Weekend warriors: Sprint fights to gain callers with residential flat-rate plan

Carriers have known for some time that weekends are the time when daughters in Georgia call their mothers in California, and when parents in Wisconsin check up on their kids at college in New York. They've known that it's a long-distance boon just waiting to be grabbed. That's why AT&T offers 5-Cent Weekends, and why MCI WorldCom offers 5-Cent Sundays. But now Sprint has brought a whole new strategy to that market by taking a page from Internet service providers and wireless companies and offering unlimited weekend calling for a flat rate of $25 a month.

The offer is the first of its kind for long-distance residential service, which has been dominated by per-call charges that may be discounted at certain times. With Unlimited Weekend, callers pay the flat charge then make unlimited state-to-state, in-state and intraLATA long-distance calls any time between midnight Friday to Sunday at 11:59 p.m.

Though the carrier hasn't before ventured into an unlimited use service, this is just the beginning for Sprint's flat-rate pricing, said Greg Field, vice president of marketing for Sprint. "This is the first step in how we're moving into unlimited service," he said. "Our intention is to lead the industry in this area.

"Since the company began to offer Sprint Sense dime-a-minute pricing in 1995, it has been looking for other ways to offer "simple" prices to consumers, Field said. Independent research showed that call traffic increases over the weekend, so Sprint built the service "around how people live their lives," he said. A large advertising campaign using two agencies will focus on this theme and on building an emotional bond with the company, he added.

Does the average consumer make $25 worth of long-distance calls a month? Not surprisingly, Sprint's competitors say no.

In a statement, AT&T said for most consumers, the average monthly long-distance bill is $17. "Sprint's just betting that customers will make less than $25 worth of calls," an AT&T spokeswoman said. AT&T contends that its customers would be better off on AT&T One Rate Plus 5-Cent Weekends, but says that if any of its customers want an offer similar to Sprint's, they will provide it.

An MCI WorldCom spokesman said a customer would have to talk on the phone for eight hours a month on weekends to spend $25 at the MCI 5 cents rate. "It's clearly a niche product that the average consumer will not need," he said.

Some analysts agreed. "It seems like a lot of time to spend on the phone," said Steve Koppman, an analyst with Dataquest. However, Sprint will be bolstered by its strong hold in the residential market, he said.

"Of the big three, Sprint has the highest average usage by residential customers," he said. "Historically this has happened because the kind of people who went to alternative carriers went to Sprint."

Others say that customers can simply look at their previous phone bills and see if they're spending more or less than $25, and find a plan that fits. Overall, the newness of this service can only help Sprint, said Jeffrey Kagan, an Atlanta-based analyst.

"When Sprint introduced its dime-a-minute rate, it wasn't the cheapest rate out there, but it was so simple for consumers that it was very successful," Kagan said. "They're banking on the fact that consumers don't want to think a lot about phone service."

Kagan believes that Sprint saw AT&T's and MCI WorldCom's weekend rates and wanted to do something different. "They're very afraid of looking like a me-too company," he said. "They wanted to break the mold."