Less than a month after making some changes to its shared data plan buckets, U.S. Cellular today announced some new no contract plans as well as a promotion that’ll see it pay the early termination fees (ETFs) of switchers.
First up, U.S. Cellular has taken the wraps off of its new Simple Connect plans. These plans have no contract tied to them and include unlimited talk, text and data.
Pricing for the Simple Connect plans starts out at $40 per month for basic phones. On the smartphone side of things, customers can pay $50 per month for unlimited talk, text and 500MB of high-speed data, with unlimited slower speeds after that. There’s also a $60 per month option that steps the high-speed data allotment up to 2GB.
Subscribers that’d like to sign up for a Simple Connect plan can bring their own hardware, pay the full price of a device up front or enroll in U.S. Cellular’s new Retail Installment Contract option. This offering allows a customer to pay $0 down for a device, instead spreading out its full cost over 24 monthly payments that are added to their monthly bill.
U.S. Cellular also notes that customers that sign up for its Shared Connect plan and Retail Installment Contract option are eligible for its new Upgrade Program. This service allows the subscriber to trade in their existing smartphone after 12 months and buy a new device along with a new Retail Installment Contract.
In addition to its new Simple Connect plans and Retail Installment Contract program, U.S. Cellular is kicking off a new limited time promo. The carrier says that it’ll pay up to $350 to cover the ETF of any consumer that switches from a competing operator and signs up for both a Shared Connect plan — which is the new name for its contract Shared Data plans — as well as a Retail Installment Contract. Once that’s completed, customers can send in their final bill from their old operator and then they’ll receive a prepaid debit card to cover the cost of the ETF.
U.S. Cellular’s new offerings sound fairly similar to the Simple Choice and Uncarrier 4.0 announcements that T-Mobile has made over the past year. USCC certainly isn’t the first carrier to emulate T-Mo’s offerings, though, and the most important thing here is that U.S. Cellular customers now have more options when it comes to selecting a new rate plan.
If you’re interested in learning more about U.S. Cellular’s Simple Connect plans and Retail Installment Contract option, you can click the link on either offering to head straight to USCC’s website.
