Sprint.com forums - yikes!

[mrknowitall526]

For some reason, I decided to check out the forms on Sprint.com.  Holy cow.  I can't stand the general public who know little to nothing about anything and think it's just as easy as "flipping a switch" to roll out an upgrade to 38,000+ sites.

 

 A few years ago, I used to enjoy reading Buzzaboutwireless.com - reminded me a lot of S4GRU.  But now, it's just filled with people complaining about how awful Sprint is.  smh...

[WiWavelength]

For some reason, I decided to check out the forms on Sprint.com.  Holy cow.  I can't stand the general public who know little to nothing about anything and think it's just as easy as "flipping a switch" to roll out an upgrade to 38,000+ sites.

 

 A few years ago, I used to enjoy reading Buzzaboutwireless.com - reminded me a lot of S4GRU.  But now, it's just filled with people complaining about how awful Sprint is.  smh...

 

Unless public outlook changes, the unwashed masses will continue to riot without critical thinking, while S4GRU will be the last bastion of positive, objective Sprint sentiment, a bit like the Curator of the Ark of the Arts...

 

 

AJ

[Terrell352]

This is true but the rollout is behind and sprint promised and I quote a "aggressive rollout" and they failed to do that faster than the competition so I can't blame them and I know how hard it is to rollout a new network. I have been promised 4g since the wimax days 3 years ago and a lot do people are still waiting including me

[JeffDTD]

Buzzaboutwireless has been a rag for sore teets for years now. This isnt news.

 

Sent from my Note II. Its so big.

 

 

[mrknowitall526]

It IS an aggressive roll out.  Especially in some areas that never even had EVDO to begin with.  They're doing everything at once.

 

And, with today's news that every site will get 2.5ghz....that's really something.

[Marv1]

Lol, tell me about it! This site don't tolerate Sprint bashing and complaining. I've witnessed that! Once sponsors and non sponsored members let them know they need to check themselves, you should see the mood changes days, weeks, and months later once they start reading top notch info here!

[lilotimz]

Someone say... riot police?

 

[bkco14]

The problem is that people on this message board know more about what is going on than the general public does. They are willing to stick it out because they know what to expect, what towers are being worked on, and what the "timetable" is.

 

If you would ever talk with someone at Sprint (whom the general public does) and that is the only form of information you are getting, then I bet you will be a little frustrated too. People want answers on why they aren't receiving the service they are paying for.

 

I was told by a supervisor that they don't guarantee anything and if I just use 1kb of data, then Sprint fulfilled their obligation.

I have also been told that nothing is wrong with the towers so I need to take my phone in to get serviced.

I have also been told that all the towers are over capacity and they have been waiting on parts that will be delivered in the next month or two. That song and dance has been going on for 2 years.

I was also told that NV would be complete in my area 8 months ago. But, I was told on here that it would be sometime late this year.

 

I have also heard on this forum that you shouldn't trust a rep because they don't know anything.

 

So, my question is who should the general public talk to?

Customer Service? - No

Dan@Sprint.com? - No

Supervisors? - No

Sprint employees at retail stores? - No

 

People on these type of message boards are the minority in that wireless is ther passion/hobby. The majority wants to know why their friend on a rival carrier can surf the web, but their phone times out loading google.com. When they ask the question to the above reps, the answers that have been provided from personal experience are:

1 - Everything is working fine, must be your phone.

2 - We see a problem and it will be fixed in a month or two (2 years later still not fixed)

3 - NV is being done in your area and will be complete soon (8 months later and this message board says nothing has even occurred yet in my are)

 

So, yes, the general public (I) is livid with Sprint due to the lies that they are being told by representatives of Sprint. I wish Sprint would educate their client facing personnel with correct information. A general timetable would be nice.

[Bob Newhart]

For some reason, I decided to check out the forms on Sprint.com.  Holy cow.  I can't stand the general public who know little to nothing about anything and think it's just as easy as "flipping a switch" to roll out an upgrade to 38,000+ sites.

 

Sprint is not communicating to the general public, they have all the information, they should tell the public in very simple terms.

They aren't doing this very clearly on their website.

[bkco14]

Sprint is not communicating to the general public, they have all the information, they should tell the public in very simple terms.

They aren't doing this very clearly on their website.

100% Agree

[WiWavelength]

People on these type of message boards are the minority in that wireless is ther passion/hobby. The majority wants to know why their friend on a rival carrier can surf the web, but their phone times out loading google.com.

 

The easy answer to that question is that one of the big three -- T-Mobile -- is living on borrowed time, and the other two -- VZW and AT&T -- are living off the fat of their wireline monopoly turned wireless duopoly.

