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Sprint Quietly Kills Two-Year Contracts, Device Subsidies

Earlier this week Sprint employees began spreading the word that the company would be ditching device subsidies and two-year contracts starting this week. According to insiders, starting today, new customers looking to buy a phone need to either pony up the full price for the device, or sign up for either Sprint Lease or Sprint Easy Pay to have the devices financed in monthly installments.

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For some reason Sprint has yet to see fit to formally announce this change, but some additional leaked documents posted by Android Central seem to confirm that subsidized phones officially die at Sprint today.

For the moment this appears to only apply to handsets; tablets can still be purchased on a subsidized basis.

Back in August, Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure had hinted that the company would be ditching contracts and subsidies by the end of the year, but has failed to mention the possibility since. It's unclear why Sprint is making the change quietly, but it's possible it doesn't want to advertise the fact that T-Mobile forced the entire industry in this direction, and like AT&T and Verizon, Sprint is simply playing follow the leader.

Most recommended from 21 comments



w0g
o.O
join:2001-08-30
Springfield, OR

3 recommendations

w0g

Member

not bad

why is this good for us? because the devices cost about the same without a contract anyway! when you wait for the proper sale you can get a high end device for next to free..

I did this with T-Mobile and the LG v10. I combined multiple discounts to get a $600 dollar phone for free without any contract.

1. $100 dollar cash back
2. $100 coupon during cybermonday
3. $200 sprint switch discount
4. 200GB sd card + battery/cradle offer worth $200 which I sold for $175.

now that contracts are gone all the discounts and promos will gravitate to the full priced devices and hopefully get the price down to near contract price for most purchases when people wait for the opportune time.