Will Sprint’s Rate-Slashing Offer Get Customers to Switch?

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Sprint really wants you as a customer. In its latest bid to lure you away from its competitors, Sprint is promising to slash its wireless rates by 50 percent.

Calling it the “biggest wireless offer in U.S. history,” although it offered a nearly identical plan roughly a year ago, Sprint said that from Nov. 20 through Jan. 7, any customer who jumps ship from AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile and joins Sprint’s network will see their wireless bills cut in half. The discounted rates could be in effect until 2018, depending on the life of its new customers’ contracts.

If you trade in your current smartphone, Sprint says it will pay up to $650 per line in switching fees in the form of a gift card.

“We are so confident that customers will have an amazing experience that we are encouraging them to give us a try with the biggest wireless offer in the history of our industry,” said Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure in a statement. “Customers switching to Sprint will never need to look elsewhere. They will learn what our 58 million customers already know – Sprint offers the best value and an award-winning network.”

In an effort to make sure its existing customers also feel the love, Sprint is offering a free tablet and a free year of data service if they sign a two-year contract.

“Our company would be nothing without our existing customers so we wanted to make sure we showed our appreciation to them, too,” Claure said.

Of course, there are a few catches with Sprint’s half-off plan. In fact, there are more than 900 words of fine print on the Sprint page detailing the offer. Although the deal applies to most competitors’ plans, there are some exclusions, like T-Mobile’s $95 unlimited data plan.

According to Re/code, if you switch to Sprint, you won’t necessarily see your cellphone bill cut in half:

Sprint is offering each potential switcher a choice of half off their carrier’s published rates, regardless of what the customer is currently paying or how much data they are currently getting. Claure said he expects half of switchers will choose to pay a bit more than half their current rate in order to get more data than they currently have.

It’s been nearly four months since T-Mobile surpassed Sprint to become the third-largest wireless carrier in the United States. But Sprint recently launched its LTE Plus network, which provides 77 U.S. markets with faster connection speeds.

Who is your wireless carrier? Are you tempted by Sprint’s new offer? Share your comments below or on our Facebook page.

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