Sprint Prepaid Cellular Phones - How To Get One!

Sprint prepaid cellular phones; do they exist?!  Over the years I've found that there are a lot of people searching for information on this topic.  After researching some of the top Google hits that come up for this topic, I was quickly able to see that amazingly no one directly answers this question. I was truly surprised at how little useful information shows up for people looking for Sprint prepaid cellular phones.  So, this section is dedicated to answering the question, and providing details around your options for Sprint no contract cell phones.  I also include other information around this topic related to Sprint's prepaid strategy, and my opinions that I know you'll find valuable, or at least interesting.


Boost Mobile Was Sprint's Original Prepaid Offering
- Virgin Mobile Followed
Simply put, Sprint does not currently have a prepaid product under its core Sprint Nextel brand.  Below you'll read more about why this is, whether this is the right approach, and what I believe they should be doing.  For now, however, the straight answer is no - you can't get no contract Sprint prepaid cellular phones under the Sprint brand.  But don't fret!  Sprint does have a great CDMA network, with good coverage, and a clear 4G network strategy.  So you have options: Virgin Mobile, Boost Mobile, and Sprint MVNOs.  Let's take a look at each of these no contract options.
Going Prepaid With The Boost Mobile Brand
A little history about Boost - Boost Mobile started out in Australia as a fairly small lifestyle prepaid brand with imagery of surfers and skaters.  It did well given its size and even expanded into New Zealand.  The founder of Boost, Peter Adderton, went in search of a partner to launch the brand in North America.  Ultimately he ended up in a joint venture with Nextel (prior to the Sprint Nextel merger).  It was a great partnership because Nextel was an enterprise product, which meant that they could sell services to consumers with minimal network cost because consumers tend to use their phones mostly during the evenings and weekends when business customers are not typically using their phone.  It worked out quite well and took off with amazing growth.


After the success, Nextel bought Boost.  So Boost became a wholly owned subsidiary of Nextel, similar to Toyota and Lexus, or Coke and Sprite.  Except for Australia and New Zealand, Nextel now owned the worldwide rights to the Boost brand, and they continued to expand the offering nationwide.  While I don't know the specific details, it's my understanding that Peter got about $3 million dollars for the company, which later turned into a $250+ million business.  I heard he tried suing Nextel when he realized he sold way to low, but obviously lost.  It took on a evolution of the brand from surf and skate to hip hop.  Arguably people were buying it because they wanted a prepaid Nextel offering, and didn't really care about the brand; more on that later!  Then came the merger with Sprint Nextel, which is now classified by many as the worst failure in the history of mergers in the United States, but that's a story for another day!  Anyway, that's how Boost became part of Sprint.

Sprint Buys Virgin Mobile - Skip to see the impacts now!

So, Boost is the prepaid division of Sprint.  They basically take select phones from the parent company and modify them to Boost them up.  But don't be fooled, it's mostly basic features to enable prepaid, and some different colors and logos; nothing mind blowing.  Boost offers plans on both the iDEN and CDMA networks with different plan features.  You can review the plans by visiting the Compare Prepaid Plans page.  Note that customer care is completely different, and the services are completely disconnected from what's available on Sprint.  Aside from sharing the same platform vendor (Amdocs), HR, IT, etc., from a consumer perspective, it really looks like a completely different company.  This has its merits and disadvantages depending on your perspective.  Click on the following links to learn more about Sprint prepaid cellular phones.

Next - Sprint Prepaid Phones

Sprint Prepaid Phones - via MVNOs

Sprint Prepaid Cell Phone - Sprint Branded Offer

Sprint Prepaid Cell Phones - Conclusion

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