 

As you suggest, average consumers are not aware of these sorts of things, but in a free market, it is their responsibility to know.  Otherwise, they potentially harm the free market and their own purchasing choices going forward.

 

AJ

[koiulpoi]

I will say, getting the general public to understand these sorts of things. Like bkco14 said, most over-the-phone care reps (due to the extremely high turnover rate) and in-store reps have little to no actual knowledge about the rollout, and many are perfectly willing to overpromise and lie to get a sale or keep a customer.

 

That being said, I personally have been having trouble getting the whole Network Vision project in to public-understandable sound bytes. When talking with them, they don't want anything near the incredible wealth of info we see here. They want to know when they're gonna get 4G or "when these 2-ways gonna work better". It's exceedingly difficult to overcome objections to this - when I inform people of the incredible rollout and massive amount of work that's already been done and still to go, many people's first impression is to write it off as yet another lying retail tech. After all, they've been promised "network improvements" for years, and many store employees promised 4G WiMAX in areas it was never even scheduled to hit. So, even as someone who reads this site every day, I find it difficult to convince people. Some are very excited about the rollout themselves, and some feel it's a repeat of the same. And trust me, in a former affiliate market that built out some areas spaced more like 850 than 1900, we definitely could use some improvements...

 

I would also like to say I've learned nearly nothing from Sprint's own internal resources about network technology, the 1900 rollout, 3G Network Vision, the iDEN shutdown, 800 MHz LTE, Clearwire and 2500 MHz LTE, and all the factors and technologies that go in to all of this. Without S4GRU, I'd be at a loss of what to tell people, and probably fall in to the category of "say whatever", as you have to give the customers something, but given nothing, well, there's nothing to give. Even Sprint internal documents often say little more than "Coming Soon!"

 

So, with all that, you have to imagine that what people get from your average sales rep or tech or care rep is going to be misinformation, pessimism, or straight-up lying. When people hear 10 different stories from 8 different people, they get frustrated. I would. 

[bkco14]

The easy answer to that question is that one of the big three -- T-Mobile -- is living on borrowed time, and the other two -- VZW and AT&T -- are living off the fat of their wireline monopoly turned wireless duopoly.

 

As you suggest, average consumers are not aware of these sorts of things, but in a free market, it is their responsibility to know.  Otherwise, they potentially harm the free market and their own purchasing choices going forward.

 

AJ

It boils down to how are they supposed to get that information? Who can the general public ask and receive an honest answer from? They are asking the only people they know of (The people I mentioned in my original post) and getting flat out lied to. And then being stuck in a contract while getting lied to is frustrating.

[vtimmy13]

You think Sprint reps are shit... they saved me.. I ordered a samsung galaxy si3went back and forth with virgin mobile reps for exactly a week till i got fed up called sprint and they sorted everything.. they had to cancel the virgin order said it never would of went through... they re ordered it and gave me expedited shipping should be here tomorrow!

[AJC1973]

You think Sprint reps are shit... they saved me.. I ordered a samsung galaxy si3went back and forth with virgin mobile reps for exactly a week till i got fed up called sprint and they sorted everything.. they had to cancel the virgin order said it never would of went through... they re ordered it and gave me expedited shipping should be here tomorrow!

 

Dont the Virgin mobile reps sit right next to the Sprint reps? part sarcasm part wouldnt that make sense lol 

[WiWavelength]

Even Sprint internal documents often say little more than "Coming Soon!"

 

Is everyone familiar with the children's game of "telephone"?  Whisper a message into the ear of the person next to, continue on down the line, then laugh at the distorted message that comes out of the last person in line.

 

From senior management down to frontline employees, the message goes from "Coming soon" to "By the end of the year" to "In the next three months."

 

AJ

[bigsnake49]

The easy answer to that question is that one of the big three -- T-Mobile -- is living on borrowed time, and the other two -- VZW and AT&T -- are living off the fat of their wireline monopoly turned wireless duopoly.

 

As you suggest, average consumers are not aware of these sorts of things, but in a free market, it is their responsibility to know.  Otherwise, they potentially harm the free market and their own purchasing choices going forward.

 

AJ

 

 

Why do you think that T-Mobile is living on borrowed time? Are you saying that somebody will acquire them? Any suspects?

[Mobilesolutions]

The easy answer to that question is that one of the big three -- T-Mobile -- is living on borrowed time, and the other two -- VZW and AT&T -- are living off the fat of their wireline monopoly turned wireless duopoly.

