scubajwd

Congrats..Josh..Pahrump has arrived in the 21st Century ????????????

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Ouch!!! I guess Pahrump is not exactly the destination mecca that LV is..other carriers this bad?

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Well Mr Green..B26 is brand new here and is still rolling out ..Maybe once it's up and running our B26 speeds will be low as well..I think we are at least a year behind the mature Eastern B26 markets

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My rsrp here in Anthem ranges between -90 and -95 most of the time then quickly moves to band 25 or 41 depending on my movement relative to my home tower; seems like the b26 signal only presents itself to my Note 5 if all else fails;I had no idea what i was missing;b26 really plugs alot of indoor gaps for Sprint

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Then you'll really hate this taken from inside my house at a location that has never seen 4G:

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Hallelujah is right..now for the first time ever I have LTE thru out the house..B26 really is pretty sweet!

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BTW..this particular location at my house (back bedroom) has always been sans LTE even tho i get fairly good B41 from the same tower on the golf course side of my house but b41 quickly fades as i move into the interior of thebplace away from the windows..so B26 here at least for my construction is penetrating pretty well

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Here is the signal check stat for same location

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Someone wanted my B26 speedtest

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B26 at the house in Anthem (Henderson)..Southeast part of LV Valley

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Hey Knarf...glad to see you around again; i's a bit odd that after sitting idle

for almost two years that I just the other day fired my Surf SOHO back up using

my Note5 as a hotspot in my house (instead of the Zing); I get B41 CA in the house at

a certain spot where the signal is really good (about 90 rsrp); so I just wanted

to see how well the SOHO worked as a router incase my isp goes down; so

I've held onto my Zing & Surf; both items ,as you've stated many times, are very high

quality and useful at times..hope all is well for you; seems like the midwest got

clobberred pretty good this winter

Marshie..I use mine occasionally with Ting but honestly with the ability now to legally

tether off your smartphone when needed I see very little use for these dedicated

hotspots anymore; if Ting would increase their data bucket sizes I might use the Zing

more often..just my $.02

 It certainly is my preferred life far better than my own (considering my awful health, etc.) to be in a tropical area in a nice house with a private swimming pool and beach bar. Would be very nice.

 

 

Only the 1% among us get this life style , Arysyn; take it from me it's no fun being poor in Paradise;

I tried it in my younger days!

Note 5 is an RF monster, just saying...

 

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Yeah.. I was really quite surprised how much better the Note 5 is compared to the Note 4

with my usage patterns..here is Vegas land we have a lot of B41 Squared and the few speedtests

that I've allowed for myself have consistently been in the high 80's and a couple in the 90's for

CA; for non-CA the Note5 seems to grab and hold B41 better than the Note 4 ever did and rsrp

values seem anywhere from 5 -10% better for the few times I've compared them side by side..certainly 

anecdotal evidence compared to AJ's report but just saying...

Nope!

That is theft! $49!!! How did you do it? Does the 2 year contract cover the phone cost?

My Note 4 is on Easy pay; my wife's phone is a 4 yr old Galaxy 3; I keep

phones a long time forgoing the urge to upgrade  to the latest & greatest

technology so therefore the leasing model is not for me; Sprint's leasing plans are

attractive but I'm an ownership type of person in all things..just my humble opinion

I signed up a spare Nexus 5 and it wouldn't activate. Filed a support ticket, tried chat and tweeted for 10 days without a response. Finally had to dispute the charge on my credit card to resolve it.

I echo this experience as well..poor to non-existant customer support..will have to dispute CC billing as well

to get my funds back..spent entire day trying to get my Zing Hotspot activated..chat does not function and

their main number  said: "reached after hrs....et al" this was at 2 PM PST...something very fishy here..these

free deals probably are killing their infrastructure

Nope..at 14 months in on my Note 4 with Easy Pay..no upgrade to Note 5..

I guess I get the lump of coal..hope the rest of you do better..

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around these accelerated

upgrades by Sprint..what is their financial motive for turning everyone

into "consumers" rather than "owners" of handsets?  Someone in another

thread mentioned that Sprint makes little or nothing on the hardware so is this

move a response to competition?  Have we all become consumers rather than

owners of stuff: leased cars, leased houses/apts, leased phones,on and on?

Seems a little like the sub-prime lending model of housing to me..somehow the

true cost of these flagship high end phones has to be paid by someone..a bit off topic

but I'm wondering just how much of a "gift" this will turn out to be in the long run..

Nope...Robert..not Amazon, Google,or Apple will ultimately control content..they will just be the

forbearers of control that ultimately be confiscated and then regulated by government; just as our

government has created a health care "portal" for health care services today..then, the internet as we

have known it for about 2 1/2 decades will be no more..

How about an early upgrade for me: Note4 to Note5; $200 trade in allowance and $15/mo lease on the new Note5;

now that's a deal!!  I hope Dec 7 brings more than a $59 Tablet that no one wants for being Sprint loyal for going

on 12 years in my case..

So it all depends on your use case, really. With the loyalty credit etc leasing is really quite attractive. 

