Sprint 4G v. Verizon LTE

[CtDMonet]

I currently have an EVO (rooted, Deck GB Rom), and live in a 4G area. It is pretty fast, and I really love it. My wife needs a phone (I am still under contract, she is not). Verizon LTE just went live today here. The guy in the office next to mine just tested his Thunderbolt on speedtest.net @16Mbps (I tested 7.8 on my EVO) on LTE. I called Verizon to check prices, and it was much more expensive than Sprint (1500minutes, one 4G phone, 2 lines, corporate discount (23%) w/Sprint = $117/mo). I know that I would have to add 4G to the other phone to be comparable so I'll assume $127 as the baseline.

A 1400 plan with Verizon (2 lines) is $120. Add 4G Data for $60 (2 lines). That's $180 a month. Combine that with the Sprint buyout of my contract ($200? - 1 yr left), 2 new phones ($250-300 ea), makes it look like I need $800 up front, and to increase my bill by $53 a month.

Are there cheaper alternatives? I heard something about studentrate and Amazon Wireless, but haven't really had time to do much research. Any Help?

[gTen]

The first thing you should check is whether or not Verizon implemented tiered data yet...They had early promotions for unlimited 4g plans and plan to convert them to tiered data sometime this year..not sure if that already happened or not...

There is also existence of 70$ plans that verizon was testing out but not sure how hard it is to get them.

[EyeB]

maybe use wifi at home/work when you need faster speeds?

Then again... what could you need such speeds for on a phone? Do you tether it to computer or something? Not many apps need the speeds to download/and web browsing doesnt need it either, even streaming movies wouldn't get much extra out of it

[MrObvious]

Originally Posted by eyeb

maybe use wifi at home/work when you need faster speeds?

Then again... what could you need such speeds for on a phone? Do you tether it to computer or something? Not many apps need the speeds to download/and web browsing doesnt need it either, even streaming movies wouldn't get much extra out of it

I agree. The only time I need the speed is if I am downloading files like off the Market or a podcast or something.

[CtDMonet]

My home internet is Clear, which is the same speed as Sprint (WiMax), so WiFi really does nothing for me. I had a separate laptop Clear card, to keep family bandwith from being split when watching different stations in different rooms, but when I got my EVO, no sense in paying the extra $30, when my phone does the same thing. I tether to my laptop, stream HD. Amazon on Demand works well, but Hulu sometimes hangs (buffer) when I stream HD.

So far, WiMax has been fine, but when I had 256kps with DSL, that was smoking fast for a period of time. Needs tend to follow the available speeds. When 4G came out, it was great-eliminated the need to have a home network. Now, DSL networks are at 25-40Mbps -- you can't tell me that developers won't make use of this speed. Then running 4G (or 3G) will be like dial up.

[Mswezey]

7 megs is still pretty good by todays standard...

my off-campus apartments had 1.5meg down and 256k up, so i pay an extra $15 a month for 3 megs up and down... soo much better and that's just with 3 megs.

Now I can see if you had cable and had a 20 meg down connection (love going to my dad's house) and fell back on 7 megs.

I'd stick with sprint for your service, in less you really want LTE now. (Sprint is going to go LTE)

[CtDMonet]

I think the Light Squared announcement really helps my level of comfort in the stability of Sprint. It would add a little more comfort if the the Att-TMobile merger/purchase was blocked....