Sprint goes after T-Mobile customers, uses acquisition as bait

I left AT&T after 10 years for Sprint and have not regretted it one bit. No more dropped calls and billing mistakes. Customer service with Sprint has been great with no hold times and they are American. I guess you are right – with lower pricing (my bill went from $135 to $96), better coverage (in Dallas), better customer service and simple billing Sprint is not competition for AT&T or Verizon.

I use like 60 minutes of voice a month these days, but like 4 GB of data. Data Speeds and Coverage are more important, and Sprint Sucks in both of those areas.

Their phone selection also sucks compared to every other major carrier – especially AT&T which has the most variety and form factors.

If I ever move to a CDMA carrier it would be to Verizon to get an iPhone, not to Sprint to use one of their bulky landscape sliders or 4G devices with 4 hours battery life – well nevermind, WiMax is AWOL here…

att is horrible, what are you saying!

That’s the real problem with tmobile and Sprint. They are only $10 cheaper than Verizon per month. Only an idiot wouldn’t just pay the extra 10 bucks to get a network that doesn’t suck.

get your facts straight please, its $20 per month per line

It’s hard to put an exact number on how much cheaper it is (I’ve had rounds
of arguments with people on bgr and other sites about this). With family
plans and people who have lots of lines, Sprint and TMo become a better and
better deal compared to Verizon and AT&T. The free navigation and free texts
are a big deal as you go up in subscribers, as well as the unlimited data.

But still, their $10 smartphone surcharge got rid of their biggest (and
clearest to define) Sprint benefit, and they continue to raise prices on
everything. If anyone thinks that Sprint will lower prices when everyone
else is raising prices, they’re just foolish. Sprint will keep pace with
everyone else’s price increases, always coming in slightly (but often
insignificantly) cheaper.

Umm Sprint and tmobile are $79 per month. Verizon is $89. Maybe you need a math lesson?

Why are you so hostile? There is more to life than just mobile carriers.

It’s hard to compare apples to apples.

A 450 min plan with data and text is $20 cheaper on Sprint than it is on VZW, but you get unlimited texts with sprint.

Sprint is still $20 cheaper than VZW comparing the unlimited mins plan.

It’s hard to compare apples to apples.

A 450 min plan with data and text is $20 cheaper on Sprint than it is on VZW, but you get unlimited texts with sprint.

Sprint is still $20 cheaper than VZW comparing the unlimited mins plan.

The price on Verizon only includes 450 minutes with unlimited text and data. Right now on t-mobile you get unlimited talk, text and data for $79.99. Even after the promo is over that same price in t-mobile gets you 1500 minutes. T-mobile has been about more for your money just like Sprint. Verizon and ATT have made very little changes to their plans like adding the a my favs type of option. ATT just added unlimited calls to any mobile phone. Users on t-mobile have had my favs and unlimited talk for a while now. Let’s face of ATT and VZW do not look out for users and their wallets.

Verizon has a faster and more reliable voice and data network than Sprint. T-Mobile and AT&T have faster data networks than both of them. Many consumers can get by with 450 minutes when you add in Nights/Weeksends, Mobile to Mobile, Rollover Minutes, etc.

Texting is not a big deal with so many people being on Facebook you can IM them and they’ll get it faster 90% of the time, anyways. Or use something like WhatsApp… Those all use data.

The biggest thing for me these days is data speed and data coverage, and Sprint, while better than T-Mobile in the coverage department, sucks compared to T-Mobile when it comes to speed. Also, I don’t like having my data connection interrupted just because I got an incoming phone call. That’s a big deal to me.

I used to have Sprint. I’ll never go back to CDMA, unless I downgrade to a dumbphone… Which I don’t see happening, ever…

@e374c52f92af97a5c1f6eeb4ccb3d3bc:disqus I don’t think VZW offers unlimited texts except on texting to other VZW users.

 Ok  lets get this straight sprint has 69.99 450 min which they only take off minutes when u call landlines, if you are calling cell phones its unlimited, and everyone has cellphones so why call landlines, and that includes unlimited internet, unlimited texting, unlimited navigation, unlimited sprint tv, while on verizon its 89.99 unlimited and thats just voice and text, you still need to buy a data plan which range from 29.99 to 44.99, and if u want vz nav its another 9.99, and if u want vcast another 9.99. Added up thats a lot of money. So all you guys that get butt raped by verizon can sit back and act like verizon and sprints plan isn’t much of a difference when you compare the basic plans if you want, but if you look closely and do your research you can clearly see you get soooooooo much more for less with sprint

@90e96407f14b39d989017356e4f3f313:disqus Don’t forget that you can pretty much always get a discount with Sprint.  I get a 30% discount because my cousin works for Boeing.  The OP sounds like an Apple fanboi and does not know what value means.  Sprint’s network is fine, sure it may not be the best around, but it works for my needs.  I believe Sprint has the best out-of-the-box value with Nav and other benefits that the other carriers charge for.  My only real complaint about Sprint is not having better smartphones, but they are doing better of late.

