Sprint seeing 'no competitive responses yet' after reviving campaign offering 5 lines of unlimited for $90

Sprint has quietly resumed its promotion offering five lines of “unlimited” service for $90 a month, Walter Piecyk of BTIG Research noted this week. But its competitors have yet to respond.

The nation’s fourth-largest wireless carrier initially launched the campaign in February, offering a new line of unlimited talk, text and data for $50 a month when they pay automatically. A second line is available for $40 more, and users can add up to three more lines for no charge.

That offer, which has recently been revived, significantly undercuts the competition, Piecyk noted. Similar plans for just four lines cost $185 a month from AT&T, and $200 a month from either Verizon or T-Mobile. And T-Mobile slows data speeds for uses once they’ve exceeded 32 GB per month—Sprint’s throttling kicks in at 23 GB a month, and both Verizon and AT&T slow speeds after 22 GB a month.

Sprint’s plan includes HD video streaming and 10 GB of mobile hotspot use.

WhistleOut, which tracks carrier promotions, also noted that Sprint’s promotional offer for its “Unlimited Freedom” plan has returned and is available through October 31. The promotional price is good through October 2018; after that the carrier charges $60 a month for the first line, $40 a month for the second and $30 per month for lines three, four and five.

“There have been no competitive responses yet to Sprint’s return to the 5/$90 promotion,” Piecyk said via Twitter yesterday.

The lack of response from Sprint’s competitors—so far, at least—is particularly noteworthy because the U.S. wireless market appears positioned to become much more heated in the coming weeks after a relatively placid summer. Samsung last week introduced the Galaxy Note 8, an oversized phone with a price tag just south of $1,000, Google is slated to launch a second-generation Pixel in the coming weeks and Apple is widely expected to announce a new flagship phone at a high-profile media event next month.

Carriers are sure to promote these new phones aggressively as they look to grab market share and gain momentum headed into the holiday shopping season.

“We look forward to iconic device launches to continue to drive higher upgrade rates amongst our customer base,” noted Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure on the carrier’s recent second-quarter earnings conference call, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript of the event. “Obviously, it's going to be dependent on what competitors' offers are at this time when there's new iconic devices being launched.”