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Sprint is offering free unlimited cell phone service for 1 year* (*not entirely free as there is a $1.99 admin fee and some taxes) for customers switching from post-paid AT&T, T-Mobile, or Verizon service. While Sprint’s coverage map isn’t as strong as its competitors, free is still a great price (and might be worth it for free mobile hotspot service alone). I haven’t dug into the terms of this offer, but thought it was worth making readers aware.
The Deal
- Free unlimited talk, text, and data for 1 year
- No contract, no activation fee
Key Terms
- Hard credit pull required for activation
- Bring Your Own (compatible) Phone
- Must buy a SIM card ($2.99 + $10 shipping or pick up in-store for free)
- Must own your phone
- Must sign up at sprint.com/1yearfree by 6/30/17
Eligible Phones
Sprint’s service runs on a different technology than AT&T/T-Mobile, so not all phones will work on Sprint’s network. Any Verizon phone should work. In addition, the following phones should all be unlocked and compatible with Sprint:
- Nexus 5 (Not supported from T-Mobile)
- Nexus 5x
- Nexus 6
- Nexus 6P
- Moto X Pure Edition
- Samsung Galaxy S7 Special Edition
- Samsung Galaxy S7 edge Special Edition
- Samsung Galaxy S8 Special Edition
- Samsung Galaxy S8+ Special Edition
- Moto G4
- Moto G4 Play
- Moto G4 Plus
- Moto G5 Plus
If you don’t have a Verizon phone or one of the phones above, you will probably need to buy a new phone for this deal.
Quick Thoughts
This might be a particularly good deal if you have a line that you don’t need with Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile. You may even be able to add a line to one of those services just to switch it to Sprint — I don’t see any requirement as to how old the line needs to be to take advantage of this promo. For example, I recently decided to switch to T-Mobile and planned to port over my wife and I and two family members. We ported my number and my wife’s number and found that T-Mobile’s coverage is unfortunately still too limited for us. We’re going to go back to Cricket (or maybe AT&T to take advantage of the Amex Offer there). However, we have 2 T-Mobile lines with new numbers (since we never ported over the other 2 family members). I’m tempted to port one of those lines to Sprint just to use as a hotspot for a year. The hard credit pull kind of turns me off — we’ll see. Check out the fine print as I did not scour it too closely (Sprint’s coverage isn’t solid enough where I live to seriously consider this as our regular service). Best of luck if you make the switch!
Some of the key terms from sprint.com/1yearfree:
What is Sprint’s One Year Free Service Offer?
Bring your eligible phone to Sprint and get FREE Unlimited data, talk and text for one year. There’s no annual contract and you can keep your phone, number, accessories, photos, apps and music. It’s really that simple.
You’ll get Sprint’s fully-featured Unlimited including:
- Unlimited data, talk and text
- HD streaming:
- Video at speeds up to 1080p
- Music at up to 1.5mbps
- Gaming streams at up to 8mbps
- Unlimited 4G LTE data for most everything else. Data deprioritization applies during congestion.
- 10GB of high-speed data per line to use toward mobile hotspot, VPN and Peer-2-Peer usage. Once your 10GB is used up:
- Continue at up to 2G speeds (32 Kbps) on our network for no additional cost, or
- Purchase more on-network high-speed data for $15/1GB to tide you over for the rest of your bill cycle
This introductory pricing:
- Free service for 1 year for new customers who switch to Sprint and sign up on sprint.com/1yearfree between 6/9/17 and 6/30/17. Save until 7/31/18.
- You’ll save more than $900 (compared to Verizon’s one-line unlimited rate plan) in the first year
- Switch your whole family and save even more!
- A standard $1.99 admin fee, $0.40 regulatory fee and other taxes and fees apply
- Your $30 activation fee is waived as part of this promotion. The fee will appear on your first bill and a credit will appear within 2 bills.
- Requires a Sprint SIM card, eBill and Sprint AutoPay ($5/mo./line discount applied within two invoices)
- If AutoPay is cancelled, you’ll pay $5/mo./line
- If AutoPay and eBill are removed, a $7.99/mo. charge will apply for Account Spending Limit customers
- Your Spending Limit is the monthly maximum amount of spending per phone on your account based on your credit decision
- For accounts with multiple phones, the total spending limit is calculated as the number of phones on the account multiplied by the spending limit per phone
- You must own the phone(s) you’re bringing to Sprint.
