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Aio Wireless takes a cue from Sprint's Framily plan with new group discounts
Cheesy moniker aside, Sprint's newly minted Framily plan is not one to be ignored. It allows you to save money by sharing an account with, well, friends and family, all while being billed separately on up to 10 lines. Following in similar footsteps, AT&T's prepaid subsidiary Aio Wireless has now announced Group Save, which allows users to get a maximum monthly discount of $90 per account. It's simple, really: the more lines you add, the more cash you save every month on your bill total, not per line. With Aio's Group Save, you can have up to five lines; the first two get you a $10 discount, while lines number three, four and five knock off $30, $60 and $90 per month, respectively.
Sprint customers might get discounts on Spotify music subscriptions
Just because AT&T has Beats Music in its corner doesn't mean that other carriers can't offer a few audio-themed deals of their own. Case in point, Sprint: Recode claims that the network is announcing a partnership with Spotify that will offer discounts on the streaming service's Premium tier, including group bargains for Framily plan customers. Naturally, Sprint would continue to offer carrier billing; there would also be free Spotify trials to persuade fence-sitters. Neither of the companies are commenting on the rumor, but we'll reportedly get the full scoop at an event on April 29th.
Who's your daddy? Sprint and Softbank depict bizarre family portraits
With its Framily plans, Sprint wants you to convince friends, family and possibly outright strangers, to join the carrier and chip a few bucks off your bill. It's even created a new ad series to show just how broad its definition of "framily" is. The dad's a hamster, while the daughter speaks only in French, accompanied by three animated birds. However, Sprint's Frobinsons have to go a long ways to match the sheer offbeat-ness of Softbank's answer to "framily," the Shiratos in Japan. That framily consists of a talking dog as patriarch, a wife who has the real power, a daughter played by popular actress Aya Ueto and a non-Japanese son played by Dante Carver (a Softbank commercial mainstay). The core family unit is then augmented by bit-parts from 'Uncle' Quentin Tarantino, Manchester United's Shinji Kagawa (and his dolphin father) and Tommy Lee-Jones, the live-in-maid-from-space. Ad-Age wasn't a fan, but we hope the Frobinsons are just getting started. We've pulled together a few English-subtitled Softbank ads and added them, alongside Sprint's interpretation, to the video gallery below.
Sprint will pay you to switch from a rival carrier to its Framily plan
T-Mobile may have stolen the spotlight earlier this year by paying customers to switch, but it looks like Sprint is cooking up a similar deal in response. An S4GRU leak has revealed a Sprint promo that will pay you to switch from a competitor to the carrier's Framily plan between April 4th and May 8th. Much like T-Mobile's offer, you'll get up to $350 to cover early termination fees at the provider you're leaving; you'll also get up to $300 in service credit if you trade in your old phone at the same time. While we doubt that the month-long campaign will do much to reverse Sprint's losses, it might just give fence-sitters a stronger incentive to change networks.
Your carrier wants you to buy into early upgrades, but should you take the bait?
We get it. It's been a year since you got a new phone, and it doesn't have a Super Ultra HD screen, 80MP camera or fancy pants 50-core processor. You pine for the latest and greatest mobile toy, but it's probably going to cost you a lot, right? Well, yes. But in the past year, every major US network has eased the pain by introducing device installment plans, many of which allow you to trade in your current phone for a newer, hipper model. Most of these plans, which are designed to let you pay off your device over several months, are still more expensive than the average two-year contract, regardless of who you sign it with. But whether you like it or not, they're here to stay. T-Mobile gets credit for starting the movement: Shortly after it announced its installment and early upgrade plans, AT&T, Verizon and Sprint all followed with options of their own. Ever since, the new plans have led to a massive pricing war, and the resulting price drops (most recently from AT&T and Verizon) have made them more tempting. But what does it all mean for you?
Sprint's new "Framily" plan lets you share your account with 10 friends, but still bills you separately
It's a scam thrifty cellular subscribers have been pulling for years: sharing a "family plan" with a group of non-biologically related peers to save a few bucks. It works, but it's kind of a headache - family plans arrive as one bill, and the ringleader needs to hassle their friends to pay their share of the bill. Tired of the nightmare? So is Sprint - the company has dropped all pretense for these plan-sharing schemers with its horribly named "Framily" plan, which allows up to 10 lines to be shared on a single account regardless of blood relation. The initial line of service costs $55 a month, but each additional user takes $5 off the price of every line on the plan until they reach a maximum discount of $30 per line, per month. A group of seven, for instance, can score unlimited talk, text and 1GB of data for $25 per line. Best of all, each line is billed individually, and allows each user to manage and customize their own plans without going through the central account holder. The new system will be available to new and existing Sprint customers on January 10th, although currently active lines can only be combined if they are already owned by the same person. If you can tolerate its moniker, Framily seems to be a good spin on the existing shared plan dynamic. Want more details? Check out Sprint's official announcement at the source below.
