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Advice: Transferring to dumb phone, then cancelling it

C

chuffman15

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 30, 2011
116
0
Martinsburg, WV
Here's the story:

I have sprint and hate it. I practically live at work and get no bars and my data speeds are extremely slow(less than 1 Mbps) so I want to switch to AT&T, where I know the speeds are around 30 Mbps. I have 2 lines with 15 months left on my contract so my ETF are around $300 per line. My plan is to transfer service to 2 dumb phones, wait a month and then cancel the service and pay a ETF of $150 per line. Has anyone ever done this?
 
I'm confused, you first state that if you cancel your service you'll incur 300 per line ETF then you state 150 per line.

Are you saying that if you switch to a dumb phone you the ETF changes? I don't know if you can outsmart the system that way.

Have you considered T-Mo they have that promotion where they'll pay your ETF if you switch to them
 
AT&T isn't promoting paying for your ETF or anything? Or have you talked to AT&T to see if they would be willing to help out? Usually they're very unhelpful but it is still worth a shot.
 
Advice: Transferring to dumb phone, then cancelling it

Your etf won't change for going to a dumb phone. It'll still be the smartphone etf.

What u should do is change your smartphones prl to a roaming one, stream all day every day. Sprint will notify u they're dropping u for excessive roaming. There's no etf, and they give u 30 days to port to another carrier.
 
Truefan31 said:
Your etf won't change for going to a dumb phone. It'll still be the smartphone etf.

What u should do is change your smartphones prl to a roaming one, stream all day every day. Sprint will notify u they're dropping u for excessive roaming. There's no etf, and they give u 30 days to port to another carrier.
Click to expand...

Yep that will work. Can it be done on an iphone, assuming that is what he has?
 
^^Yep, roaming is how to handle it. Sprint got wise to the smartphone/dumbphone switch about a year ago so it's not possible to do this any more.

You may have to jailbreak to be able to force roaming though. No idea how it's done on the iPhone.

Oh, you'll need to do it for at least two months. Sprint gives you a pass on the first month.
 
Last edited:
Yeah. I believe u gotta be jb cuz you'll need either ifile or be able to ssh into the hidden files on iPhone. I used to do it on my old 4s, switch prls to like Verizon ones to get faster 3G.

----------

Google it. There's guides on how to do it
 
I have Sprint and the call signal is great. I don't use data so I'm not bothered by the slow speeds. However, like you, I want out. I pay $67/mo. for talk and text which I can get on T-Mobile for $35/mo. Sprint doesn't have this same deal, so once the iPhone 6 is released, I am switching over to T-Mobile or ATT.

Sprint has your smartphones link to your account & number, so you won't be able to just switch to a dumb phone without paying the ETF for those smartphones.
 
ET iPhone Home said:
I have Sprint and the call signal is great. I don't use data so I'm not bothered by the slow speeds. However, like you, I want out. I pay $67/mo. for talk and text which I can get on T-Mobile for $35/mo. Sprint doesn't have this same deal, so once the iPhone 6 is released, I am switching over to T-Mobile or ATT.



Sprint has your smartphones link to your account & number, so you won't be able to just switch to a dumb phone without paying the ETF for those smartphones.
Click to expand...


U can switch but the etf won't change. But yeah do the roaming trick and you'll get out of the etf
 
T-Mobile is probably better than Sprint 3G anyways ;)
Worst case scenario have T-Mobile buy out your contract and then switch to AT&T.

Edit: Wow just looked at the coverage map for T-Mobile in WV and wow it's really bad. Now I see what people are talking about when they say its not for everyone. Luckily it works just as good as AT&T or Verizon in my neck of the woods.
 
AT&T is currently offering $100 per new line addition, however they are not offering ETF payments. I suppose it doesn't hurt to ask, but for a brand new customer, I wouldn't get my hopes up TOO high.

The way I figure it, you will have to sell your Sprint phones anyway. use that to pay your ETF, get a pair of phones on the NEXT program, and you will probably find yourself about even when all is said and done.
 
Thanks for all your help. I'll just wait for a jail break for 7.1 and try to change the prl? I'm sure there's a how-to on that somewhere.
 
Just go to tmobile. Have them pay your etf. It will take around 4 months to get your prepaid debit card (your eft payment that tmobile uses).

After 4 months with t-mobile. Bail on tmobile and take ur iPhone 5s over to AT&T. Tmobile will unlock your phones after 60 days and pay it all off.
 
aneftp said:
Just go to tmobile. Have them pay your etf. It will take around 4 months to get your prepaid debit card (your eft payment that tmobile uses).

After 4 months with t-mobile. Bail on tmobile and take ur iPhone 5s over to AT&T. Tmobile will unlock your phones after 60 days and pay it all off.
Click to expand...

I was expecting a really long wait on the ETF reimbursement, but it took a little under 2 months from the time I signed up. It only took about 40 days from the say I submitted the ETF bill. The website made me think it would take at least 2-3 months, but I was shocked 2 days ago when I received the ETF prepaid card. The website still says they have not even mailed it.
 
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