Goodbye $200 iPhone: Sprint said to kill two-year contract
Tech Industry
The two year phone contract is going the way of the dodo.
I'm Bridget Carey, this is your CNet update.
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Two year contracts are on a path to extinction in the US Sprint announced, that by the end of the year, it's gonna stop offering customers the option of a two year contract.
And subsidize price on a new phone.
So instead of paying $200 for that new iPhone with the contract renewal, you'll have to pay the full cost of the iPhone, $650 over time in monthly payments.
Verizon killed the two year contract last week, and T-mobile instigated the change When it ended contracts two years ago.
Now AT&T is the last major carrier to keep contracts.
But even it is slowly pulling back.
You can only renew a 2 year contract in an official AT&T not at another retail shop like Bestbuy.
To better compete with T mobile sprint is also offering a new Plan called iPhone forever.
You lease an iPhone for 22 dollars a month.
And as soon as a new one comes out, you trade it in and upgrade.
There are benefits to the monthly payment system.
It's more clear in your bill, what you're paying for.
The cost of the phone is separated from your service cost which is now cheaper.
So when you pay off the phone, you only pay for the service, and if you're shopping around for which carrier has the best deal, now it's easier to just compare service plans between each company.
Sprint is fourth place among US carriers when it comes to the number of customers.
But it's in third place in terms of coverage according to the latest report from wireless testing firm RootMetrics.
Verizon took the top spot with AT&T following closely behind.
T-Mobile was held back by a poor performance outside of the major metro areas.
Moving from phones to Facebook.
More changes are coming to the social network.
In particular, it wants you to do more blogging on Facebook.
It's beefing up notes.
Yeah, remember notes?
It's changing so you can post a long form story with large cover photos.
You can also resize photos within a post and insert links.
It looks a whole like like Medium, shown here.
It's a place people go to post long form think pieces and articles.
It's also similar to how Tumblr is used.
Now this Facebook notes change is only a small test now, it's Likely you won't see it.
And there's a new way to chat, over at Google hangouts.
The messenger service now has its own desktop website.
So you don't need to pull up the mobile app or go through Gmail to start a conversation or video call.
You can find it at hangouts.google.com.
Facebook does the same thing with Messenger letting you access chat on messenger.com.
That's it for this tech news update.
You can dive in deeper at cnet.com.
From our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey
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