Sprint or AT&T

[pm]

Originally posted by: cvrefugee

Originally posted by: Muadib
And you, curefugee, must have a problem with reading comprehension. Where did I say they were going under? Their wimax partnership put that off. At least for now.

What was your implication then? It is logical to assume that when a company is losing customers, they're losing money. When a company is losing money, they risk losing everything and closing down.

I don't follow that chain of logic. "losing money" to me, means a negative cash flow - or making a negative profit. Losing customers does not mean that a company is losing money. For example, you can raise prices for your service substantially, which prices your service out of the reach of some of your customers, resulting in customers leaving your service, but you could still make more profit (since you raised prices and are making more money per customer). In this scenario, you could actually see higher profits and higher revenue if you lose so few customers that the increase in service costs offsets the loss in customers.

Not that I'm saying this is what is going on with Sprint... just that I don't follow the logic of your arguement.

 

[Muadib]

Originally posted by: cvrefugee
Why should the OP stay away from Sprint? Because of its poor customer service? Because it's losing customers? Or do you own stock in one of their competitors?

Yes, yes, and yes.

It's mainly for the first two though, because in the wireless business, they go hand in hand. The OP left Verizon over customer service. In fact, he was so pissed, he actually paid to leave! I don't know about you, but to me that's huge!

Verizon is well known for their customer service, while Sprint is the exact opposite, and has consistently been dead last in those JD Power surveys. Knowing this, there is no way I can recommend DeathBUA to give Sprint a shot.

AT&T could stand to improve their customer service, but the fact that the iPhone has become the best selling phone ever in the US, should say something. It took the RAZR quite a while to get that title, and the iPhone did it in less than 2 years. Trust me, AT&T's customer service played a big part in making that happen. I experienced it first hand as my time with the iPhone was horrific for the first few months. They took care of me though, giving me a free month of service, and then giving me $10 off of the data plan for 3 months. And to think I cringed when they took over Cingular.

Time will tell if Sprint can turn it around. The Pre looks good, and will be a big test for them. The phone should bring them customers, but it will be their service that will keep them. If you don't think so, then ask Verizon what happened with the Storm.

Like the iPhone, it too had problems. However, Verizon handled it wrong, and did nothing to appease those with issues, so many people returned them. Now they are trying to get rid of them with a buy one get one free deal. For a new phone that was suppose to be an iPhone, that's just sad. Hopefully Sprint was taking notes, but I doubt it.

 

[novasatori]

I like sprint, the biggest problem stems from having your plans setup improperly at the start of your contract, and if this happens it can take many calls and complaints to get a plan setup that you're 100% satisfied with

Once I've gotten my plans setup after a bit of phone work, its perfect, the CS is good for everything but billing problems, and retentions is great.

I don't have any of the newer plans but we've got like 2 phones with unlimited data(old plan not the new highspeed data)/sms sprint to sprint and 2500 anytime / un. n&w @ 7 for like $45

If you really don't wanna deal with CS tho I'd probably go with AT&T I've heard great things about em

I'm content with sprint tho, haven't had to call em in 3 years.

 

[cvrefugee]

Can you get insurance for the iPhone now? Through AT&T?

 

[pm]

I like sprint, the biggest problem stems from having your plans setup improperly at the start of your contract, and if this happens it can take many calls and complaints to get a plan setup that you're 100% satisfied with

Once I've gotten my plans setup after a bit of phone work, its perfect, the CS is good for everything but billing problems, and retentions is great.

This was the experience of my wife and I as well. We had issues with our call plan at the beginning - we signed up for one thing and got billed for another. And CS support was great except for billing problems - which were nearly all of our problems. For those, there was a lot of "oh, yes, sir, this problem is solved, sir." only to find that the next month's bill was even more messed up.

