Scratch Wireless, a Sprint MVNO, said it can no longer afford to give services away for free and will begin charging for some features.
Scratch Wireless has historically offered free WiFi calling and free messaging via cellular and WiFi. Scratch sold unlimited voice minutes on Sprint’s network for $15 per month. Moving forward, Scratch will charge $10 per month for unlimited calling on both WiFi and cellular.
“As other costs go up, like text 911 and others, it is impossible for us to completely absorb the costs of WiFi calling and cellular text messages,” said Scratch founder and CEO Alan Berrey in a statement provided to Fierce Wireless.
“Our customers still have access to free unlimited text messaging on WiFi, free unlimited MMS on WiFi, and free unlimited data on WiFi. Again, we are only changing WiFi calling and cellular text messaging.”
Scratch is now bundling cellular messaging services into its data packages. Scratch’s entry-level data plan costs $1.99 for 50MB for 24 hours, and its top-end data plan costs $24.99 for 1GB for 30 days.
