But Sprint executive Bill White denied this was the case. Sprint's businesses include its
prepaid arms Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile, both of which
do practice throttling, and Hesse was referring to those customers.
"We don't throttle our unlimited
postpaid customers," White said. "He is not referring to postpaid."
Sprint has repeatedly stripped away the unlimited offer from many of its services except for its core contract smartphone data plan. Over the past year, the company has done away with unlimited plans for its prepaid business, mobile hot spots, and USB laptop cards.
Sprint has kept the unlimited smartphone plan because it believes the offer is one of the key differentiators for the company. That's particularly the case with the iPhone 4S, which both AT&T and Verizon Wireless also carry. In heavy rotation is an iPhone commercial that touts Sprint's unlimited plan.
White did say customers who violate the terms and conditions could be limited, but that would involve turning the phone into a modem by tethering it to another device.
"Unlimited doesn't mean you can
hook it up to a server farm,"
White said.
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