Sprint Introduces “Rolling Data” – Only Prepaid, Only At Best Buy?

Sprint today joined T-Mobile and AT&T in offering rollover data.

But, in typical Sprint fashion, there are confusing and seemingly arbitrary limits attached.

“Rolling Data” That Never Expires

Unlike T-Mobile's Data Stash one year expiration policy, and AT&T's stingy one month rollover expiration, Sprint's "Rolling Data" never expires - and users can accumulate up to 30GB in their account.

That's the good news.

But Sprint is not making rolling data available to regular post-paid account customers. Only prepaid customers are eligible for accumulating any rolling data on their accounts.

Even more bizarrely - only prepaid customers who sign up at Best Buy are eligible for this "limited time" deal.

If you want a rolling data plan - even if you already have a plan purchased at Best Buy you will not get upgraded unless you "affirmatively migrate" and go back in and ask for it:

Sprint Prepaid customers who purchased/activated at Best Buy before May 31 will not automatically receive Rolling Data; those customers will need to affirmatively migrate to a Sprint Prepaid plan with rolling data.

The Rolling Data Plans

There are three plans on offer - $35/mo for 1GB of rolling data, $45/mo for 3GB of rolling data, or $55/mo for 6GB of rolling data. All of these plans include unlimited talk and text, and note in the fine print that "Video streaming limited to 3G speeds."

Once all accumulated rolling data is used up, these Sprint prepaid plans revert to barely usable 2G speeds for the remainder of the month - or until a "Data Pack" is purchased to buy more one-time use high speed data.

Note that if you buy an additional data pack to add more prepaid data to your account, that data will be used first and will expire and NOT roll over if unused.

Does Sprint’s Rolling Data Make Sense?

We typically do not recommend Sprint as a primary network for RVers due to the overall limited network coverage. But if you already have service with Verizon or AT&T and are looking for an inexpensive secondary network, for $35-$55/mo this is a reasonable way to add a second network (and voice line) to your arsenal.

With rolling data - even during the months that you can not find Sprint coverage, at least your data will accumulate for future use.

But... forcing people to go to Best Buy, and not offering this deal to your postpaid customers?!?

That's just tacky.