provide anything from the credit union to prove my membership and they told me i just needed to mention it when i am ready to switch to their service and it will be applied.
So i guess technically if you don’t use a credit union you could just mention one in your area and say you do. the rep talked as if any credit union qualifies, not just ones that have partnered with sprint.
I preordered my Hero yesterday… I can’t wait! Already switched to the new plan as well. begins on the 23rd. I’ll try the credit union thing and let you know what i find out.
@kenbot
T-mobile already does nearly match this with their loyalty plan…which on top of the unlimited G1 data plan rounds out to 80 dollars a month for my bill. It’s no 70 dollars, but it isn’t that far off. I wish it were lower…but it’s a small price to pay for the t-mobile’s awesome customer support (in my experience).
the discount is absolutely true. just got it applied but it’s only 10% not 25% but hey anything is better than nothing. that 10% covers the total protection cost.
I saw a commercial on tv about this, yesterday. How is it a secret?
@ Brian…please provide more details about the 25% credit union discount…I saw a add page on the spint.com website saying up to 15%, but 25%??! that would mean the cake is not a lie
@Ed
Good to know about that its only 10%. I made sure to keep a copy of the conversation I had where the rep said I could get 25% off. Maybe (hopefully) it does have something to do with the individual credit unions and some get different amounts off.
I go through ESL in Rochester, NY so if anyone else is in the area and is on Sprint it would be cool if you could verify what they give for a discount.
@3rdward
ok, I just went back through the transcript of my conversation with the Sprint rep that they email afterwards. Everywhere there is a % sign in the conversation, the numbers before it have been replaced with *’s. So I guess I cannot prove it right now. Maybe after work i will ask them again and i will make sure to type out the numbers so that they are not filtered.
This is what it looks like in the email they sent me:
09/03/2009 11:51:21AM Agent (Sarah FF): “Currently, I am not seeing one. May I ask if you bank at a credit union? We offer discounts sometimes through that?”
09/03/2009 11:51:47AM Brian: “i do. my credit union is ESL out of Rochester, NY”
09/03/2009 11:52:31AM Agent (Sarah FF): “Thank you”
09/03/2009 11:53:12AM Agent (Sarah FF): “Due to that, we offer a **********% discount off of your bill per month”
09/03/2009 11:53:27AM Brian: “oh wow, just because i bank with ESL?”
09/03/2009 11:54:02AM Agent (Sarah FF): “That is correct. Most credit unions nation wide offer the same discount”
They already have a commercial up!
BUT……As per a conversation with an online rep….
The catch is:
Its 450 minutes to land lines AND businesses and such and unlimted to mobile phones with any other carrier.
Yes….For just $69.99 a month, the new Any Mobile, Anytime plan allows subscribers to call any cell phone in the U.S., regardless of the carrier. The plan also comes with Sprint’s Everything Data plan, which includes unlimited text messaging and data services.
BUT IF YOU CALL A LOT OF BUSINESSES….AND LAND LINES…WATCH OUT!!!!!
Subscribers also get 450 voice minutes for calls to landlines AND businesses!!!!!!
Cell to Cell….Great Deal!!!
The only reason I’ve stayed with TMO this long is because of the cheap plans and MyFaves but if I can call any cell carrier for free then I may just be switching. I mean, sure I can get that loyalty plan but when you add in the fact that Sprint’s coverage and service is overall better than TMO, there’s no reason for me NOT to switch. I don’t much like CDMA though. I’m going to hold out until the end of the year at least to see what other phones come out and to where. I’m mostly waiting on the Geeks Phone One and that Sony Android. If the devices are that much better than the Hero and assuming Sprint doesn’t get any of them I may just stay. Hopefully TMO will step up with something similar. Or AT&T at least…
still not very cheap… unlimited calls JUST in the US… who needs that
@Ronald
i would have to say people in the US would want this :) dumb@$$
wow, its like when helio first unleashed ther unlimited plan, only better…
Way to report this a day behind Rob! I posted about it yesterday, the real AMA announcement day:
http://androidforums.com/sprint/9075-any-mobile-anytime-new-reason-switch-sprint.html
What… did you have something else going on yesterday? :P
What I don’t get about Sprint’s pricing plans, or maybe it’s data pricing plans period (I’m on Verizon, but off contract and ready to switch to Sprint for either the Hero or the InstinctQ), is why to have two phones is virtually twice the amount, when on Verizon, you just pay $10 more a month to add a phone. But when I go to Sprint’s website, it does say add a line for “as little as $9.99 a month.” So I don’t know if they’re trying to get me to sign up two phones with the more expensive plan, or if that “as little as” is bogus. What I want is two phones for a little more than the one phone price. The second phone doesn’t even need data. Is this possible?
had an interesting talk with sprint yesterday—its only 450 minutes, not a family plan, and my favorite part, the person thinks that the Palm Pixi will be an android phone. I could have lived with the first two, but the Pixi thing just made me laugh
This is a hell of a deal. Ican lower my plan that I have which is for 80 bucks and 900 minutes to the 450 since I call so many cells. This is revolutionary if by nothing but defnition alone…..nobody else has it…
Sprint gets a bad rap…mostly from people who’ve never even used them. I’m about to call right now for my discount
My store guy just told me that Sprint will not require the expensive everything plans for the Hero ala Insticnt and Pre! Oh yea baby.
My two lines cost me $62 a month together with unlimited text and data ..Hero here I come!
@ Colin:
I am also a Tmo customer on the “unlimited loyalty plan”, and even though I love it and that is why I am still with Tmo, the Sprint plan is still more bang for your buck! With the ULP, you do not get unlimited data, or text. Its only $50 though, so after $35 data/unlimited text, the price is at $85. Up until now, this was one of the best plans out there, but now Sprint has really one-up’d us here! I am hanging on with Tmo for the Cliq, so hopefully they will come up with a better plan soon!
u shud switch to sprint.. i checked all the spec s for the motorola cliq nd its not tht great of a phone.. u shud switch to sprint nd get the hero when it comes out.. or wait till december nd get the motorola shole which will deff be the best phone on the market.. includin the iphone, although it will be on verizon which sucks ass
With the Hero lacking the Google Apps package, should one not just get the Mytouch phone? Or can the Hero stuff be synced up with Google apps? That is my big quandry right now. $52.50 after a 25% credit union rebate does not sound all that bad at all!
T-mobile is gonna respond by buying Sprint…
@Maddie; not sure where you heard that but the sprint Hero will have Google (android) apps, and from what I was told by my rep sprint isn’t taking anything away from the phone that’s one of their selling points. Maybe you should call sprint or go to your local sprint store to get more details. But as far as I know the hero will have all the benefits of sprint, and android with nothing being sacrificed.
i want a new android bad, but i can’t stomach getting one with a 528 proc or less than 8gig internal memory.
this sprint deal sounds delightful but man i wish they were offering better hardware
I think this offer is a rip off at $70 per month but then I don’t place a lot of store by having much data on my phone because I work on my computer so if I need to look something up on the net I use my PC. Cell phones are for communication and I make a lot of calls for work, mobile-to-mobile is too limited, I make land line calls as well. That is why it is better for me to use Straight Talk’s unlimited plan that gives unlimited, anytime, anywhere talk, texts and 30mb of data for $45/month. Straight Talk is also on a better network than Sprint because it uses Verizon’s network nationwide.