Forget Phone Calls: Sprint Plunges into Plans That Emphasize Data Over Voice
Sprint (S) is now offering cell-service plans that focus on text and data, an obvious reaction to the rise of smartphones and tablets -- and in so doing is likely setting a trend that AT&T, Verizon (VZ) and T-Mobile will also likely follow before long.
From Reuters:
While most U.S. cellphone plans center around voice services and include data as an extra and often pricey frill, Sprint's Beyond Talk offer promises unlimited texting and Web surfing for $25 a month but limits phone calls to 300 minutes a month....
Dan Schulman, the head of Sprint's prepaid business, said the new offer is the first to target 18-24 year-old budget conscious cellphone users who are texting more and more and making as few phone calls as possible.
OK, so the teen market is set. As I talked about last week, a Pew Study found half of all teens send up to 50 texts per day, with one of three sending more than 100 daily.Forget teens for a second, though: Even the average consumer is using text and data more than actual phone calls. According to Consumer Reports, Apple iPhone users download 273 MB of data per month -- about twice as much data as most other smartphone users. We can expect this number to even out -- at the high end, that is, as other smartphones will catch up in popularity and use. Toss in cellular-based non-smartphones, such as the Apple iPad 3G, and these text/data-focused plans will become the real financial growth of carriers.
For now, most carriers seem focused on minutes and limiting data use. For example, AT&T has been trying to restrict data use and focus on voice minutes when it should look at data use as a growth point and voice use as a slowly dying interest -- especially as the text-focused generation gets older. The latest data plans offered cost at least double the price of Sprint's new initiative.
Sprint's new plans launch today and the other major carriers will need to react with budget-based text-and-data plans -- and fast.
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