Sprint escalates wireless price war with half
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Sprint kicked the wireless industry's price war up a level Tuesday, saying it would let subscribers pay half of what they are paying to AT&T or Verizon in perpetuity if they switch from those carriers.
The Sprint plans would offer unlimited talk and text and however much data the subscribers were buying from AT&T or Verizon . Customers must provide their current wireless bill when signing up. It if is for $160 a month, they will pay $80 a month at Sprint.
The offer, which begins Friday, underscores how urgently the country's third largest carrier needs to add subscribers after years of losing customers and money. Sprint is the only nationwide wireless carrier losing the industry's lucrative postpaid subscribers on balance, having shed 336,000 of the most lucrative monthly subscribers during the three months ending Sept. 30.
It also ratchets up the pressure on industry leaders Verizon and AT&T, which have managed to steadily raise the amount of revenue they extract from subscribers in recent years, but now have to make tough choices to compete. The fight comes at a difficult time, with those carriers spending heavily in a continuing spectrum auction that has drawn more than $39 billion in bids
Sprint's shares were slightly lower Tuesday morning at $4.85, leaving them down nearly 55% so far this year. The carrier bled customers for much of 2014 as it slogged through a difficult network overhaul and debated whether to move forward on plans to acquire smaller rival T-Mobile, an idea it ultimately abandoned.
An expanded version of this report appears at WSJ.com.
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