When Sprint launched the HTC Evo last year they accompanied the announcement, with the debut of their mandatory extra $10/month "Premium Data" fee. Since then the Samsung Epic and HTC Shift have all joined the 'premium data' club. It was named by many to be a "4G tax" since all the devices that the fee applied to where 4G capable. Although it didn't matter if your area wasn't covered by Sprint's 4G umbrella, you still were required to pay, as Sprint swore up and down that it wasn't a "4G fee", it was simply for phones that use more data than normal.
Most people didn't care too much, if they wanted the biggest and best that Sprint had to offer, then it was just what had to be done. And even with the extra fee their monthly bills were still likely to be cheaper than with competitors like Verizon or AT&T.
Today Sprint announced that starting on January 30th, all "smartphones" (defined as "devices with robust operating systems bringing the full function of mobile applications and programs to life including Blackberry, Android, Windows Mobile, Palm, and the Instinct family of devices"), will be required to pay the extra data fee. Luckily they are allowing all current subscribers to be 'grandfathered' in, and they will not be required to pay the charge until the next time they upgrade their plan / phone.
Even with this new plan, most subscribers will still find that Sprint is cheaper than most competitors when comparing feature-to-feature. Hopefully getting this extra cash-flow coming in will allow them to continue expanding their current 4G network out to compete with the huge amount of money that Verizon is currently throwing at their LTE network roll-out.
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