- After 7/31/18, pay:
- Line 1: $60/mo.
- Line 2: $40/mo.
- Lines 3-5: $30/mo/line
- Pricing shown with AutoPay. Add $5/mo./line without AutoPay
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[…] phone deals. I’ve seen conflicting reports as to whether or not you can mix this with Free Sprint cell service for 1 year, but the FAQ page says it can’t be stacked with a 1-year BYOD plan. Assuming you can’t, […]
I’m currently with Virgin but was already looking at switching to AT&T. Simply purchasing a Verizon phone on ebay won’t work since the phone has no number to port over so I would have to switch service from Virgin to Verizon and then on to Sprint for this deal to work correct?
Hi, I switched to tmobile pay as go & brought a phone for $350 (iphone se) from Apple store and switched. Easy! I could have got a better phone, but did not wanted to spend more than what I would spend anyways, there are no plans for less than $30 a month. Remember you have to use the same phone for 120 days before switching to different device. Sprint sucks, when I switched I told the representative that I don’t want any service, still he activated “cell phone insurance ” for $13 a month, I called sprint cust service like 20 times to cancel it or remove it, but it doesn’t get cancelled. Sprint is a thief, they get your money one way or the other.
if you want to save $10 sim shipping charges, call sprint customer service to swtich, set up your account and once you have established the account with sprint (credit check,other eligibility ) go to a sprint store & give your account number & pin (they can pull up your account with your SSN aswell) & get a free sim.
Note: sprint is pain in the ass, it sucks, cust service don’t care about your satisfaction, but it’s atleast cheaper than paying $30 a month.
Freedompop also have a good offer $50 a year plan, includes 1000 mins & text with 1 gb data (not sure) but you can check. Hope I helped
I switched to sprint on 27th September (couple days ago) but can I upgrade to my old phone note 4 after dec 1st?
I brought iphone SE from Apple store just to get this offer, but I want to gift the SE to my sister, and I want to use my note 4 until it dies or until I HAVE to get a newer phone. My mom is visiting this December (all my family lives out of United States ). I have spent $400 (for SE) and I have spent enough for cell phone / or service . I could have got free lg k20 plus & pay 30 a month and would have spent the same amount of money . I am not spending more than what I would have spent anyways.
Thank you for your time and help
Sorry, I have no idea about Sprint upgrades.
I swapped 4 lines last week and the process worked like a charm. Once I received the SIM cards, activated from website (entering VZ account and pin for porting, I presume). Popped in the sim cards into phones and within minutes was on the Sprint network. Below is the device plan and price. Based on the original agreement, I should get $5 discount back because of autopay. I heard there’s also a minimal fee per phone which should be under $10 total. not bad considering I was paying almost $200 for 4 lines on Unlimited plan in Verizon.
iPhone 7 32GB
Black
XXX-XXX-XXX
Plan: Unlimited – Bring Your Phone
Plan Price: $5.00/mo.
iPhone 7 32GB
Black
XXX-XXX-XXX
Plan: Unlimited – Bring Your Phone
Plan Price: $5.00/mo.
MOTO 1687
Gray
XXX-XXX-XXX
Plan: Unlimited – Bring Your Phone
Plan Price: $5.00/mo.
iPhone 7 128GB
Black
XXX-XXX-XXX
Plan: Unlimited – Bring Your Phone
Plan Price: $5.00/mo.
Looks like they extended the deadline to 7/31 – FYI everyone. Has anyone taken advantage of this simply to use as home internet? If so, how do you go about that and does it work well? Is it worth it?
[…] Free sprint cell service […]
[…] the heels of Sprint’s recent (and still valid until 6/30) promotion for one year of FREE Sprint cell phone service, Virgin Mobile announced a few days ago that they are also offering nearly free wireless service […]
[…] Free Sprint cell service for 1 year: One of the best deals I’ve seen in a long time (aside from the need to use Sprint). In all seriousness, the savings could be massive and there is no contract. If you’re in an area with good Sprint coverage, it might be worth your consideration. (Expires 6/30/17) […]
The company is $40 billion dollars in debt. And it’s a hard pull. And there’s rumors of a possible merger with T-Mobile. No thanks. This is the look of complete desperation.
