Sprint to increase early termination fee next week

If you’re thinking about getting a subsidized phone from Sprint, but you’re not sure if you’re going to stick around for the contract to finish, you better do it soon. According to the folks over at SprintFeed who managed to get their hands on a screenshot of an internal document, it looks like the early termination fee (ETF) is going to be raised next week.

On September 9th, the ETF for Sprint customers will be raised $150 to $350 – ouch. This makes it on par with Verizon’s ETF, slightly above AT&T’s $325, which leaves T-Mobile as the only one with a $200 ETF.

Fortunately this ETF change will only affect “advanced” devices such as smartphones, tablets, netbooks, and notebooks and only for contracts signed after September 9th – so if you like the $200 termination fee… you know what to do. What do you think about the increased ETF? Does it bother you, or is it the least of your worries since you always stick with your contracts until the end?