Sprint just sounds so enticing when I can get 3 smartphones on a family plan for $120 compared to 2 smartphones and 1 dumbphone for about $175 with Verizon. I am still unlimited with Verizon which is nice but I'm never going to purchase a phone at full price. If I upgrade and switch to the share everything plan with Verizon my bill goes up over $200.
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Carrier Sprint is pathetic
- Thread starter Squilly
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If unlimited is really that important, you have no choice but to pay full price on a phone. You don't have to buy it at VZW. Good deals can be had on CL (just be sure it isn't stolen 😉)
eyoungren
macrumors Nehalem
Wow! How are you managing that?
I have a family plan with two phones. One phone is grandfathered so it doesn't pay the $10 premium data fee while the other does.
I have an Airave as a third device but Sprint lent it to me without monthly charge and no activation fee.
With taxes and the old price of the plan (we've had this plan since December 25, 2008) my bill is $158+ a month. Add in a 2GB hotspot for my iPhone 5 and we pay $180 a month.
Keep in mind any time you add in a line on a family plan (past the second) Sprint tacks on another $20.
If you happen to have discounts somehow, Sprint only discounts the part of the bill before the third line or more and before the $10 data charges.
I'd love to cut $60 off my bill so if you have any idea how you did it, pass it on.
I work for time Warner cable and we get a nice discount with sprint. With my discount it comes to $122 for 3 smartphones. That is for the 700 minute plan with unlimited messaging and data plus unlimited to any mobile phone.
eyoungren
macrumors Nehalem
davidg4781
macrumors 68040
I'm not sure... Basically I have a special website called "discounts4you" that I go through from work and it lets me order my sprint service straight from there. They give me an option for I believe 700, 1500, and unlimited minutes. Just one line with 700 minutes and unlimited everything else is about $50 a month. A really good deal if Sprints service is decent in my area. I've been so busy lately I haven't had the chance to pop into a store though to test the service out. Hopefully I can soon and I can ditch big red. I've been with Verizon over 10 years and its just getting too expensive.
eyoungren
macrumors Nehalem
They dropped the 700 minute family plan a couple of years ago and raised the price of the rest of the plans a small amount. I guess Sprint is still offering it as a corporate discount though.
Get out of Sprint
Hey guys, just read the following from Android Authority. If you want to get out now without an ETF, looks like now is the time to do it!
http://www.androidauthority.com/psa...t-out-of-your-contract-free-of-charge-240674/
Hey guys, just read the following from Android Authority. If you want to get out now without an ETF, looks like now is the time to do it!
http://www.androidauthority.com/psa...t-out-of-your-contract-free-of-charge-240674/
http://www.tuaw.com/2013/07/24/sprints-lte-rollout-in-nyc-begins/
Sprint has JUST launched NYC and even then, it's only parts of it. WTF. Even TMobile has almost fully launched LTE there.
And some numbers (as of 7/24).
Sprint: 110 markets
TMobile: 116 markets
AT&T: 336 markets (will be done by early '14)
VZW: 500+. (already done. Now filling in with AWS)
The fact that TMobile has more markets up is pathetic. The nearest "elite" carrier has 3x as much LTE up. It's not even close.
Sprint has JUST launched NYC and even then, it's only parts of it. WTF. Even TMobile has almost fully launched LTE there.
And some numbers (as of 7/24).
Sprint: 110 markets
TMobile: 116 markets
AT&T: 336 markets (will be done by early '14)
VZW: 500+. (already done. Now filling in with AWS)
The fact that TMobile has more markets up is pathetic. The nearest "elite" carrier has 3x as much LTE up. It's not even close.
eyoungren
macrumors Nehalem
At least NYC has LTE, such as it is.
Alcatel-Lucent is doing it's damndest to just make sure all the Phoenix, AZ market has is 3G upgrades. Not one LTE upgrade has been done or accepted. This has the people over at s4gru.com scratching their heads, some in actual frustration.
According to s4gru.com, Salt Lake City started after Phoenix and already has LTE sites accepted. According to s4gru.com Phoenix is the largest market with 3G upgrades accepted and NO LTE upgrades.
Someone has to be last it was mentioned over there. I just assumed that last would be the fourth round markets and not the third round markets!
http://www.droid-life.com/2013/07/30/sprint-launches-41-new-4g-lte-markets-brings-total-to-151/
Sprint is feeling the heat from everyone these days
It's hilarious that they're resorting to splitting up large "markets" in order to up their market count. Bronx shouldn't be a separate market. That's under NYC for everyone else.
AT&T counts Leominster, Fitchburg all over the Boston deployment. For Sprint? Boston, Leominster, Fitchburg are THREE different markets. lol
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damn, that is brutal. I feel for you man 🙁
Sprint is feeling the heat from everyone these days
It's hilarious that they're resorting to splitting up large "markets" in order to up their market count. Bronx shouldn't be a separate market. That's under NYC for everyone else.
AT&T counts Leominster, Fitchburg all over the Boston deployment. For Sprint? Boston, Leominster, Fitchburg are THREE different markets. lol
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damn, that is brutal. I feel for you man 🙁
Ouch. Every first round market is still not done. Not to mention, they've been going for almost a year now. LTE in Boston is 54% I'm not surprised at all. You barely get it.
Besides Chicago, no market should have been announced as launched with LTE. Just not fair to the customers.
eyoungren
macrumors Nehalem
Yeah, totally agree.
I'm led to believe right now that the major holdup in PHX is backhaul. Of course, AT&T and Verizon are major fibre vendors so that's not surprising. But it seems to be excessive here.
