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Sprint IPhone 4S
- Thread starter Mr M5
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Why support Sprint's current 4G technology when it is about to change? LTE would have been nice on the phone, but I understand why Apple didn't put LTE in the 4S.
O yeah I get it don't get me wrong. Just surprising when sprint really markets their 4g and pricing plans, and the iPhone will not run on their 4g network.
Are there any other current Sprint users that could fill me in on the upgrade programs Sprint normally runs? I have been with them for just over a year, and one year was just too long for an old OS like on the Blackberry. I know I am eligible for a slight discount upgrade (as of 10/1), being at the 1 year mark, but what kind of discount should I expect if I want to get a iPhone 4S?
Because the current "LTE" is not 4G - just faster 3G speeds.
No carrier currently supports the actual 4G, LTE-Advance - so why should Apple?
The iPhone 4S' speed is the same as all current "4G" phones. Apple just dosen't advertise it as such because it's not true-4G. Sorry that most fall for the current 4G gimmick.
Like I said, it would have been nice for LTE (which is what Sprint is getting and Verizon currently has). For Apple to put LTE in the 4S, they would have had to come up with a new design (which they obviously didn't want to this time around) or sacrifice some other hardware for more room (small battery would be the most practical). By the time the iPhone 5 comes out though, LTE will be cheaper and have a smaller new chip. Also, Carriers will have much better 4G coverage. Personally, 4G isn't a big deal for me, because I know my city won't be getting 4G anytime soon.
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What they advertise as 4G is still much faster than 3G though. I know it's not true 4G, but you can't deny the much better speeds.
What speeds do they advertise?
And current 4G networks are only 3G networks upgraded - or, LTE.
Actual 4G is LTE-Advanced which is not supported by anyone yet.
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Actually, the ITU only did that to allow 3G networks to be called 4G.
If they didn't, no carrier could've called their 3G+ networks "4G".
Plus they changed the standard for a better 4G network, LTE-Advanced.
Sprint yanked your "slight discount" recently. You're going to have to wait until the full 22 months have passed to get the discounted price or pay full retail.
If anyone is considering going to Sprint, do yourself a favor and check out the Sprint forums on Sprint.com and read some of what it going on there. People are completely disgusted with Sprint lately. They have done all kinds of stuff with fees and perks and charges and policies that have angered people. Plus I can't realistically see how they will be keeping unlimited data for too long. It's their marketing push right now, but the story is that they have promised to buy 30+ million iphones from Apple at a higher subsized price than the big two. Considering they only currently have a few million more subs than that, I don't understand how they think they are going to do that.
Plus consider the data speeds before jumping ship to "unlimited data". Fortunately, I happen to live in a 4G area. That being said, I seem to be out of 4G most of the time when I'm not at home. And at my house, I'm getting 3G speeds in the ball park of a whopping 100kbps. Sometimes it goes up a little, other times it's even lower. I'm figuring a lot of new 3G iphones hitting their network is going to be ugly.
Some Sprint fanboys are telling the unhappy customers that want to jump ship to Verizon or ATT that "the grass isn't always greener". The same can be said for Verizon / ATT subs that are thinking about coming to Sprint.
I currently have sprint and have seen no changes to my bill so I can not comment on that. But I will say their 4g lacks good coverage and I'm 3 miles from a sprint store with what I'm told is 5 towers around me and I need the airwaves to get a signal in my house. I love the bill bs the competion for sure, but will likely go to Verizon, where I came from in June.
As an FYI, on top of the additional $10 fee for all smartphones that started in January, here is some of what they have done in the past month or so:
- Increase their admin fee by 51%
- Shorten their window to return new phones
- Changed their arbitration clause to force it through a private, for profit company called JAMS
- Dropped unlimited data for hotspot tethering (change to a 5gb cap)
- Removed their loyalty program which increased the time for the long time subs to get an upgrade
- Removed their 1 year contract option
- Removed their $75 discount for upgrades after 12 months
- Removed their Bill To Account option that allowed you to pay off phones over time
- Increased their early termination fee by 75%
Each of these changes came out a little bit at a time. Day-after-day... first as rumors that Sprint denied and then they all proved to be true. The number of stories of atrocious customer service conversations are increasing as well.
They used to be the cheapest carrier. Now they have increased their fees and policies that made them so appealing so they are either the same or higher than Big Blue and Big Red. The problem is that I find that coverage is spotty. My parents live in decent sized metro area with a population of a few hundred thousand, yet they get zero bars in (or outside) their house. Plus that area doesn't have 4G either. 3G data speeds have been slowing lately and I'm having dropped calls in areas where that wasn't a problem before.
I'd be shocked if they maintain unlimited data for more than a year.