Why should I stay with Sprint?

[ganjah]

So, I have a real problem. I've been with Sprint for 10 years as of this August. I have perfect payment history and a credit rating above 780. I currently own the HTC Hero, which has been a good little phone, but I want to upgrade. I have the $150 credit to get a new phone, but that's where the issues begin to crop up.

My current contract expires Feb. 19, 2012. Because of successful negotiations in the past with Sprint's Executive Services, I pay $36 and change after taxes and fees for the following:

Plan details

Everything Data 450 $69.99
450 Anytime Minutes Included
Nationwide Long Distance Included
America - Roaming Included
Unlimited Any Mobile, Anytime
Unlimited SMS Text Messaging
Unlimited Picture Mail
Unlimited Data Usage
GPS Navigation
Sprint Data Essentials Pack
Nights: M-TH 7pm-7am Wknd: F 7pm-M 7am
Caller ID
Call Waiting
Three-Way Calling
Voicemail

Add-on services for:
Sprint Navigation
$0.00
Cellular Call Detail
$0.00
Unlimited Nights&Weekends-7pm
$0.00
Premium Data $0 add-on charge
$0.00
300 bonus Anytime Minutes per month
$0.00
Unlimited Any Mobile, Anytime
$0.00
Data Usage
$0.00
Picture Mail
$0.00

I don't use a whole lot of minutes (mostly mobile-to-mobile), don't use a whole lot of data (never more than 2GB/mo), and my max texts are typically around 3500/mo.

I want to upgrade my phone, and I'm considering the SGS2. I have been in contact with Executive Services recently, and the lowdown is that if I want to get a new phone, I will have to pay $200 for the phone. Then, since I was grandfathered in, I'll have to pay the premium data fee of $10/mo. But, I will also have to renew my contract and I will lose the extra $20/mo service credit that is currently offsetting the price of my service. I will retain my corporate discount of 27%, but, all told, after taxes and fees, simply upgrading my phone for $200 will actually increase the price of my service to about $65-70/mo after taxes and fees. This is nearly doubling the price of my service, and without a free phone to boot.

This is nearly the price of similar competing Verizon and AT&T service plans (after my corp discounts there), but Sprint doesn't offer 4G in my area (Albuquerque, NM), and their 3G service is spotty, at best.

Why should I stay with Sprint? Are there better options? Anything that offers premium phones for close to the same price I'm paying now?



TL: DR Sprint's jacking up my monthly price by nearly 2x if I upgrade phones, or at the end of my contract in February. Nothing I can do after negotiating with Executive Services. Where else can I go with premium phones for cheap?

[eric12341]

Do what I did recently and goto T-mobile especially since sprint's 3G speeds are like dialup or just completely useless during the day. T-mobile has a prepay plan for $50 a month for unlimited calling,text and 2GB of data with a throttle after that, or u can get the $30 option and get only 100 mins of talk plus unlimited text and 5GB of data. Only problem with these plans is u have to actually pay full price for the phone. Or u can get one of their plans and they also offer discounts to new customers and have business discounts as well.

[austin420]

i have no sypmathy for cheapo crybabies. its not 1997 and no one else is going to offer you 35 dollar cell service. consider yourself lucky youve gotten a good deal for a long time.
suck it up and pony up for a real phone (the hero "a good little phone"? hahaha!) that really cost money(no one is going to give you a sgs 2 for free on top of a money loosing plan like what youve got)on the only carrier to give truley unlimited data for a good price. im sure you havent accually looked in to vzw or att, because discount or not, the are almost double what sprint charges, and you cant get unlimited data.
that being said, amazonwirelss.com is giving away every sprint phone for a penny until tommorow (nov 28th). i just bougth 2 evo 3ds and a galaxy s2, and besides that, i called executive services and they gave me an 80 dollars service credit per line per upgrade (basically a free month on my 5 lines) just for extending my contract on those 3 lines.
i basicly just call this number 877-775-4886. it is a no waiting time sprint line to an american rep who will probably be more than willing to help.
i love sprint.

[austin420]

Originally Posted by eric12341

since sprint's 3G speeds are like dialup or just completely useless during the day.

in your area. in my area, i consistently pull 1.5 Mbps all day. up to 10 on wimax.

[EyeB]

I don't know why people worry about the data cap if you know how much you use and know you won't use it all...

But have you thought about buying a used phone craigslist/ebay/amazon or buy outright from sprint and using it on your plan? The phone costs more to buy without subsidy, but you save more than you spend on phone by keeping plan costs down. Using your current plan without upgrade, just adding 4G services you'll pay around $50? which instead of the $70 you'd pay, you save $20x24 months=$480. The subsidy would cost you something like $200-300 for the GSII?

[fixxxer2012]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.7; en-us; Incredible 2 Build/GRI40; CyanogenMod-7) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

Im much happier now that i left sprint. The midwest has crippled network service through sprint. OP id look into other carriers.

[eric12341]

Originally Posted by austin420

in your area. in my area, i consistently pull 1.5 Mbps all day. up to 10 on wimax.

@austin420 well that's u. With t-mobile I've never gotten below 2.8m average around 5m as u can see in my sig and the highest I got was 13m

Originally Posted by fixxxer2008

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.7; en-us; Incredible 2 Build/GRI40; CyanogenMod-7) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

Im much happier now that i left sprint. The midwest has crippled network service through sprint. OP id look into other carriers.

@fixxxer2008 its not just the Midwest @elesbb recently showed me his pitiful speeds and he's in PA.

[austin420]

Originally Posted by eric12341

@austin420 well that's u. With t-mobile I've never gotten below 2.8m average around 5m as u can see in my sig and the highest I got was 13m

So does wp7 even have a speedtest app? I tried that site and even with a 500mb packet, I get super varied results that don't compare the same to my speedtest app. The speed test app is from speedtest.net and ookla. I think they are way more reputable than that mobile speed test site.
Juat a bit ago, I did a test on this site you keep mentioning. I pulled a supposed 675k. I stood in the same place less than 10 seconds later and did a speedtest with the app from the android market, and it says I was pulling almost 2 mbps. I just don't trust that site for good results.

Sent from my SPH-D700 on the PPCGeeks App

[EyeB]

I've not noticed the difference between the two to be significant to me

I get the same speeds if I hotspot my tp2/use mobilespeedtest.com/use ookla's app
They vary but only by like 50kbps...

on the mobilespeedtest site, you can pick the 1mb file or larger for a bit more accurate measure plus ookla uses a gps for nearest location, so that may play a factor in it

[austin420]

Originally Posted by eyeb

I've not noticed the difference between the two to be significant to me

I get the same speeds if I hotspot my tp2/use mobilespeedtest.com/use ookla's app
They vary but only by like 50kbps...

on the mobilespeedtest site, you can pick the 1mb file or larger for a bit more accurate measure plus ookla uses a gps for nearest location, so that may play a factor in it

according to mobilespeknmsdflnma or whatever it says use 500kb or larger for accurate results, so thats what i used.
also, i am talking about on you phone itself. i dont tether. i pay for real internet, so i dont care about all that. on your phone 9touch pro 2 im assuming) using the android port, using the ookla app in the market ON THE PHONE compare your results to mobilespeedtest.com ON YOUR PHONE and im sure they will not match up.