I'm leaving Sprint for T-mobile.

[gangrene]

After some thought, I've decided to return my phone to Sprint, pay the $15 difference between the buyback price and the ETF and move on.

 

 

Three factors played into this.

 

 

1) According to the amazing resources made available on this site, LTE won't be reaching my area until March at the earliest and that deployment won't be completed (Long Island) until September of next year. After being hosed on the WiMax deployment (no town east of the Rockville Centre ever saw it) I've been waiting for years for improved data speeds, while watching people just up the road in Queens enjoy the benefits of having truly fast data.

 

2) T-mobile recently reintroduced truly unlimited data and pricing parity is 1:1 with Sprint.

 

 

3) I've tired of the iPhone and I've been wanting to get back into Android.

 

 

My decision came down to either picking up a Galaxy S3 on Sprint and dealing with very slow 3G service for another 6 to 10 months (sometimes 1mbit but mostly .300kb and under) or buying the same phone on T-mobile and getting access to their extremely fast DC-HSPA+ network immediately (I borrowed an HTC One S and have been using it all day and have been averaging 15mbit down and 4 mbit up on this network with a ping of 50 or lower)

 

This community has been very informative, and overall very interesting and fun.

[ReyBanz]

Not to be be rude, but why would u post this on a Sprint specific site? This post is full of facetious remarks... Maybe u should join www.tmonews.com

[JeffDTD]

Glad you are happy now ! I dont think we consider tmobile "the enemy" the way that sprint has recently been characterized by tmos leaders and bloggers. Happy sailing over there.

[Rawvega]

Bon voyage...

[jonathanm1978]

I agree with Roy. I've been a Sprint customer for 5 years. The first entire year i had Sprint, i never used over 50 minutes a month on the 450/month plan. I actually went on the site and checked this usage, and i remember calling them on December 27, 2007 and telling the female customer service rep that i was tired of paying each month and never getting to use my phone. It was then that i told her i thought i was ready to just cut my phone off, and she introduced me to the airave. Then gave me a new phone to boot. So i said i would stay. Got the airave and hooked it up, then slowly over the following months my service got better in this area. Wasn't great service, but it was bearable.

 

Along this time I've watched Sprint grow and fail, but stuck with them because I'm always one to pull for the underdog. And it is paying off, as I'll be getting 4G soon. Don't know exactly when, not really that important. Would i like to have it? Yes, of course. Is it going to change my life and make me a better person, wash my clothes, tend to my yard work and fix me supper? No.

Point being, everyone, including me, makes a big whoop out of 4G, but once it's been in for a while, it'll be like it was when we all went from dial internet to broadband at home. You love it and it tops your thoughts until novelty wears off. Then it's just as important as who won the national fart award in 1996. I felt the same way when i got a 3G airave and moved up from the Samsung version. I was like "wow faster Facebook and web site loading, now i can type Google and hit enter much faster"

After about a month, i quit laying in bed at night with my phone enjoying the 3G speed and it just became another nice perk.

I got dish network put in last week and my sling adapter will be here today, I'm sure I'll love having my sub anywhere i can get online on my phone or laptop, but after a couple weeks the novelty will wear off and I'm sure I'll say "damn, i could have used that $49.99 for something else instead of buying a sling adapter."

 

I know some people live for their cell phone, but in my case, my cell phone serves a purpose and if it doesn't happen to have the fastest data speed on the market, then oh well. What am i really missing out on? Not much, except loading stuff a few seconds quicker. I can deal with waiting since I've never had 4G and been with Sprint 5 years. Didn't really ever make or break me, it was not being able to use voice that made me almost drop them.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[SpenceSouth]

Completely understand. You have to do what's best for you. However, if I were you I would go the Value plan route with T-Mobile and buy the $350 galaxy nexus from the Play Store. This way you don't have a contract and can jump back if Sprint starts rockin' the house like we are all hoping they will. Also your bill will be like $55 a month for 500 mins and unlimited everything else. No reason to pay for more minutes since they offer unlimited wifi calling.

 

Best of luck!

[Mondays In Flames]

I actually left T-mo for Sprint. The service down here isn't the greatest. But I hope you have a better experience, when it did work it was pretty good.

 

 

-Luis

[RichardXy]

Let's all be honest. The only Sprint coverage that matters is the Sprint coverage where you live. If you didn't get wimax and you still don't have LTE, its not like you are going to be jumping for joy that some other area has their first LTE signal. Try T-Mo out for awhile. You can always come back to Sprint when your contract is up and maybe by then they will have some 4G coverage in your area.

[S4GRU]

Let's all be honest. The only Sprint coverage that matters is the Sprint coverage where you live. If you didn't get wimax and you still don't have LTE' date=' its not like you are going to be jumping for joy that some other area has their first LTE signal. Try T-Mo out for awhile. You can always come back to Sprint when your contract is up and maybe by then they will have some 4G coverage in your area.[/quote']

 

These are my sentiments exactly. We do not advocate Sprint service. We give information about the Sprint network and we try to correct the gross amounts of misinformation that gets spewn out there. And many people interpret that as advocacy.

 

Everyone has to make the best choice for wireless for their circumstances. And since everyone pays a lot of money for wireless service, it is understandable that they choose someone who they are happy with and meets their needs.

