Boost Mobile Finally Takes Aim at Major Carriers With Brand Refresh, $25 Plan

After years of building, it looks like the wireless brand is finally ready to try to compete with AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile.

Eli Blumenthal is a senior editor at CNET with a particular focus on covering the latest in the ever-changing worlds of telecom, streaming and sports. He previously worked as a technology reporter at USA Today.

Expertise 5G | Mobile networks | Wireless carriers | Phones | Tablets | Streaming devices | Streaming platforms | Mobile | Console gaming

Dish Network (now EchoStar) has spent billions of dollars over the last decade acquiring valuable wireless spectrum, a divested brand and building out a new 5G network. Now, it finally seems to be ready to try to compete with the biggest carriers. On Wednesday, the satellite TV company turned wireless carrier unveiled a new brand refresh for Boost Mobile alongside a $25 monthly unlimited plan and ad campaign highlighting that it is a new carrier with its own 5G network.

With the new brand refresh, there will now be one Boost Mobile brand that covers both its long-standing prepaid service and its newer and more traditional postpaid service. Previously known as Boost Infinite, postpaid services are when users pay for service at the end of the month and are the way most AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile plans operate.

"We believe how you pay is not a product, so we're providing all of those solutions in one space," said Sean Lee, Boost Mobile's senior vice president of consumer product and marketing.

For those who are looking for one, two or three lines, it seems that Boost Mobile's new offerings may be fairly competitive on paper. For $25 per month per line (with automatic payments), you will get unlimited talk, text and data as well as 30GB of high-speed "premium data" (after which it could be throttled down to a significantly slower, 3G-like 512 kilobits per second until your next billing cycle). If that price is familiar, it's because Boost Mobile has been experimenting for a while with a similar offer for its prepaid service.

There is no hotspot data or perks like free or discounted streaming services and international roaming, but this could still be a sizable savings compared with similar offerings from the bigger providers. A single line of T-Mobile's Essentials Saver, by comparison, runs $50 per month (with automatic payments) though it includes 50GB of high-speed data and unlimited hotspot connectivity at "3G speeds."

Lee says that those who sign up with automatic payments will be "price locked forever" at that $25 per month rate. Boost Mobile says it will accept both debit and credit cards for autopay, another improvement compared with traditional carriers that have largely moved away from credit cards for autopay discounts (with the main exception being Verizon's branded credit card).

Those looking to add roaming or hotspot may need to look at one of the carrier's pricier options like Unlimited Plus for $50 per month per line (which includes hotspot, 40GB of "premium data" and "global talk and text") or its Unlimited Premium, which runs $60 per month per line (offering 50GB of high-speed data, roaming in North America, "global talk and text" and hotspot).

Boost Mobile's annual device upgrade program, known as Infinite Access which debuted last year with the iPhone 15 line, will remain, though now it will run $65 per month as opposed to $60. This includes service and the ability to trade in for a new phone every year.

Taxes and fees are included in the sticker prices for all Boost plans, and all plans will be able to use Boost Mobile's own 5G network as well as the ability to roam on T-Mobile and AT&T's respective networks when Boost's coverage isn't available.

For families, the carrier will offer four lines for $100, but that deal is a bit weaker than rivals. T-Mobile, for example, regularly offers a similar deal, but its service has 50GB of premium data and hotspot support (albeit at "3G speed"). The carrier has also regularly dangles four free iPhone 15s with that offer for those who switch and trade in a device.

A new Boost Mobile, still with some confusion

It's been a long road to this point, and even with the relaunch there still seem to be some challenges ahead on the marketing side. Lee notes that the company is choosing to unify under the Boost Mobile name because its long-standing presence in the prepaid space has led to an "affinity, emotional connection to the brand" with "a lot of good emotions behind it."

Adding Boost Infinite as a postpaid brand in recent years, he admits, "brought a little bit of confusion" between the two offerings.

While the single name may help there, the carrier still could have its work cut out for it when it comes to educating consumers on both its offers and its service.

Its new offers, for example, will be online only to start as physical Boost Mobile retail stores will still be focused on the prepaid business. Lee says the company is "very conscious" of possible confusion and that while the company will be "leaning into" the Boost Mobile website for this initial campaign, it will make sure to specify which offers are marked for online only and which are for physical stores.

He says the goal is that in the "back half of the year" the "idea is to incorporate the new Boost Mobile in all of our channels."

And then, of course, there's the biggest challenge of convincing consumers to try something new. Wireless carriers have embraced the rise of eSIM to allow for trialing of their networks on the devices consumers already own. Doing this allows users to more easily see how a new service compares to what they are already paying for.

For Boost Mobile and its parent EchoStar, that could be the biggest hurdle as consumers are completely unfamiliar with its new network. Having agreements to roam on AT&T and T-Mobile's respective services is helpful, but new users will be activated on Boost Mobile's own service and the goal is to have them utilize that network.

The carrier is offering a 30-day money-back guarantee but not yet offering an eSIM method for sampling the service before switching. Lee says this option is "coming in the near future" and that it's on the company's roadmap but didn't provide a concrete timeline.