I'm also told that the 3G upgrades run off of that fibre and not the old T1s. So, while 3G upgrades may already be done and accepted they aren't online if the backhaul isn't there. Which means that of a percentage of what's been done probably only a small amount is actually connected to fibre.
I'm led to believe right now that the major holdup in PHX is backhaul. Of course, AT&T and Verizon are major fibre vendors so that's not surprising. But it seems to be excessive here.
I'm also told that the 3G upgrades run off of that fibre and not the old T1s. So, while 3G upgrades may already be done and accepted they aren't online if the backhaul isn't there. Which means that of a percentage of what's been done probably only a small amount is actually connected to fibre.
*Massachusetts.
But they definitely jumped the gun as far as launching a number of these markets.
Wow all those small towns announced as markets just to up their numbers while large metros like Phoenix go undone and NYC still has more holes than a block of swiss cheese when it comes to Sprint LTE. They're a total joke.
eyoungren
macrumors Nehalem
It comes down to their strategy.
The planners wanted to get this done as fast as they could. So, the plan was upgrade whatever they could as fast as they could. This means that places like Nowhereville which only have one tower, but an easy permitting process and available backhaul get upgraded and go live because it's available right then.
Places like New York, LA, Chicago, etc have thousands of towers, complicated permitting processes, city and state regulations, etc. So, compared to Nowhereville they get updated very slowly. Add in unavailable backhaul because the backhaul vendor is AT&T or Verizon or a subsidiary of those companies and you get delays. Make no mistake, Verizon and AT&T are doing their best to slow down this rollout because Sprint is their competitor.
Now we get to the PR guys. The PR guys are foaming at the mouth to show that Sprint is updating fast and everywhere. So, they announce places like Nowhereville as a completed city or market. They announce places that have 40% of the population covered as completed. Which is just STUPID and everyone but Sprint PR agrees because when you announce a completed market, everone assumes you can get LTE anywhere in that market. This is NOT the case.
So, you have a disconnect between the planners and the butthead PR guys who are absolutely doing Sprint NO favors. Lastly, you add in their stupid, stupid maps which are so inaccurate and you get what you have right now..
Note, I am not defending Sprint. I've managed to get myself banned over at the Sprint BAW forums if that's any indicator of my disgust with Sprint. I am just explaining the complete lunacy of this rollout.
That's about par for my 3G speeds with Sprint. I live smack in the middle of the Minneapolis & Saint Paul area and I don't think I have ever seen speeds on par with a full megabit per second on my iPhone 4S. Unlimited data is the only saving grace on my plan, but really, that's not saying much when you can't even download a single 256kbps AAC song from iTunes Match in under a few minutes on the road sometimes.
Happily switching to T-Mobile when my contract is over in October, they just rolled out 4G LTE here and the speeds in my neighborhood are sick. We're talking like 20mbps down & 10 up on an iPhone 5.
Happily switching to T-Mobile when my contract is over in October, they just rolled out 4G LTE here and the speeds in my neighborhood are sick. We're talking like 20mbps down & 10 up on an iPhone 5.
eyoungren
macrumors Nehalem
I'm usually on WiFi in the places I'm at so fortunately it hasn't been that horrible for me, except when I'm out at places that don't have WiFi. The other night I was waiting for pizza at Little Ceasars and the damn phone was roaming. Couldn't even get a freaking connection, let alone any data!
Sprint has until the end of my contract in two years (will be getting the wife her iPhone in two weeks which will move the contract date up).
If they can't get LTE in Phoenix by 2015 then they will just be grossly incompetent and I'll be out.
As it is right now I despise paying them for the WiFi I already pay for. OTOH the actual voice service has been consistent and available so 1xRTT is still working. If it wasn't, I'd find a way out of this.
Sprint has until the end of my contract in two years (will be getting the wife her iPhone in two weeks which will move the contract date up).
If they can't get LTE in Phoenix by 2015 then they will just be grossly incompetent and I'll be out.
As it is right now I despise paying them for the WiFi I already pay for. OTOH the actual voice service has been consistent and available so 1xRTT is still working. If it wasn't, I'd find a way out of this.
Agreed. My family contract is up in late 2014. LTE-A will be available on some carriers by then while Sprint is just trying to push out LTE. I may switch over.
People.. Talking about backhaul is not an excuse, afaik, T-Mobile isn't much of a big fiber provider
Haha, I was considering joining S4gru, but realized that I would be banned in under a week so I didn't bother. There was some thread where they were like "Sprint has more LTE up according to Sensorly and they're doing a better job than AT&T"
Yet they forget that no one on AT&T really maps on Sensorly and AT&T has almost 3x the LTE markets up and running.
They're too caught up the smokescreen that Sprint marketing is giving everyone.
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Tell that to the people on S4gru. They blame AT&T and VZW for their own mismanagement.
eyoungren
macrumors Nehalem
I think it's more likely the desperate backing of the horse they've run. Not that Sprint marketing is clean-handed in this (it's not), but people tend to make choices and do not want to admit when a choice they've made is wrong or has problems.
Most of the core users over there at s4gru seem to come from the Howard mobile forums. I imagine, s4gru was started as a refuge for like minded Sprint users from what I've heard is constant disparagement of Sprint on the Howard forums.
So, they sided with Sprint. That's fine, Sprint does have some positives. The problem I have with them (s4gru) is that while they may acknowlege current problems they don't wish to discuss those current problems and how that affects current users. All they want to talk about is the rosy future where all this work has made Sprint the dominant player in the arena - which makes them RIGHT to have backed Sprint. They can then come from a position of righteous justification and deliver "I told you so" with authority.
s4gru has a policy about ranting about Sprint. But it's ok to rant about the people who rant about Sprint. Go figure.
I'm not so loyal to Sprint that I don't ever question my own choice.
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