What exactly do you get for $89?

I’m on SPRINT “Fair & Flexible 700″:

1.Unlimited Nights and Weekends start @ 6 pm (about 1000min)
2.Minutes over 700 cost 5 Cents a minute (once in six years, typical usage around 400-500min)
3.Unlimited Text (couple of 100)
4.Unlimited Data (average 3.5 GB, have used up to 8GB once!)
5.Unlimited Roaming on VZW (don’t use it is 1xRTT)
6.Unlimited Pic/Email
7.Unlimited SPRINT to SPRINT (rarely lol) 

After a “Pro discount 18%”, including Taxes and Surcharges, I currently pay < $49
In the interest of full disclosure, SPRINT will not allow me to change my Smartphone from the ancient PALM PRO 850 WM 6.1, unless I drop my "Legacy" Plan, in other words no "Grandfathering 4G allowed".

The closest they come to the above package is:

The $89.99 Everything Plan – %18 = $71.99 + $10 = $81.99 + $16.40 (20% Taxes and Surcharges) = $98.39 that is exactly double what I have been paying, just to switch my smartphone, btw excess minutes over 900min cost an additional 40 Cents each!
 
The $69.99 Everything Plan -%18 = $55.99 + $ 10 = $65.99 + $13.20 (20% Taxes and Surcharges) =
$ 79.19, that is $30 more than what I'm currently paying, for only 450 min with excess overage costing 45 Cents per minute! 

Thank You: F1

Not by much? Lets see I was paying almost 190 a month for 3 lines 2 with data (limited data) and that is with a DISCOUNT at Att. I am paying 180 bucks a month with the SAME discount for 3 lines and ALL 3 with unlimited data with Sprint. So bottom line is depending on your plains yes it is only 10 bucks cheaper but as you can see I am getting way more then I did with Att for 10 bucks less a month

3. * Your Term of Service and Termination Fees. Your “Term” is the period of time for which you have agreed to maintain Service with us. Periods
of suspension of Service do not count toward your Term. After your
Term, you will become a month-to-month customer. Except for
month-to-month customers, AN
EARLY TERMINATION FEE WILL APPLY TO EACH LINE OF SERVICE IF YOU DO NOT
MAINTAIN YOUR AGREED-UPON SERVICES THROUGH THE END OF YOUR TERM FOR THAT
LINE OF SERVICE, OR IF WE TERMINATE YOUR SERVICE EARLY (see Section
18). THE EARLY TERMINATION FEE
IS: $200 IF TERMINATION OCCURS WITH MORE THAN 180 DAYS REMAINING ON YOUR
TERM; $100 IF TERMINATION OCCURS WITH 91 TO 180 DAYS REMAINING ON YOUR
TERM; $50 IF TERMINATION OCCURS WITH 31 TO 91 DAYS REMAINING ON YOUR
TERM; AND THE LESSER OF $50 OR YOUR MONTHLY RECURRING CHARGES (including
any applicable taxes and fees) IF TERMINATION OCCURS IN THE LAST 30
DAYS OF YOUR TERM.

So it costs me $25 per line. Cheapest. ETF. EVER. Plus the merger won’t go through. Ma Bell won’t be rebuilt a 3rd time, not with all the policitical BS going on right now.

Yes, I am because they are desperate for subscribers with their half@ss
customer service and untrained idiots. Their billing system “ensemble”
never gets bills right, therefore further pissing off their customers,
they lose subscribers every single quarter.

As one of those “untrained idiots” you speak of, let me thank you for taking your business elsewhere and spending more money than you need too. Wait, who was the idiot again?

Rob you really don’t know what you’re talking about. Did Sprint have those issues in the past? Yes. Do they have them now? NO. Am I saying it never happens? No. but I can tell you, as a 10 year Sprint customer, I am WAY happier now than I’ve ever been. Customer service is great, and I haven’t had a billing issue in years.

