3
Mar
Last year, in a moment of frustration over the lack of 3G at T-mobile, I signed up for 2 Sprint accounts. I’ve been on GSM since 1995, so the prospect of moving to CDMA scared me. But not as much as the prospect of moving to Sprint.
The deal was too good to pass up; $30 a month for 500 minutes, unlimited (3G) data and unlimited messaging. The plan came with a 30 day money back guarantee, so I was fully prepared to send the whole package back to them when they’d prove how terrible they are (based on what I heard everyone tell me).
Boy was I wrong.
It’s been great so far. I’ve had to call them 4 times, and each time I got someone on the phone within a minute, and best of all, they knew what they were talking about. The deal came with some rebates, which were all processed within 3 weeks, and the promised $50 invoice credit was correctly applied.
Coverage has been been superb, with rock solid signals in places my old T-mobile phone never worked. But the best part is the blazing data. Screw T-mobile and their antique Edge; 3G is the only way to get online with a mobile phone.
The ultimate test came last week when I ported one of my cherished T-mobile numbers to Sprint. I had scheduled the entire afternoon for dealing with the process of porting (after reading some horror stories). One call, and 10 minutes later it was done. Every single part of the process went as it should.
I’m keeping a couple of T-mobile lines around, for when I go abroad, but my day to day stuff is now all in the hands of Sprint. And that no longer scares me.
Drew said,
May I ask in what cities you’ve been using Sprint?
scottc said,
Mainly in the midwest, but I’ve taken it with me all over the country. I’ve yet to run into anywhere I couldn’t get a solid signal. EVDO coverage isn’t everywhere, but in those cases it dropped back to 1x which is STILL faster than EDGE on T-mobile (or AT&T).
Seth said,
I’ve loved Sprint coverage for my EvDO cards on the East coast (NYC, WAS, PHL, BOS and the Amtrak route connecting them) as well. Very fast and good coverage areas. Sprint was very aggressive in going to EvDO rev.A from rev.0 and that is reflected in the high performance numbers. I’d never consider 1XRTT reasonable speed, but that’s a whole different discussion.
We did have some customer service issues when trying to convert accounts from personal to corporate (it took 3+ months), but the general stuff they seem to manage pretty well.
I worry that they are going to go under with the way they are losing customers, but as long as they stay in business I love them for data services. I’m keeping my voice on VZW because everyone I talk to is on it, effectively making my low minutes plan much bigger, but otherwise Sprint seems pretty good, as long as you stay in the cities.
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