Sprint has changed plans for tethering and hotspot pricing for smart phones and tablets. Sprint is no longer offering the $30 per month 5GB hotspot plan but existing customers will be able to to keep their plan and be grandfathered.
Starting May 18 Sprint to a mobile hotspot (MHS) plans are:
•$19.99/per month for 2 GB of combined 3G/4G on-network data - this plan is $10 less than the original lowest price plan.
•$49.99/per month for 6 GB of combined 3G/4G on-network data.
Additional on-network data usage above the monthly allowance is charged at $0.05/MB Monthly Off-network data usage limit is combination of Phone or Tablet and MHS usage. For Tablets, the off-network data limit is driven by the tablet plan selected (either 100MB or 300MB) with a charge of $.25/MB for additional off-network usage.
Carriers recently have been cracking down on on authorized use of tethering or mobile hotspots. However in a recent CTIA survey many attendees use third-party software to access hotspots without paying the additional fee.
Sprint will also notifiy users of data-allowance use. After accepting overage charges, they will continue to receive notifications at 20 percent increments above the monthly data allowance.
Sprint reminded customers to "Turn off the Mobile Hotspot add-on when not connected to other devices, to help ensure that MHS data usage does not affect calls, texts, phone or tablet plan data usage on the Sprint network. While MHS is turned on the phone or tablet, both MHS and phone data usage pull from the MHS monthly data allowance. To reduce the likelihood of reaching your monthly data allowance and to avoid additional charges/overage for phone or tablet data usage, ensure MHS is turned off when not connected to other Wi-Fi-capable devices.
On-network data generated on the phone remains unlimited on Sprint’s Everything plans that include data when MHS functionality is disabled. Some examples are Everything Data, Simply Everything, Everything Business and Business Advantage Messaging & Data.
Any on-network data usage driven by other Wi-Fi enabled devices pulls from your monthly MHS data allowance.