Sprint Nextel has reduced the monthly price of its dual band CDMA/WiMAX service by $10, down to $59.99, reports Fierce Wireless.
Sprint’s 3G/4G USB Modem U301 (right), which works on Windows and Macs, will fallback to 3G cellular service when outside of Mobile WiMAX service areas.
Sprint’s Overdrive 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot allows you to connect up to five Wi-Fi-enabled devices through Wi-Fi.
Sprint’s 4G price cut was outlined by research and consulting firm Current Analysis and confirmed by Sprint. Clearwire, the mobile WiMAX operator in which Sprint owns a majority stake, plans to cover 80 markets and 120 million POPS by the end of 2010. Sprint resells Clearwire service under the Sprint 4G brand. Unlike the cellular carriers, Clear’s “unlimited” service actually is. Virtually all cellular carriers have a data cap of 5 Gigs per month on their “unlimited” service.
The price cut is “just to make it a no brainier for our customers to choose 4G,” Sprint spokeswoman Stephanie Vinge told FierceWireless. She said the action also reflects increasing economies of scale, as Clearwire launches more markets.
“While Sprint seems to have some momentum on its side, it remains in a difficult position when it comes to retention (let alone growth) of its subscriber base, and it cannot afford to fail to reap all of the benefits that it can in this period where it has no real high-speed competition,” Current Analysis analyst Deepa Karthikeyan wrote in a research note.
A rumor that Sprint may partner with Wal-Mart to place mobile WiMAX equipment on Wal-Mart rooftops nationwide, was first mentioned at Android Guys. That rumor got no specific response from Sprint, other than it was “talking to a lot of companies across the U.S. about how 4G could help them manage large amounts of data more cost effectively.”
GoingWiMAX.com says Clear is rolling out two new modems. The Gemtek Series G Home Modem ($79) has an omni-directional antenna for Atlanta and Las Vegas. Motorola’s CPEi 725 ($79) offers voice and data access ports and a high gain omni and will be available in the Portland market.
No word on Motorola’s CPEi 775 which combines WiMAX with an integrated Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g router and VoIP ATA ports for voice calling.
Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless next week will begin requiring a minimum $10 data plan with some new feature phones, according to information obtained by Boy Genius Report. The move marks the carrier’s most expensive data plan yet, and could be a sign of things to come with LTE, says GigaOm. So called “feature phones” will now require a minimum $9.99 data plan which includes 25MB (and also includes mobile email).
Verizon last week said LTE users will incur a basic subscriber fee plus usage charges based on bandwidth consumption.
“The problem we have today with flat-based usage is that you are trying to encourage customers to be efficient in use and applications but you are getting some people who are bandwidth hogs using gigabytes a month and they are paying something like megabytes a month,” Lynch said. “That isn’t long-term sustainable. Why should customers using an average amount of bandwidth be subsidizing bandwidth hogs?”
Verizon’s data plans are substantially pricier than AT&T’s $15-a-month unlimited web add-on … an optional feature. It follows moves by both Verizon and AT&T to require data plans with all new smartphone purchases.