We are with T-Mobile now and their customer service has been excellent for the 3 years we've been with them. Everything is resolved the first time, and they have been wonderful to deal with - very friendly. BUT, the downside of T-Mo is their coverage. I seem to consistently have a bar or three worse coverage than people with AT&T except in a few rare occassions and there are several places that I travel to frequently that I have no service at all, but everyone on Verizon and AT&T are fine. Still, I use my unlocked iPhone on T-Mobile and pay literally half what my friends on AT&T are paying for an equivalent level of service, and I've been very pleased.

 

[iahk]

Originally posted by: cvrefugee
Can you get insurance for the iPhone now? Through AT&T?

Unfortunately no, everything still goes directly through Apple.

 

[jae]

Sprint. Im a current customer and I have nothing to really complain about. I have an old SERO500 plan. If I have any problems I just call the direct line to retentions, they usually get stuff done correctly and right away.

OK.. Sprint going under or being bought out isnt going to be life or death situation for consumers. You all are talking as if he will be working for Sprint. If it goes under he could go elsewhere for free, so whats the big deal??

Anyway, I would get Sprint.. the cheapest SEP/SERO plan since ur wife has Sprint. ...plus your discount, you cant beat what you will be getting for the money!

 

[jae]

Sprint. Im a current customer and I have nothing to really complain about. I have an old SERO500 plan. If I have any problems I just call the direct line to retentions, they usually get stuff done correctly and right away.

OK.. Sprint going under or being bought out isnt going to be life or death situation for consumers. You all are talking as if he will be working for Sprint. If it goes under he could go elsewhere for free, so whats the big deal??

Anyway, I would get Sprint.. the cheapest SEP/SERO plan since ur wife has Sprint. ...plus your discount, you cant beat what you will be getting for the money!

 

[Cdubneeddeal]

Ahh, the age old Sprint vs AT&T vs Verizon vs topic. I've had Sprint ever since I've had a cell phone and I really haven't had any major problems with them. My only gripe is I don't get service within my work building but no big deal, that's what a paid landline is for. For me, the cost vs other providers was the selling point. For the cost of my plan which comes out to roughly $85.00 per month I get the unlimited data, 450 anytime, nights start at 7, BB service, etc. At the time, I priced out vs the others and Sprint had the best pricing available. Service is great for me.

Basically, people will complain that xxxx sucks and xxxx is great but I think it really comes down to your area of who provides the best service.

 

[TheInternal]

try t-mobile. According to consumer reports, Verizon and T-mobile are pretty much the top two right now, both supposedly making large improvements in their customer service over the last few years.
Having previously sold Sprint and AT&T phones, I'd suggest staying away from Sprint (they often have billing issues). AT&T I didn't hear a ton of complaints about (though consumer reports rates them lower), and I recall AT&T having nicer phone offerings than sprint.
If you have crap credit, Sprint was often the one folks went with.
Shame that two of the most interesting phones are AT&T and Sprint exclusive (iphone and Palm Pre).

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: cvrefugee

Originally posted by: DeathBUA
My question is what could I get from AT&T that is similar. That is a nice deal that Sprint has going on.

However I'm not much of a talker...the only person I really talk on the phone with much is my fiance. If I got AT&T 450 minutes + rollover, + iphone data plan + $15 text messaging...+26% off....

Its just a tough decision, the instinct is a nice phone too...and both providers have good services/extras. Coverage maps are basically identical.

I've got a couple weeks to make a decision but I think it will be a tough one either way.

If you don't need unlimited minutes, here are two other plans from Sprint:

Everything Data
-Unlimited data: Web surfing, email, BlackBerry Internet Services (BIS), GPS Navigation, Music Premier, TV Premier, NFL Mobile Live, NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile
-Unlimited Direct Connect: Direct Connect and Group Connect (for capable phones)
-Unlimited messaging: Text, pictures and video
-Talk: Unlimited mobile to mobile, night calling and weekends starting at 7 p.m., nationwide long distance and no roaming charges

450 minutes - $69/month - 23% = $54/month
900 minutes - $89/month - 23% = $69/month

Originally posted by: metalmania
not tough, although AT&T sucks, it's better to use GSM phones.

