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Sprint coaxes you away from Verizon with double data

Company's new S-M-L-XL-XXL bundles offer double or more data for the same price as Big Red.

Sprint has launched a new set of wireless plans that offer more than twice the data as Verizon for the same price. The Better Choice offering is designed to sit side-by-side with Verizon's S-XXL tiers, but while $100 would get you 18GB of data on Big Red, Sprint will hand you 40GB. Sprint is also, as usual, pledging to throw up to $650 worth of credit your way to help you leave your current contract.

Offering more data to customers is probably one of the only ways that Sprint can compete with its rivals right now. After T-Mobile unseated it from the position of America's third most popular mobile network, things have gotten increasingly rough. Late last year, Japanese parent company SoftBank announced that it would need to slash $2 billion from Sprint's operating expenses. That's led to a spate of whatever the corporate euphemism for mass layoffs is these days, with 2,500 employees already gone.

The fact that the financially-hobbled Sprint is still comfortable throwing hundreds of dollars at every new warm body that signs up says a lot. America's mobile market is now so saturated and mature that the only way to grow is to steal customers from a rival. But again, that requires deep pockets and patience, qualities that Sprint's now rapidly running out of.