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Sprint's Boost Mobile Rolls Taxes, Fees Into Overall Price

Sprint prepaid carrier Boost Mobile has announced the company is rolling all taxes and fees into the overall cost of service in an attempt to gain traction in the prepaid wireless space. In addition to legitimate taxes and government-mandated fees, many broadband providers have long added a rotating array of misleading fees with the express purpose of not only jacking up the advertised price post sale, but make comparing and contrasting different service plans more difficult.

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But as competition increases, carriers magically find this kind of misleading behavior more difficult to sustain.

In a press release, Boost Mobile says the move is part of a "commitment to providing the best value." Of course in layman's terms Sprint is hoping the change helps Boost answer the rising crop of competitors (like T-Mobile) in the prepaid space that have forced these companies to more seriously compete on price.

“For everyone who is tired of overpaying thanks to hidden fees on their wireless plans, it’s time to make the switch to Boost Mobile,” Boost CMO Angela Rittgers said in a press release. “The move is another step toward Boost Mobile’s commitment to providing the best value, service and customer experience in prepaid wireless.”

The company's full announcement has a little more detail, for those interested.

Most recommended from 22 comments



C0deZer0
Oc'D To Rhythm And Police
Premium Member
join:2001-10-03
Tempe, AZ

6 recommendations

C0deZer0

Premium Member

Bite me, boost mobile

Even at your best, your service, coverage, and ability to follow the law is terrible.

Never mind the blatant noncompliance with the unlock law, ensuring any money spent on a phone is sunk cost. Especially when resale is also taking a hit because any boost provisioned phones won't work even on vanilla sprint, much less any other network. At best, any sprint version of a phone takes an automatic 1/3 hit in value because sprint is the tumblr feminist special snowflake of the wireless carriers in the US, using frequencies nobody else does. A locked phone on their network is basically trash because it won't work anywhere else.

The six months of agony I went through to save up for a new phone to go elsewhere were exactly that. Especially as the signal I did have would drop calls like they were those rocks that spew from erupting volcanoes. Further sabotaging my ability to make enough money to leave.
tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Brooklyn, NY

2 recommendations

tmc8080

Member

prepaid prices will go up

the fcc and other TAXING entities are beginning to take a bigger bite out of both VOIP and CELLULAR lines.. so, expect $5 to $10 of that purchase price per month to be on TAXES AND FEE GRABS by your local yokal and state greed mongers! sprint will just pass this along in a higher bottom line fee-- as will other carriers.

the big taxation of telecom will begin to lead to the destruction of demand for an actual voice line and consumers will begin conversing via push to talk and other non-taxable internet communications.... which will lead to... you guessed it.. formal taxation of the internet (in addition to the informal scumbagging that Verizon does with their municipal construction fee).