Why GSM? CDMA has better coverage in the United States than GSM.

Yes but there's a reason why the world uses GSM. And seriously unless you go into the middle of nowhere, GSM coverage will have you covered.

BTW I feel really sad for people who pay $30/month for their "PDA plan." I suppose they should also charge me $30/month for using a Nokia N82? Shrug.

 

[Tom]

"However, Verizon handled it wrong, and did nothing to appease those with issues.."

and this shows Verizon has good customer service ??


my personal experience is I had terrible customer service with Verizon and good customer service with Sprint.

my opinion is Sprint lost customers because of issues with their takeover of Nextel, not poor customer service; coupled with successful advertising by Verizon and Apple/ATT.

 

[cvrefugee]

Originally posted by: DLeRium
Yes but there's a reason why the world uses GSM. And seriously unless you go into the middle of nowhere, GSM coverage will have you covered.

BTW I feel really sad for people who pay $30/month for their "PDA plan." I suppose they should also charge me $30/month for using a Nokia N82? Shrug.

The "world" doesn't use GSM because it's a superior cellular technology (it isn't). The "world" agreed on a standard to be used in Europe back in the 1980s, which eventually spread worldwide. Neither GSM or CDMA is perfect, but for all intents and purposes CDMA is most popular and prevalent in North America. I thought the iPhone 3G commercials were so stupid because I thought, "People don't know that 3G has been around with Sprint and Verizon for years now?". The GSM carriers in the U.S. are late to the party when it comes to network data upgrades.

 

[Muadib]

Originally posted by: cvrefugee

Originally posted by: DLeRium
Yes but there's a reason why the world uses GSM. And seriously unless you go into the middle of nowhere, GSM coverage will have you covered.

BTW I feel really sad for people who pay $30/month for their "PDA plan." I suppose they should also charge me $30/month for using a Nokia N82? Shrug.

The "world" doesn't use GSM because it's a superior cellular technology (it isn't). The "world" agreed on a standard to be used in Europe back in the 1980s, which eventually spread worldwide. Neither GSM or CDMA is perfect, but for all intents and purposes CDMA is most popular and prevalent in North America. I thought the iPhone 3G commercials were so stupid because I thought, "People don't know that 3G has been around with Sprint and Verizon for years now?". The GSM carriers in the U.S. are late to the party when it comes to network data upgrades.

So how do you explain the fact that Verizon will be going gsm when they deploy LTE?

 

[Matilda]

If I were you, I'd ask people that live near you what works for them.

Ask co-workers, friends, neighbors, etc. to see if AT&T or Sprint works better in your area.

 

[cvrefugee]

Originally posted by: MuadibSo how do you explain the fact that Verizon will be going gsm when they deploy LTE?

Verizon is not going GSM at all. LTE is not GSM. Per the Wikipedia page on LTE:

Although an evolution of UMTS, the LTE air interface is a completely new system based on orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) in the downlink and single-carrier frequency-division multiple access (SC-FDMA) (DFTS-FDMA) in the uplink that efficiently supports multi-antenna techologies (MIMO). The architecture resulting from this work is called EPS (Evolved Packet System) and comprises E-UTRAN (Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network) on the access side and EPC (Evolved Packet Core) on the core side.

Why would Verizon scrap all their CDMA towers for GSM? That doesn't even make sense.

 

[Muadib]

Originally posted by: cvrefugee

Originally posted by: MuadibSo how do you explain the fact that Verizon will be going gsm when they deploy LTE?

Verizon is not going GSM at all. LTE is not GSM. Per the Wikipedia page on LTE:

Although an evolution of UMTS, the LTE air interface is a completely new system based on orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) in the downlink and single-carrier frequency-division multiple access (SC-FDMA) (DFTS-FDMA) in the uplink that efficiently supports multi-antenna techologies (MIMO). The architecture resulting from this work is called EPS (Evolved Packet System) and comprises E-UTRAN (Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network) on the access side and EPC (Evolved Packet Core) on the core side.

