Ring Plus Mobile is a Sprint reseller. They have been in business for a couple of years and occasionally have really crazy attention-grabbing deals. Today, they’re running one of them and I encourage everyone to run out and activate a line right now.
Why? This is the first time they’ve offered a truly full-featured free plan that won’t likely turn into overages. You get 1500 minutes, 1500 SMS messages, and 1.5GB of data per month. Most people don’t use much (or any) more than this, and similar prepaid plans cost around $40 per month.
How is this travel-related? Sprint, through its legacy acquisition Nextel, has coverage in some fairly unusual places where you can’t get GSM coverage. If you’re using a GSM carrier such as AT&T or T-Mobile, it might be worth lighting up a second line on Sprint so you have a way to make calls elsewhere. Also, maybe you want to preserve your data allowance on your primary line. I’m adding a line with this plan and will keep it in the car to stream music. Why not? It’s free.
The catches:
- RingPlus uses the Sprint network. This is considered the weakest network of the major US carriers. While they do cover some spots that other carriers don’t, the coverage is (for the most part) somewhere between poor and awful.
- Overages are expensive. You’ll pay 4 cents per extra text, minute, and megabyte. An extra gig of data could cost you $40!
- A $15 deposit is required. This is money you’ll never get back. It goes into your RingPlus account to pay for overages.
- No guarantee it’ll stay free. RingPlus has never taken a free plan away before, but there is no guarantee they won’t in the future. Given that you get the value back after the first month, don’t be too upset if this goes away.
You can buy a phone directly from RingPlus (they mostly have older refurbished phones for sale at higher prices than Amazon or eBay) or activate any Sprint phone. I have also had good luck activating Boost Mobile Android phones, which are much less expensive. You’re not supposed to be able to do this, but it did work for me. In fact, I currently have both a Boost 4G LG Volt and a Boost 3G Moto G active on free RingPlus plans.
To sign up, use this link.