 

For me, since Sprint is on the edge of great things, I'm very optimistic and want to see and experience the whole thing. So I do not want to jump ship. But I'm a wireless dork, and I realize not everyone is like me.

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

[kg4icg]

I have been a Sprint customer since December of 1996 when they were Sprint Spectrum. Have I considered going to another carrier because they were getting phones that Sprint were not getting, thought about it for maybe 5 minutes and tossed it away. Have I had problems over the years that I had to call in, I can count that on 1 hand. Have had data slowdowns, yeah to be expected in a major city, I am just outside DC. Am I looking forward to Network Vision completion? yes but tempering anticipation with patience. I have seen some substitute there cellular data as there home internet and it usually backfires especially if you have AT&T/VZW with tiered data.

[nobius]

I'm about to be leaving tmobile for Sprint myself, but LTE is running in Houston.

[gangrene]

Completely understand. You have to do what's best for you. However, if I were you I would go the Value plan route with T-Mobile and buy the $350 galaxy nexus from the Play Store. This way you don't have a contract and can jump back if Sprint starts rockin' the house like we are all hoping they will. Also your bill will be like $55 a month for 500 mins and unlimited everything else. No reason to pay for more minutes since they offer unlimited wifi calling.

 

Best of luck!

 

The pricing comes out to the same as my current Sprint bill dollar for dollar.

 

The value plan requires a contract. From my understanding the only fundamental difference between the value and typical subsidized phone plans is that the device subsidy is separated out from the phone bill and billed separately instead of being hidden in the service charges. So the service becomes $20 cheaper a month when the device is paid off OR it becomes possible to pay off the remaining amount owed on the device and upgrade early.

 

I don't believe in the concept phone companies having enemies, you simply choose what works best in your neck of the woods.

 

I thought about getting an unlocked Galaxy Nexus and going with something like Straight Talk for $45 a month taxes included and to be honest, I still might, I'm only on my first day of the 14 day trial period. I could also potentially stay with Sprint, but only if retentions gave me an offer that was amazingly attractive like waiving data charges until the network is overhauled in my area.

 

But as far as putting the GSM GNex on T-mobile, that isn't particularly attractive because it would only get half of the available speed on their network. Their carrier customized phones utilize a dual cell configuration which bumps up vanilla HSPA+ into something that gets better than WiMax but not-quite LTE performance.

[Rawvega]

Just my $.02, but if you're definitely going to leave, the Straight Talk option sounds a lot more attractive for the price.

[digiblur]

I checked out TMobile for a few days a while back. Their maps were way over exaggerated for me. They had worse tower spacing/coverage than Sprint does in this city. I had lots of places I went where I had no coverage. I did notice on their map they have added some rural cells in some areas but they still haven't covered the interstate corridors in my area like the other providers have had in place for many years.

[ericdabbs]

Good luck OP...as in good luck finding a signal... outside the metropolitan area. Anyways you have to do what is best for you and live with your decisions.

[gangrene]

Good luck OP...as in good luck finding a signal... outside the metropolitan area. Anyways you have to do what is best for you and live with your decisions.

 

Its honestly been working completely fine, but I've also been testing out an unlocked international galaxy S2 on Straight Talk and thats been working just as well.

 

For $45 a month, taxes included or $37.5 if I pre-pay the entire year...I might as well just go buy an unlocked Iphone 4s for $250 off of craigslist and save $600 a year on service.

[Deval]

Its honestly been working completely fine, but I've also been testing out an unlocked international galaxy S2 on Straight Talk and thats been working just as well. For $45 a month, taxes included or $37.5 if I pre-pay the entire year...I might as well just go buy an unlocked Iphone 4s for $250 off of craigslist and save $600 a year on service.

 

Glad to hear that T-Mobile is working out for you. The iPhone idea is what T-Mobile is fostering, though they just recently pulled the advertising on it.

 

My girlfriend and her entire family had T-Mobile for years, and I migrated them over to Sprint a year ago. So far they have loved it, and they're located pretty close to you (Queens).

[gangrene]

Glad to hear that T-Mobile is working out for you. The iPhone idea is what T-Mobile is fostering, though they just recently pulled the advertising on it.

 

My girlfriend and her entire family had T-Mobile for years, and I migrated them over to Sprint a year ago. So far they have loved it, and they're located pretty close to you (Queens).

 

I forgot to post this, but these are typical of the speeds since I've been seeing since I started my trial period.

 

However, I have a week left on my trial and Sprint retentions just came back at me with a crazy offer that I really have to consider. I'm also not crazy about the fact that all US SGS3s have Jelly Bean delayed until March and may just go without a phone for a while and see what happens with the LG Nexus.

 

 

[Deval]

I forgot to post this, but these are typical of the speeds since I've been seeing since I started my trial period.

 

However, I have a week left on my trial and Sprint retentions just came back at me with a crazy offer that I really have to consider. I'm also not crazy about the fact that all US SGS3s have Jelly Bean delayed until March and may just go without a phone for a while and see what happens with the LG Nexus.

 

 

 

Those speeds are on par with HSPA+ that T-Mobile has deployed throughout the market. They have a sound strategy, and were able to get their sites upgraded to Ethernet/fiber long before everyone else saw the writing on the wall.

 

I give them credit for that, those are some great speeds. If I wasn't an employee and committed to Sprint as I am now, I would consider trying out their service, as long as I was able to bring an iPhone or something similar.