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Sprint - Your data speeds let me down

D

derrick2005

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 8, 2011
140
0
I have been a long time Sprint user and happily switched to the iphone 4s 64gb as soon as I could get my hands on it.

I have had a long term service issue in my house and sprint gave me an Airave for free which fixed it perfectly. So, at home I have the Airave and Wifi so get amazing speeds, at work I have wifi, amazing speeds. In both places I plug in the phone when I can so have good charge - no problems etc.

Today, was the first time I needed to use the phone long term without wifi and unplugged. My first trip, alongside a colleague on ATandT with a 32gb 4s was to the mall. When we got into the mall a proud sign displayed the mall's app, both of us went to app store to download it. My colleagues phone got the app in less than a minute, 10 minutes later it came through to me. Three call from the office came through and dropped for me. 2 came in for him and 1 dropped for him. Moving on through the mal, we had various meetings there, we both used Safari - it took a while for me to get pages to load, much much faster for him, nothing that required data, or the phone was "easy" for me, and for him, there were no problems (aside for his one dropped call). I could barely make a call, barely connect to the internet, and - worst of all. We had charged our phones to 100% in the car.

When returning to the car 45 minutes later my phone was at 86% - his was at 94%....

I have been defending my decision to stick with Sprint for a while, proid of my unlimited. But quite frankly, unlimited cr** data is just a pile fo cr**.
 
Sigh, I feel I have to agree with you, meanwhile I'll be stuck with this service for nearly 2 years. Do I bite the bullet, pay the ETF, sell my phone on ebay and switch to ATT? I've seen on ebay people selling grandfathered unlimited data on ATT.... Very conflicted right now
 
derrick2005 said:
I have been defending my decision to stick with Sprint for a while, proid of my unlimited. But quite frankly, unlimited cr** data is just a pile fo cr**.
Click to expand...

And this is what it boils down to. In order to support all these new smart devices, the carriers are scrambling and investing BILLIONS. They can't do that if everyone just pays $30 a month for unlimited bandwidth. I was sad to see AT&T and Verizon kill their unlimited plans, but there were too many people abusing them and treating them like their personal video streaming service. And now they are beginning to throttle these "unlimited" plans.

As long as I get good coverage and consistent performance, I don't mind paying. No such thing as free lunches...
 
Well then I don't have too much choice, unless I have to "put up" with a phone that doesn't really work in malls, stores or the general outdoors!
 
Some carriers have better coverage than others in certain areas. Sprint in my area is terrible. I am sure there are some areas where Sprint works fine. But even in those areas, speeds will not be as fast as with AT&T, as the technology is different and AT&T iPhones support HSPA+. I get about 5Mbps downloads (3-4 more often than not) and 1Mbps uploads. AT&T coverage is pretty good. Verizon supposedly has the best coverage of all the carriers. I had them for a year, but their LTE service was pretty poor. Their 3G service was reliable. Again, in my area.

YMMV. I for one would not have an iPhone unless it was with AT&T. I am lucky their coverage in my area is good.
 
what are you planning to download with unlimited data? download nothing? LOL

sure we all have awesome wi fi speeds, but out in the open that phone is only going to disappoint you too much, especially for the price it has...

just get AT&T,
 
apollo1444 said:
what are you planning to download with unlimited data? nothing? LOL

sure we all have awesome wi fi speeds, but out in the open that phone is only going to disappoint you too much, especially for the price it has...

just get AT&T,
Click to expand...

Can't "just get AT&T" without hefty ETF fee.... And then hope some chump will take it off my hands on ebay... Sprint Customer Support say that they are suddenly aware of the issue and within 24 hours a fix is being sent to all devices.... I smell some BS
 
derrick2005 said:
Can't "just get AT&T" without hefty ETF fee.... And then hope some chump will take it off my hands on ebay... Sprint Customer Support say that they are suddenly aware of the issue and within 24 hours a fix is being sent to all devices.... I smell some BS
Click to expand...

I paid the ETF on Verizon to get out of my Thunderbolt. Plan on selling it on eBay to cover most of that expense. At the end of the day it's not worth it to live for 2 years with that kind of services. IMHO.
 
derrick2005 said:
Can't "just get AT&T" without hefty ETF fee.... And then hope some chump will take it off my hands on ebay... Sprint Customer Support say that they are suddenly aware of the issue and within 24 hours a fix is being sent to all devices.... I smell some BS
Click to expand...

didn't they report Sprint 1st place on slowness the very week the 4S came out? and some firm just reported that they're the worst carrier with the most dropped calls?...

sucks to be on your shoes man, I thought you where in some kind of 30 day trial or something...
 
All that info came out after the 14 days were up....! And Sprint kept (and keeps) promising that the magic fix was coming.

Just now the customer support remotely reset and fixed my problem. All I needed to do was reset my phone - magic! Except for the fact that nothing changed at all...
 
Well at least you have an iPhone, right? :eek: (jk of course...)

CDMA networks aren't very fast to begin with, and they when they're all under huge loads like Sprint, it's even worst. I doubt much is going to change for you.
 
derrick2005 said:
All that info came out after the 14 days were up....! And Sprint kept (and keeps) promising that the magic fix was coming.

Just now the customer support remotely reset and fixed my problem. All I needed to do was reset my phone - magic! Except for the fact that nothing changed at all...
Click to expand...

what are the speeds on your area?
 
Basically, you can hope for better coverage, which would put you maybe in that 0.5-1.0 mbps range. That would be a huge improvement from where you are now. Or I guess you could keep complaining to Sprint and see if they eventually get sick of you and offer to cancel you without the ETF.
 
I used Sprint for 4 days. I had decided to dump them after 2 but had to find AT&T iPhones to switch to. They then sent me a bill for $324 for 4 lines for 4 days!!! I called and they dropped it to $119. I told them I was only paying for 4 days prorated service for 4 lines. I'll figure out what that is and then they can forget the rest!

I'll NEVER go to Sprint again. I'd have had faster data if I had bought an unlocked iPhone and used it on T-Mobile.
 
This is sad - I don't want to "blame" Apple but it would have been better for them not to partner with Sprint as now we are committed to sh***y service for 2 years
 
iphone 4s is my first real smartphone with a "major" carrier. Had Metro went to both verizon and at&t and they wouldnt provide service without 400 down (have no credit not bad credit) so i went to sprint they approved me for 2 lines no deposit and i have been with them since. coverage seems to be fine for me. but like others have said the service will vary depending on your area.
 
derrick2005 said:
Can't "just get AT&T" without hefty ETF fee.... And then hope some chump will take it off my hands on ebay... Sprint Customer Support say that they are suddenly aware of the issue and within 24 hours a fix is being sent to all devices.... I smell some BS
Click to expand...

The ETF might be hefty but atleast you will be able to use the iPhone on a carrier that has better speeds. 2years is very long to be stuck on one carrier with crappy speeds.
 
derrick2005 said:
This is sad - I don't want to "blame" Apple but it would have been better for them not to partner with Sprint as now we are committed to sh***y service for 2 years
Click to expand...

This wasn't entirely unforeseen, although I sympathize a little. The problem isn't really unique to the iPhone, and the iPhone isn't the first data-centric device Sprint sold.
 
derrick2005 said:
so, theres no hope for my sprint data speeds?
Click to expand...

Until the iPhone 5 comes out next year, and Sprint rolls out its LTE network, there isn't much they can do. Sprint won't invest too much more into their 3G network since the focus is shifting to 4G. 2012 is the year of LTE, IMO.
 
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