Photo Credit: William Ross via Flickr.
Photo Credit: William Ross via Flickr.

In its race to stay ahead of T-Mobile, Sprint has decided to offer people switching to its network up to $350 to cover any outstanding installment payments they owe to T-Mobile, along with a minimum of $200 for trading in their T-Mobile smartphone.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because T-Mobile began offering the same deal to people who want to switch to its network last year as a part of its “Un-carrier” moves. It’s an attempt by Sprint to keep up with T-Mobile, which has been seeing massive subscriber growth.

There’s a catch, of course: Sprint is only running the promotion until April 9. All of this comes just a day after T-Mobile announced a new “Smartphone Equality” initiative that offers good financing deals to people who have paid their T-Mobile bill on time for 12 months, even if they don’t have the best credit.

It’s not clear how well the initiative will work. T-Mobile just topped a Computerworld survey about data plan quality. Only 21 percent of T-Mobile subscribers who took the survey said they were considering a switch to another carrier, while 51 percent of Sprint customers said that they are thinking about leaving.

As expected, T-Mobile CEO John Legere had some thoughts about the promotion on Twitter, saying that “no one wants to go from America’s Fastest to America’s Crappiest,” comparing data performance on T-Mobile’s network to that of Sprint.

Sprint’s effort isn’t the only time one of the Bellevue-based company’s competitors has tried to pick up new subscribers with a limited-time promotion. Last year, AT&T offered a $450 credit to T-Mobile customers who wanted to switch, but that effort only lasted a month.

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