Sprint has launched its new International Value Roaming program, which will provide the carrier's customers with international text and unlimited data roaming when visiting 15 countries in Europe and Latin America, or Japan at no additional charge. In addition, customers can make calls to anywhere from the covered countries at a rate of only 20 cents a minute.
The countries included in the International Value Roaming program are Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Germany, Guatemala, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Russia, South Korea, Spain and the United Kingdom.
However, there is a catch to the program. Users looking to access the Internet using Sprint's new offering from the 15 countries will be limited to the older and slower 2G network speeds.
For users who find 2G speeds insufficient for their needs, they will have to pay additional charges. Users can bump up their international data roaming to 3G by paying $15 for a one-day pass with a usage allowance of 100MB, $25 for a one-week pass with a usage allowance of 200MB or $50 for a two-week pass with a usage allowance of 500MB.
According to Sprint, free international offerings are programs that have high demand among consumers, primarily due to the fear among customers of high charges for text and data roaming services.
Sprint's free text and unlimited data offering is compared to those of leading carriers AT&T and Verizon. AT&T subscribers are required to pay a monthly fee of $30 for these services, while Verizon charges a monthly fee of $40, which includes 100 minutes of voice calls.
Sprint's new program is similar to the plan rolled out by T-Mobile in October 2013. Both programs downgrade the connection speeds for their subscribers as part of the free data roaming feature, from 4G speeds to 2G speeds. This is similar to downgrading from a broadband Internet connection to a dial-up connection.
Both programs, however, allow customers to pay an extra charge to upgrade the speed of their connections, with T-Mobile's offering exactly the same as that of Sprint.
The biggest difference in the programs of the two rival carriers is that T-Mobile's program covers over 120 countries, while that of Sprint's program is limited.
Sprint is losing subscribers per quarter, while T-Mobile is adding customers and is primed to overtake Sprint as the third biggest carrier in the United States, behind AT&T and Verizon.