Why would Verizon scrap all their CDMA towers for GSM? That doesn't even make sense.

That what I thought too. Perhaps I misunderstood, as I had been out drinking when it was mentioned.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: cvrefugee

Originally posted by: DLeRium
Yes but there's a reason why the world uses GSM. And seriously unless you go into the middle of nowhere, GSM coverage will have you covered.

BTW I feel really sad for people who pay $30/month for their "PDA plan." I suppose they should also charge me $30/month for using a Nokia N82? Shrug.

The "world" doesn't use GSM because it's a superior cellular technology (it isn't). The "world" agreed on a standard to be used in Europe back in the 1980s, which eventually spread worldwide. Neither GSM or CDMA is perfect, but for all intents and purposes CDMA is most popular and prevalent in North America. I thought the iPhone 3G commercials were so stupid because I thought, "People don't know that 3G has been around with Sprint and Verizon for years now?". The GSM carriers in the U.S. are late to the party when it comes to network data upgrades.

Well it's just like VHS vs BetaMax. Beta was by far the superior technology, yet VHS won... It goes with GSM too. A lot of people thought BluRay and HD-DVD would be a repeat, but I think luckily for Sony the US market commanded which format would win. Unfortunately for the US, we do not command how the mobile market will be in the rest of the world because well.. we're just behind the whole world by ages. iPhone 3G commercials are stupid when they talk about how fast the network is. It's not that fast. While download/upload speeds are decent, the latency for ANY wireless 3G connection is terrible.

But uhmm we've had 3G on AT&T for a while too. I believe they launched back in late '05 or 06. Just because people buy crappy phones in the US and don't specifically look for 3G phones and didn't care until the iPhone emphasized 3G doesn't mean it wasn't there. Yeah the US markets are terrible in deployment, but because the world is so much more ahead, GSM phones are always top notch. CDMA phones are like ported pieces of crap made for the US. With luck you get a few good phones like HTC Touch Diamond/Pro, but for the most part, making a CDMA phone is like forcing companies to make a US 3G frequency phone. And yeah we get shafted a lot, but it's easier for them to just throw in a 3G chip for their phones rather than to port into CDMA.

BTW I forgot to address that AT&T's 3G technology itself if you talk about HSDPA 3.6 or even 1.8 is far superior to Verizon. The fact that you can do simultaneous voice and data at the same time is enough to say AT&T wins. Verizon's EVDO is OLD technology. They can deploy it very well and I will give it to them that Verizon's overall coverage in 3G and 2G kills AT&T. You get consistent coverage and consistent speeds, but I'm not living in the middle of nowhere. I'll take AT&T's 3G simply because HSDPA itself is just far better. You gotta be lucky though, so if you live in a area where HSDPA 3.6 is well deployed, you're set, but if you get spotty coverage, you might be bouncing from EDGE to 3G so too bad =[.

Also the fact that you can take your phones overseas with GSM is another huge PLUS. World phones FTW.

 

[TheDrake]

Another vote for sprint. I have had them for about 8 years now and no other carrier has come close to the deals that sprint has offered over the years and I always noticed that sprint typically has better options with phones than anyone else. Its been so easy for me to get credits and perks over the years. And if you have a serious issue with sprint a simple email to the CEO (well just his email, doesnt go to him directly obviously) and they will bend over backwards to make you a happy customer again.

 

[Muadib]

Originally posted by: Muadib

Originally posted by: cvrefugee

Originally posted by: MuadibSo how do you explain the fact that Verizon will be going gsm when they deploy LTE?