Except it’s a hard pull which I don’t want if there is no possibility of it not working. I am going to call them tomorrow. Thanks for all your insight.
this article – https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/13/15792628/sprint-free-year-unlimited-service-deal-promo and this reddit thread – https://www.reddit.com/r/Sprint/comments/6h8ibw/switch_to_sprint_and_get_free_unlimited_for_1/?st=j43jhakg&sh=2ce3cdb8 says u can switch from t-mobile also.
If I have a iPhone 5S with T-Mobile then it won’t work? T-Mobile uses GSM technology so can a T-Mobile phone work with CDMA technology even if my phone is unlocked?
check on their website with providing your Imei # and phone #.
The site says my phone will work but the list says iPhone 5S is Verizon only so the information is inconsistent.
I suggest taking snapshots of the pages and giving it a try. If it does not port, then you stay with the current service.
I had to look this one up. I knew at some point Apple started making a single device with both capabilities. Unfortunately, on the 5S, the Verizon one came with both, but the T-Mobile/AT&T versions did not. So the T-Mobile 5S will NOT work on Sprint. The Verizon version has both GSM and CDMA and comes unlocked (as do other Verizon devices). Looks like your T-Mobile 5S won’t work. Sorry!
Source:
https://www.cnet.com/news/switching-carriers-you-may-be-able-to-take-your-iphone-5s-with-you/
Thank you for the clarification. When I inputed the number from my phone it came up that it would work but the list online it says, it won’t…Any thoughts why? I guess a call is unavoidable. Thank you for your help.
Only online now, no pick up at store option. Chatted with a representative – looks like they have quite a bit of folks transferring over.
I went in to Sprint today and they gave me a sim card for my iPhone for free. I didn’t mention this offer, I just wanted to purchase a sim card. The first card she tried to get me was 10 bucks and I balked… so she went and got a sim card dedicated for my type of phone and didn’t even charge me. She had a stack of them behind the counter and each one was for a type of phone.
Why aren’t iphones listed in the “Eligible phones” list?
Also are AT&T or other carriers making any retention offers to prevent people from jumping ship to Sprint?
I wouldn’t go based off the eligible phones list. Just use your IMEI to check if eligible. My iPhone 6s was eligible.
Good question with the retention offers. I honestly don’t think the other big 3 carriers are worried about Sprint and they aren’t really marketing this heavily as far as I can see. If I didn’t follow all these blogs, I wouldn’t have known about this myself.
Estimated $13/month in Texas after fees + taxes. Great deal for unlimited if you have Sprint LTE coverage. It’d be $60 normally.
Definitely use that AA 20,000 miles link if trying out Sprint for a few months before jumping back to Verizon,etc. “Members can earn one 20,000 miles award with a new Sprint acct with 1 new phone–line activ. when line remains active for 30 days.”
Remember though Sprint network can’t do voice & data at the same time. No WebEx or looking up Google Maps, Yelp, Waze while talking.
Good info. I already initiated the switch and pre-registered for the 20,000 promo.
Lets see if it works. I don’t see anything in the terms that would disallow it.
Hey, What was the outcome?
Haven’t seen anyone report if it worked or not to stack the promos
Well, it seems the 20k AA miles promo doesn’t work/stack.
I pre-registered for the promo, but of course, with everything about sprint light-years behind the competition, I needed to register again after my port-in completed (a loooong, complicated process which took at least 5hrs on the phone. but that’s a different story). I checked back on the status page after a couple of weeks, and I got a message, “Your reward request for AAD-20172547739466 has been denied. This offer is only available for qualified account types.” . no email or anything to say I had been denied
oh well
(while I’m at it, everything, and i mean everything, about sprint sucks. their website is clunky, has frequent downtimes; their reps are poorly trained, ignorant and unable to actually do anything. their security, or lack thereof is appalling. when I signed on to check the status of my port in, my entire SSn was displayed (!). did anyone else notice that when you click the “live chat” from the prom or sales pages, you are always connected to “jessica”?
the icing on the cake was when my bill for the first month of my “free” year came in. $8.10?! they basically didn’t remove the $5 for autopay, despite my confirming the autopay enrollment twice, and the payment actually being debited automatically.
sigh. /rant
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