Sprint Battles A Surging T-Mobile With $90, 12GB 'Family Share' Data Plan

T-Mobile CEO John Legere has been relentless in his quest to displace Sprint as America’s third-place wireless carrier. The boys in magenta were able to add 2.1 million customers during Q4 and a total of 8.3 for calendar year 2014. T-Mobile’s Un-carrier initiatives have taken the wind out of its competitors’ sails, with Sprint being the biggest loser.

However, Sprint isn’t just gonna roll over and let Legere pelt it with insults on a regular basis; the company is fighting back with a new data plan aimed at retaining its current customers and drawing in new ones. Sprint is introducing a $90, 12GB plan that it calls “the best family share plan available among all the national carriers.”

With the new plan, Sprint will allow up to 10 lines to share 12GB of data. For its example, Sprint shows that T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon Wireless will allow you to share 10GB with four lines for $100, $160, and $160 respectively. But there are a few things that you need to know about Sprint’s plan before you start thinking that this is some awesome deal…

First of all, the $90 monthly price (which is reached by waiving the $15 "monthly access charge" per line) is only valid if you port your existing phone number over from a competing carrier and purchase a new smartphone using Sprint Easy Pay or a Sprint iPhone for Life Plan. On top of that, the price is only applicable through March 31, 2016. If you are already an existing Sprint customer, you will have to tack on the $15 data access charge for each line. So if you are an existing customer looking to add four lines to the new plan, you’d actually be looking at a cost of $150 per month. We can’t help but think back to those old Ally Bank commercials when thinking of Sprint’s latest offer:

You will only be able to sign up for Sprint’s new $90, 12GB plan from now through March 12, 2015, so if you want to make a switch from your existing carrier or just reconfigure your existing Sprint plan, you’d better do so quickly.