Last one in, first one out. That's apparently the motto that Sprint has decided to adhere to in regards to early upgrade programs, which were all the rage among the big four U.S. carriers in 2013. T-Mobile was first to the scene with JUMP! in early July, then AT&T and Verizon debuted AT&T Next and Verizon Edge in the following weeks. Sprint took the wraps off of its own One Up offering in September, but now it's been revealed that the program has been killed after just four months.
A page on Sprint's official support site shows that One Up was officially put out to pasture on Jan. 9. One Up allowed customers to pick up a new device for no money down and then spread the cost of the unit out over 24 months. After making 12 consecutive payments, the consumer could then trade in his or her device and upgrade to a new one, starting the process all over.
Sprint already has a couple of new offerings that are somewhat similar to One Up. The first is known as Sprint Easy Pay, a program that allows a customer to buy a device for a variable down payment and then pay for the device with 24 monthly installments and zero finance fees. However, Sprint's support page for the Easy Pay program says that it's currently only available at "select Sprint stores," with plans to expand to Sprint.com and other channels soon. The Easy Pay program also lacks its own annual upgrade option.
Sprint's new Framily Plan also includes a One Up-like upgrade feature. Subscribers that sign up for the new plan's $20 unlimited data add-on can trade in their existing device for a new piece of kit after having the unlimited bucket on their account for 12 consecutive months.
While Sprint's One Up program never really seemed to get much attention after its debut, it's still kind of interesting to see Sprint abandon the program after just four months. One nice feature of the program was that it gave Unlimited, My Way and My All-In customers a $15 per month discount on their monthly bill so long as they were still making payments on their device. The Sprint Framily Plan does offer a discount of its own, giving customers $5 off of their monthly bill for each line added to their account, though obviously that requires others joining the Framily Plan rather than one user signing up for one of Sprint's single-user unlimited plans.
Did any of you sign up for Sprint One Up during its short period of availability?
