Sprint announced what seems like the deal of the century yesterday: starting Friday, switch from Verizon Wireless or AT&T and Sprint will "cut your wireless bill in half."

Besides paying off your early termination fee, Sprint said it would "provide unlimited talk and text... and match the customer’s data allowance for half the cost they are currently paying for their monthly rate plan."

But as Billy Dee Williams once observed, "this deal is getting worse all the time."

Look past the headline of the press release to the fine print and you'll find what Sprint calls a usage limitation: "Other plans may receive prioritized bandwidth availability. To improve data experience for the majority of users, throughput may be limited, varied or reduced on the network."

Just as Sprint throttles heavy data users with "unlimited" data plans when the network is congested, people who buy these lower-cost plans will likely be throttled on occasion to keep subscribers with regularly priced plans happy. We asked Sprint exactly how the prioritization will be handled and the company said its network management policies are "intended to allow Sprint to reduce network congestion and provide a good user experience for a majority of Sprint users." The language seen in the latest deal "was introduced earlier this year and is referenced in other Sprint plans as well—it is not unique to the Cut Your Rate in Half plans." Sprint said it is "committed to fairly allocating network resources in times of congestion so that the majority of users are not prevented from using the network," and pointed to additional details on its website.

Sprint has publicly acknowledged that its network isn't as good as those of its rivals, forcing it to lower prices. That's one thing to keep in mind before taking up Sprint on its latest offer. Another is that typical customers won't really save 50 percent.

"Sprint acknowledged Tuesday that its eye-popping promotion offering to cut AT&T and Verizon customers’ bills in half will save the average customer only about 20 percent," Re/code reported. That's because customers have to buy or lease a new phone to qualify for the deal.

Pray Sprint does not alter the deal any further.