 

As you suggest, average consumers are not aware of these sorts of things, but in a free market, it is their responsibility to know.  Otherwise, they potentially harm the free market and their own purchasing choices going forward.

 

AJ

I'd rather push Sprint to the top than save T-Mobile from sinking...Aj.

[koiulpoi]

Is everyone familiar with the children's game of "telephone"?  Whisper a message into the ear of the person next to, continue on down the line, then laugh at the distorted message that comes out of the last person in line.

 

From senior management down to frontline employees, the message goes from "Coming soon" to "By the end of the year" to "In the next three months."

 

AJ

It's worse than you think.

 

I had a few of the following conversations recently:

 

"So, now that Softbank bought us-"

"Who? Oh, right, that Chinese company that was talking about that."

"Japanese, and the buyout is complete..."

 

"So, now that we own Clearwire-"

"WHAT!? Wait, who's Clearwire again?"

 

"A profile update cannot fix coverage issues, and really can't do anything about dropped calls. A PRL is not a list of towers, and it will not 'connect you to the closest tower', your phone does that on its own."

"Yeah, well, that's not what I was told!"

 

"So T-Mobile-"

"Yeah, who cares? They don't even have 4G, it's just fake souped-up 3G"

"Actually, they have 4G LTE now, and their rollout is going rather quickly, and their '3G' was faster than WiMAX in most areas."

"No, that's wrong"

"<_<"

 

"Sprint can't put 4G LTE on the Nextel band. If they could, why didn't Nextel? Low frequency signals are always slower, and Nextel didn't care about data speed."

 

"Network Vision isn't going to start until 4G LTE is complete, then we're getting a whole new network!"

 

"Root my phone so I can get free hotspot and do away with Comcast."

 

Mind you, I'm not calling my coworkers, bosses, and customers incompetent. They're simply products of a system that provides severely inadequate information. 

[vtimmy13]

It's worse than you think.

 

I had a few of the following conversations recently:

 

"So, now that Softbank bought us-"

"Who? Oh, right, that Chinese company that was talking about that."

"Japanese, and the buyout is complete..."

 

"So, now that we own Clearwire-"

"WHAT!? Wait, who's Clearwire again?"

 

"A profile update cannot fix coverage issues, and really can't do anything about dropped calls. A PRL is not a list of towers, and it will not 'connect you to the closest tower', your phone does that on its own."

"Yeah, well, that's not what I was told!"

 

"So T-Mobile-"

"Yeah, who cares? They don't even have 4G, it's just fake souped-up 3G"

"Actually, they have 4G LTE now, and their rollout is going rather quickly, and their '3G' was faster than WiMAX in most areas."

"No, that's wrong"

"<_<"

 

"Sprint can't put 4G LTE on the Nextel band. If they could, why didn't Nextel? Low frequency signals are always slower, and Nextel didn't care about data speed."

 

"Network Vision isn't going to start until 4G LTE is complete, then we're getting a whole new network!"

 

"Root my phone so I can get free hotspot and do away with Comcast."

 

Mind you, I'm not calling my coworkers, bosses, and customers incompetent. They're simply products of a system that provides severely inadequate information. 

i love the part about network vision after 4g lte lol!!

[mrknowitall526]

In Sprint's defense, there is *sometimes* a page on the front of Sprint.com that explains NV in "simple" terms.  But it's at the bottom and probably not clicked on by a lot.  Plus, that ridiculous map of "data speed upgrades."

 

In some regards, I think it would be fun to work at a Sprint store.  But then I realize how much nonsense and ignorance I'd have to deal with from the ubiquitous general public.

[Rukin1]

Gawd. I'm on there all the time lol. I refer people to here when they run there mouth thinking that this Network Vision aka the overhaul of it's entire infrastructure to actually understand it's not so simple. If these people actually understood and knew that within 5 months. Sprint will be completely different then it is now and a year from today, we can only imagine how much better it will be. fyi

Sprint forums nothing but old people who know nothing about technology and still think the 10$ fee is for 4G LOL pls

[flyer8493]

I've been told that Sprint is busy " converting all the wimax towers over to LTE" when I asked why I was barely getting 1 mb down connected to the LTE network.

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[Rukin1]

I've been told that Sprint is busy " converting all the wimax towers over to LTE" when I asked why I was barely getting 1 mb down connected to the LTE network.

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

Really? I'm going to go look at one of the Wimax towers here and report on that when i can then.

[matt7701]

Why do they not release real time progress reports on NV for every town and a timetable?  What is the reason for their secrecy, are they afraid we will storm the site being worked on and protest?