CDMA is totally dead-end and it never achieves more than 2Mbps while HSPA has evolved to 4G level (10+Mbps), plus I can bring in phone of choice (can you imagine unlocked iphone runs on Sprint HSPA?).

@Mingkee do you know what your talking about.? HSPA is better?? HSPA going (10+Mbps) is not 4g.. Its not even close to 4g. I think you should do more research on 4g and about HSPA..

T-Mobile is up to 21mbps in some phones. It is software upgradeable to get better speeds. CDMA is slow compared to GSM. There’s also no SVD on CDMA so your data connection gets cut off if you get an incoming call i.e. while downloading an app from the marketplace. No one has real 4G right now so I dunno why idiots are still mentioning that this or that is not 4G. Not even Verizon’s LTE network is 4G, but the people who think they matter just let everyone call their networks 4G to stop the bitching…

this is what i tell customers all the time. they come in with that BS line “but i dont want to get back under contract” when i hit em with the retail cost of the phone the tone changes. if theyre stubborn i ask if theyre satisfied with their service reception etc. if they are but theyre still stubborn i again bring up the retail cost of the phone PLUS, the fact that if they switch companies, the NEW company will make them sign a contract, they will most likely also have activation fees and prorated charges.

Heh. I was off contract with Sprint for 5 mos. Did all the homework on prices and phones compared to Sprint. In the end I’m loving my almost year old EVO 4G on contract. I can “afford” Verizon but why waste money and have coverage where I never go : )

Yes, because companies can’t change or improve. Sprint owned up to the fact their customer service sucked and spent lots of cash to fix it, now they get higher customer service ratings than any other carrier. As for the spending limit, maybe if you didn’t have crappy credit you wouldn’t get a spending limit, and if you paid your bill before the actual due date, they wouldn’t turn your phone off.

As I posted earlier, those issues are PAST issues. Don’t sit here and talk about how a company USED to be. Talk about how they are. I used to have to call Sprint every month to straighten out my bill. Key point there is USED TO: havent’ had to fix anything for 2 years now, and when I’ve called they do whatever I need right the first time. Sprint is on the up and up.

Used to be? Oh em gee? Two weeks ago my company dropped Sprint because we got tired of their stupid customer service, untrained employees, rude and kiosk style tactics out of desperation. We don’t pay much more but we want to pay for quality. I am very well aware of what I am talking about, I have worked in the industry for well over 6 years, and have been a business customer of AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon for well over 8 years. We have tried Sprint here and there and still they have nothing to offer other than spending all their money on NASCAR rather than building out their own network. So you can say what you want, you cant change the majority’s opinion on a company that has dug their own grave. So with all due respect. Take your comment and shove it.

Yeah. You change stuff on your plan that doesn’t extend your contract now. In fact Sprint encourages this with plan check up that see’s if your usage matches the plan your on. Stop bitching about something that happened a long time ago to you. It’s not Sprints fault your credit sucked balls that you got a spending plan put on your phone, Sprint didn’t have to approve your account for a phone in the first place. Just go prepaid.

In case you missed the memo you belligerent schmuck, you’re speaking based on emotion and not fact, I’m glad that you feel that Sprint is your knight in shining armor but you still have less than half of the subscribers that AT&T has… I wonder why? Everything we have spoken of Sprint is true. Thank you come again.

That’s nothing. There was a time when you would have to pay $$$ to talk to customer service.

lol… I believe I did. haha

Haha! Dude doesn’t have a clue

T-Mobile is desperate to sell their business.

AT&T is desperate to buy T-Mobile.

Sprint is desperate to grab more subscriber, since they’re afraid of how things will go in the future.

T-Mobile might be desperate and offer “1-day sale – all phone free”. Don’t AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and other offer the same or similar promotion? Would you call that “desperation”?

Sounds like business to me.

Not as much as T-Mo. Verizon comes in second with their BOGO smartphone deals. Sprints the most stingy on phones lol. Last time I check my freaking EVO 4G still costs the same amount as I bought it for last year.

Yeah, pretty obvious Sprints wants subscribers just like every phone company in the world. The only difference post merger news is Sprint trying to benefit from the buyout and stopping it.
Don’t forget Sprint owns Boost, Virgin and a 3rd lifeline wireless company.

Those one day sales were enticing, but at the time, tmo didn’t have any phones worth getting.

Good luck!

@RobSleezy try tell that to Tmobile costomers.. And they will tell you what they think about At&t.. Hahaha..

I am an AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon customer. I am very pleased with the news snookems.