Verizon is not going GSM at all. LTE is not GSM. Per the Wikipedia page on LTE:

Although an evolution of UMTS, the LTE air interface is a completely new system based on orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) in the downlink and single-carrier frequency-division multiple access (SC-FDMA) (DFTS-FDMA) in the uplink that efficiently supports multi-antenna techologies (MIMO). The architecture resulting from this work is called EPS (Evolved Packet System) and comprises E-UTRAN (Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network) on the access side and EPC (Evolved Packet Core) on the core side.

Why would Verizon scrap all their CDMA towers for GSM? That doesn't even make sense.

That what I thought too. Perhaps I misunderstood, as I had been out drinking when it was mentioned.

Ok, after a talk with my friend, I have a better understanding. Verizon does plan to scrap their CDMA network. Like DLeRium mentioned, their current EVDO network is old tech, and has no upgrade path. You are correct when you say LTE is not GSM, it's not. However, it is far closer to GSM than to CDMA, which explains why Verizon waited until The Mobile World Congress to announce their partners. If you didn't know, the MWC was strictly for GSM providers.

 

[Krazy4Real]

I have Sprint and I have absolutely no problems at all. I'm in the Chicago suburbs though, so I always have great signal and EVDO speeds are outstanding. I've been with Sprint for over 8 years and I have no intention of leaving anytime soon.

 

[Raduque]

Originally posted by: Muadib

Originally posted by: cvrefugee

Originally posted by: DLeRium
Yes but there's a reason why the world uses GSM. And seriously unless you go into the middle of nowhere, GSM coverage will have you covered.

BTW I feel really sad for people who pay $30/month for their "PDA plan." I suppose they should also charge me $30/month for using a Nokia N82? Shrug.

The "world" doesn't use GSM because it's a superior cellular technology (it isn't). The "world" agreed on a standard to be used in Europe back in the 1980s, which eventually spread worldwide. Neither GSM or CDMA is perfect, but for all intents and purposes CDMA is most popular and prevalent in North America. I thought the iPhone 3G commercials were so stupid because I thought, "People don't know that 3G has been around with Sprint and Verizon for years now?". The GSM carriers in the U.S. are late to the party when it comes to network data upgrades.

So how do you explain the fact that Verizon will be going gsm when they deploy LTE?

LTE is not GSM.

Did you know that GSM's 3G technologies are wideband CDMA?

 

[Muadib]

Originally posted by: Raduque

Originally posted by: Muadib

Originally posted by: cvrefugee

Originally posted by: DLeRium
Yes but there's a reason why the world uses GSM. And seriously unless you go into the middle of nowhere, GSM coverage will have you covered.

BTW I feel really sad for people who pay $30/month for their "PDA plan." I suppose they should also charge me $30/month for using a Nokia N82? Shrug.

The "world" doesn't use GSM because it's a superior cellular technology (it isn't). The "world" agreed on a standard to be used in Europe back in the 1980s, which eventually spread worldwide. Neither GSM or CDMA is perfect, but for all intents and purposes CDMA is most popular and prevalent in North America. I thought the iPhone 3G commercials were so stupid because I thought, "People don't know that 3G has been around with Sprint and Verizon for years now?". The GSM carriers in the U.S. are late to the party when it comes to network data upgrades.

So how do you explain the fact that Verizon will be going gsm when they deploy LTE?

LTE is not GSM.

Did you know that GSM's 3G technologies are wideband CDMA?

Did you miss my post 2 up from yours?

 

[corkyg]

Yeah, Matilda! That is the real decider. BTW - AT&T now lets you roll over unused minutes. Will Sprint follow?

What I would really like to see is rollover of unused megabytes of G3 access!

 

[TheWart]

Originally posted by: corkyg
Yeah, Matilda! That is the real decider. BTW - AT&T now lets you roll over unused minutes. Will Sprint follow?

What I would really like to see is rollover of unused megabytes of G3 access!

Yea, rollover minutes are crucial. I had an emergency and was in a hospital for like a month, and needless to say I went waaaaay over my minutes, but thankfully my rollover mins that I had built up covered me.