Sprint Raising Its CLEAR Broadband Pricing

Telecom & Wireless

Published: February 12, 2014 6:40 am

Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S) now owns Clearwire, or at least they are together as a quasi tracking stock under Softbank. Most wireless subscribers have been seeing news of price wars of late, but the price of a monthly CLEAR subscription is going up by about 10%.

The prior monthly fee after taxes came to $52.05 per month. Maybe some of these rates vary depending on which state has what taxes, but that was the Texas rate. CLEAR sent out an email to subscribers today titled “Important notice regarding your CLEAR account‏.” It was without a doubt that the news would not be good news.

The emailed letter said:

Please do not respond to this email. Replies to this message are routed to an unmonitored mailbox.

Dear %$#@&^,

At CLEAR, our mission is to deliver good value. Sometimes that means making difficult choices to continue offering the best possible service.

This message is to inform you that the monthly service rate you have been paying for CLEAR service will be increasing. The change is to help manage costs and remain competitive. Effective with your next billing cycle, your monthly service rate will increase. Your new monthly service rate will be:

Account ID: &^%$&^%

Monthly service fee: $54.99 (plus taxes) per month.

We value you as an important customer and look forward to continuing to provide you with CLEAR internet service.

Sincerely,

CLEAR

After calling the company, it was clear that the monthly fees of $54.99 plus taxes come to $57.46 after taxes and fees. That may not be the end of the world from a prior after taxes and fees monthly charge of $52.05. Still, it is $5.41 per month or an additional $64.92 per year. Based on the old rate, that comes to about 1.25-months in additional payments per year, a hike of 10.4%.

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