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Sprint EVDO data plans to have 5GB limit

UPDATE 06/19/08 Sprint has started contacting approximately 5000 data card and phone-as-modem (PAM) customers who are exceeding the 300 megabyte roaming restriction, to educate them on the change in policy that they were notified about via message in their monthly billing.

Sprint says that 99% of all data card and PAM users are not going to be contacted, and that only the 'heavy roamers' are being targeted at this time.

Customers in violation of the 5GB restriction will not be targeted at this time, but will be later this year.

Many online sources recently reported on a rumor that Sprint was going to enforce a monthly cap of 5GB (five gigabytes) on their EVDO data plans and we chose not to write up about it until now, when we have actual facts to report.

As a Sprint Master Agent, we've been chasing down our official contacts at Sprint and have managed to get someone to CONFIRM that terms and conditions affecting consumer and 'individual-liable' accounts will change on July 13th.

The new terms and conditions will include the following (of course, subject to change):

This 'material change' in the terms and conditions of existing contracts will allow affected customers the ability to opt out of their service contracts if they are not pleased with the new policy. It is extremely important to note that:

Customers will only have 60 days from receipt of the message they receive with their monthly bill, to opt out of their contract.

Similar changes to terms and conditions for new contracts will be coming on July 13. Since any new customer signing up for a new contract between now and July 13 will receive the same message shortly after signing up , it does not appear to make any difference if potential new customers sign up before July 13 (unless they are creating an account in a business name).

It appears that Corporate Liable customers are not going to be affected by the changes in the TOS at this time. So, if you want to create a new Sprint account and have the option to sign up as a business, it appears that would be beneficial

UPDATE 06/19/08 The new terms of service described above, will be in place for all accounts created on or after July 13, 2008 - regardless if the account is individual or corporate liable.

We do NOT know what will definitely happen to someone who exceeds the 5GB cap. The options are explained clearly: Sprint reserves the right to deny, terminate, modify, or suspend service.

For many rural customers "off the beaten path", access to common Cablemodem or DSL internet service is not available, and the latency and start-up costs of satellite service make it unattractive. For these folks, the expansion of high speed EVDO broadband cellular service is a godsend and becomes their best option for internet access.

If you are one of these potential customers who are considering EVDO broadband but do not understand how much data 5 gigabytes represents, we've written this article: "What does 5GB get me?"

According to Sprint, only 1% of current mobile broadband customers go over 5GB in one month.

There are still more questions than we can provide answers to in this article:

• since only consumer customers are being notified, it appears that govt. and corp. accounts are exempt (UPDATE 06/19: exempt until 07/13 when TOS changes for all accounts)
• will Sprint just issue warnings or act immediately

Discussions related to this new cap, as well as the unanswered topics above, can be found on this EVDOforums thread: The End of Unlimited Sprint EVDO (or 5GB Limit) - EVDOforums.com

For now, the only 'unlimited' broadband cellular plan is offered by Alltel. 3Gstore recently signed a contract to become an Alltel agent, and we will begin to sell and support Alltel EVDO service in the coming weeks.