RingPlus Debuts New Plans; Offers Free Service

There have been lots of big announcements from Sprint MVNO RingPlus this week including the debuting of several new plans and a free service which will be available to everyone. The plans were first released Tuesday and RingPlus asked for (and acted on) customer responses to make the plans fairly competitive. All of the changes are expected to go live this Saturday, June 13, 2015. Here’s a quick look at what to expect:

Free Service

Much like FreedomPop, RingPlus will be offering free service to all of its customers. This free service will include 200 minutes, 50 texts and 10 MB of LTE data per month with overages of $0.02 per minute, MB or text. International texting and MMS will be available for an additional fee. To my knowledge, RingPlus and FreedomPop are the only MVNOs which offer free service for users to test out the coverage. Both companies use Sprint’s network. RingPlus allows customers to activate their own phone or purchase a new one. Visit RingPlus for more details, but be aware that the free plan will not show up on the website until Saturday. The free plans will be subject to “rules of the road” which include minimum outgoing calls per month and a few other details. Specifics have not been released.

New Plans

The plans changes are pretty give and take, and the most significant change (aside from the free plan) is that the plan format is definitely simpler with fewer options. Previously, RingPlus had 11 different plan options, all with random names. While customers on those plans can choose to be grandfathered, new customers will have to choose from  8 plans which are priced from $2 to $50. As a note, all plans currently include the ability to make Wifi calls, although the minutes will pull from your regular minute bucket. All plans also include international texting at $0.03/minute, MMS at $0.04 each and $0.02 overages. Here’s what the plans look like as of Wednesday afternoon:
  • Free Plan – 200 minutes, 50 texts, 10 MB
  • Joy – $1.99 – 200 minutes, 200 texts, 50 MB
  • Mint – $4.99 – 300 minutes, 500 texts, 100 MB
  • Bella (new) – $9.99 – 400 minutes, 400 texts, 300 MB, 200 minutes of Wifi calling
  • Harmony – $19.99 – unlimited minutes and text, 1 GB
  • Revel – $29.99  – unlimited minutes and text, 2 GB
  • Hiper – $39.99 – unlimited minutes and text, 3 GB
  • Bliss – $49.99 – unlimited minutes and text, 5 GB
Previously, RingPlus’ plans capped at 3 GB for $33, but customers were generally allowed to make wifi calling on separate minute buckets, which essentially doubled how many minutes you had available. There have been some changes made to the plans in response to RingPlus users’ comments, as mentioned above. I’ll check back on Monday and update if anything changes between now and the official launch. While the more expensive plans aren’t anything super exciting, RingPlus might definitely be worth a look if you are a light user who only needs a handful of minutes and texts per month.]]>

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