Tello might be the name of a walkie-talkie app, but it’s now also the name of a Sprint virtual network operator. It is the latest prepaid carrier to offer custom buckets of talk time, texts and data to prospective users.

One postpaid carrier, Ting, happens to be a competing Sprint MVNO. It’s now being put at a heavy price disadvantage if users want more with Tello’s introduction. One sore point is in the data offerings: Ting’s price of $29 gets users up to 2GB before going into per-megabyte prorated charges while Tello offers 2GB of LTE data for $21 and up to 5GB of LTE data for $45. Furthermore, Tello doesn’t charge overages if users go past their data ceiling, but reduces speeds down to 2G levels.

A few other select comparisons follow:

[table]

Scenario,Tello,Ting

100 minutes,$3,$3

500 minutes,$10,$9

Unlimited minutes,$15,$35 for 2100 min. + 1.9¢ per extra min.

Minimum texts,200 texts for $2,100 texts for $3

Unlimited texts,$3,$11 for 4801 texts + .25¢ per extra text

500MB data,$8,$12

2GB data,$16,$29

5GB data,$45,$74 ($29 for 2GB then 1.5¢ per extra MB)

[/table]

We should also note that while Ting charges a monthly per-device fee of $6, Tello does not offer multi-line plans. Also, Tello’s rate plans have fees and taxes included in its pricing while Ting’s tacks them on during billing. Tello also offers pay-as-you-go credit that can be used for domestic and international calls, texts and data. Of course, this is all moot if you’re not a Sprint fan. T-Mobile MVNO US Mobile does offer slightly cheaper rates and more device choices.

But then again, who said more choices were bad for the industry?

Source: Tello
Via: Android and Me