When is minutes free for sprint

The flat rate voice plan comes at a time when prepaid unlimited phone services have put pressure on fledgling national providers , such as Sprint. Earlier this year, Sprint announced it was buying Virgin Mobile , another prepaid wireless provider that offers flat rate pricing, to get a bigger piece of the prepaid action.

But even before flat-rate prepaid plans became popular, the big four nationwide cell phone operators began offering bundles of unlimited voice service. Sprint was the last of the big four to announce its unlimited plan , but it now offers the most comprehensive plan.

The move to make all mobile-to-mobile voice minutes part of a flat rate plan is yet another indicator that voice revenues are getting squeezed in the cell phone market.

This is good news for consumers who might see competitors fighting back with lower pricing on their plans. Clearly, Sprint is using this new pricing plan as a way to stop the blood-letting of customers. Even though the company already offers some of the lowest priced and comprehensive plans on the market, customers have been fleeing Sprint to go to other carriers for several quarters. As its total subscriber base shrinks with each quarter, a mobile-to-mobile plan that allows subscribers to call other Sprint customers holds little value to customers.

In a way, the new service is like T-Mobile's MyFaves program, which allows users to make unlimited calling to frequently called numbers on any network. And Verizon Wireless has a similar plan called Friends and Family.

While the new pricing structure may help Sprint keep some customers, it will likely come at a high price for the company. What's more, Sprint's new service is essentially encouraging customers to make more calls to other carriers' cell phones, which means that Sprint will have to pay the cost of connecting those calls, Moffet said in his note. Calls to chat lines, radio broadcast lines, and similar services aren't included in your plan.

Out-of-plan calls tend to cost more for T-Mobile to complete, and this small fee helps us to manage those costs. We don't want you to get surprise charges on your bill.

To ensure you always know when you'll be charged, we'll tell you about the charge when you dial an out-of-plan number. You can avoid the charge simply by hanging up. If you have any questions or think there's an error on your T-Mobile bill, call Customer Care by dialing from your T-Mobile phone, or by calling from another phone. Note : While you can block incoming calls from specific numbers, there is no way to block outgoing calls.

When you place an out-of-plan call, we'll let you know about the charge.