RingPlus is at it again. They ran a promotion today, and are repeating it on Sunday September 20th. Once again the Diversity plan is being offered, as well as a new free plan which they are calling the Junior Flexible Free Plan.
More free loaner phones will be available as well. RingPlus members will also be able to enroll in a beta test of the Hotspot feature I wrote about the other day which they are now calling Pulse. That hotspot feature will allow members to get paid for using their phone as a public Wi-Fi hotspot.
Let's take a closer look at the new promotion, plans and features being offered:
Junior Free Plan
The Junior Free plan is extremely limited in features and may be best suited for those of you who only need a cell phone for emergencies. The plan comes with just 10 minutes of talk, 10 SMS, and 10 MB of 4G LTE data to use per day. If you go over in any allotment you'll automatically be billed $2 for unlimited 24 hour usage in whichever allotment you went over with except for data. Data will get billed at a rate of 2¢ per MB or $20/GB which is a little on the expensive side. The Junior Plan requires a $5.00 minimum top up/account balance. The same top up is needed for the Diversity Plan, which seems to negate the usefulness of the Junior Free Plan.
The Diversity Plan
I've covered the Diversity Plan previously, so to quickly reiterate, the plan includes 300 minutes, 500 texts, and 300 MB of 4G LTE data to use each month. If you go over in any category you are automatically billed $4.99, and you receive an additional 300 minutes of talk, 500 texts or 300 MB of 4G data depending on which category you went over with. So if you went over in talk, you'd get an additional 300 minutes to use. The extra allotments carry over for up to two months. As previously mentioned the plan requires a $5.00 top up.
I'd be interested in seeing what percentage of people signup for the Junior Free Plan as to me it doesn't seem to offer much compared to this Diversity plan.
Free Loaner Phones
Previously RingPlus was only offering the HTC Desire 510 as part of its loaner program. For this promotion the company has opted to open up the program for use with a few more phones, however they are all much older models. The way the loaner program works is you put a deposit down on the phone you'd like to use, and when you no longer want the phone, as long as you've kept it in good condition, you can send it back to RingPlus for a full refund. The following phones are being offered in the promotion with their deposit price listed:
- HTC Desire 510 $50
- iPhone 4 8GB Refurbished $90
- HTC EVO 4G Shift $100
- iPhone 4s 8GB Refurbished $120
- Samsung Galaxy S3 $150
All phones come with an additional free account top up of either $5.00 or $10.00 depending on if you activate a Free Plan or a monthly paid plan respectively.
RingPlus Pulse
RingPlus Pulse will allow you to potentially get paid when you use your phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot. When you're out in public and someone connects to your hotspot, they'll get rerouted to a RingPlus hotspot signup page. If the person purchases internet access through your hotspot, you'll split the profits of the sale equally with RingPlus. RingPlus has not mentioned pricing options for people who purchase internet access through your hotspot. Unlike the other promotions, the Pulse Hotspot promotion will run continuously from now through September 30th at 12:00 PM PDT.