EV-DO Price Plans... Or Lack Thereof (Updated)
Date: Tuesday, September 20 @ 04:07:25 MDT
Topic: Sprint PCS
Update: Okay, we lied. Trying to head off some last minute bad decision making on the part of Sprint, which failed. Power Vision is required, and ESN-checked to ensure that EV-DO devices must add it on. It will replace any Vision Pack on your account. Prices start at $15/month and essentially require the addition of the $5 100 SMS bundle. It is an effort to match Verizon's VPacks in price by forcing the bundling of 100 SMS. Also, by tiering pricing for different device profiles, it adds to the legitimacy to prevent foreign ESNs from being activated, as well as makes upgrading older devices (such as the PPC-6600) to EV-DO. Hey, we tried.
Sprint claims to have not set pricing or consumer terms for their EV-DO launch, however, the PPC-6700 will enable EV-DO on any account, Vision Pack or no. This of course begs the question, can Sprint at this point charge more for consumer EV-DO? The answer is more and more sounding like no, as intel suggests that while Sprint could deny users EV-DO on a per-account basis, unlike Verizon, that marketing forces make it unlikely to charge additional fees.
This is especially in light of Verizon charging just $15 for their VPack (similar to Vision Pack, both in name and implementation) which includes unlimited EV-DO data.
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