 

For your example there are definitely downsides such as for your current phones: Your wife's S3 has only band 25 LTE access so she is missing on on b26 for building penetration and b41 for speed. Your current phone DOES have b41 but doesn't have carrier aggregation. Depending on the market, no CA isn't necessarily a big deal.

 

So, lets compare iPhone and Note costs with 2 scenarios:

 

2 Years

Lets say you want an iPhone 6s. 

Leasing: $15/mo. (or even less with loyalty credit) over 2 years you would pay $360. 

Buying: $27.09/mo over 2 years you would pay $650.16 and own the phone.

 

But how much will that phone be worth? Well, lets compare the iphone 6s value now vs the 5s value (to approximate the value of a 2 yr old iPhone that you will have) on Swappa it goes for ~$160 - $180 for a 16 GB model. So in this example you are down $110 in terms of net cost to you with the higher estimate ($650 - $360 - $180). Okay so what about 3 years?

 

3 Years

Leasing: $15/mo. (or even less with loyalty credit) over 2 years you would pay $360.  But for the sake of fairness lets use the $22/mo non promo price for the 3rd year which is another $264 for a total of $624

Buying: $27.09/mo over 2 years you would pay $650.16 and own the phone. 

 

But how much will that phone be worth? Well, lets compare the iphone 6s value now vs the 5 value (to approximate the value of a 3 yr old iPhone that you will have) on Swappa it goes for ~$125 for a 16 GB model. So in this example you are up ~$100 in terms of net cost to you ($650 - 624- $125). 

 

For a Note device that might be a harder choice.

2 Years

Lets say you want a Note 5. 

Leasing: $25/mo. 2 years you would pay $600 

Buying: $30.80/mo over 2 years you would pay $739.18 and own the phone. 

 

But how much will that phone be worth? Well, lets compare the Note 5 value now vs the Note3 value on Swappa it goes for ~$170. So in this example you are up ~$30 ($739.18- $600 - $170). Okay so what about 3 years?

 

3 Years

Lets say you want a Note 5. 

Leasing: $25/mo. 3 years you would pay $900 

Buying: $30.80/mo over 3 years you would pay $739.18 and own the phone. 

 

But how much will that phone be worth? Well, lets compare the Note 5 value now vs the Note3 value on Swappa it goes for ~$115 So in this example you are up a whopping $275 ($739.18- $900- $115). 

 

The differentiation here is if you add in the loyalty credit to these calculations it comes $120 less for each year of lease which is extremely compelling seeing as even in the best case, 3 year old Note example you would STILL be ahead leasing and have a newer phone.

 

The real money saver would be to buy 1 year or 2 year old used phones every year and then resell them. You might have a total cost of only $75 or so/year. It all depends how important having a new phone is to you. To my wife, having a new iPhone yearly was an easy choice. For myself I buy Nexus phones every 2 years and thus far the net cost to me has been fantastic.

Cletus..your math is compelling on the issue if indeed many qualify for the loyalty credit as I and you might do so( I've

been a loyal Sprint customer since 2002, BTW); I suspect many millennials and even Gen-Xers will take to the leasing

model even if the rates are higher and they do not have the loyalty credit!  The main thrust of my argument, however, has

to do with the carriers attempts at grabbing share via making the high margin flagship phones SEEM affordable to the masses;

this together with BingeOn tactics of TMO ( to be copied by the other carriers eventually) and it seems to me that it's

a massive waste of capital and network resource...someone above said something like "well with this new TMO binge

plan my neighbor can binge on Hulu while I get about 2G speeds on my handset."  ..all of this is tied together and it's hard for

me to see the endgame here..

Let me examine the economics of leasing...lets see...what does it cost me to have a new

phone each year..lets see.. $30/mo X 12= $360..say for three years..I've spent $1080 on new

phones and don't own anything..so after three years I have no phone..my wife's Galaxy 3 is

still going strong and my Note4 will be paid off pretty soon..I guess Apple figured that the only way

to grab market share from Samsung (when no one could afford an $800 iPhone) was to somehow

fleece the sheep with lo-cost leases; $25 or $30 a month is painless isn't it?  Tells me that the

margins on this hardware must be north of 60-70%...wow what a money maker for the carriers!

All you need is a population of sheep that can't figure out they are being fleeced!! 

I am not indicting people for being poor.  But I do have a few follow up questions/concerns.  How many of these people in public housing have flagship level Android or iOS smartphones?  How many of them have large flat panel TVs and gaming systems?  How many of them drink or smoke?  The list could go on.  Many of these people are terrible at managing their paycheck to paycheck living.  Yet, they spend on luxury items that -- if being realistic -- are outside of their budgets.  So, with a tiny bit of financial planning, many could come up with that extra $10/mo.

 

AJ

Couldn't agree more here with this assessment by AJ; in a credit driven society such as ours nowdays the whole concept of budgeting to fit your life style into your income source is non-existant or poorly disciplined; people at almost any cost will

find money for expensive phones & cellular plans, cable tv packages and expensive leased cars at the expense of

eating good food, paying their mortgage (or rent),and maintaining their health (obesity, diabetes,lack of exercise); I call it the Facebook Syndrome Society fueled in part my massive credit card abuse..so back to being on topic: for the greater

good of society the Wimax network needs to be shuttered now..socialists among us want to protect the few that will become disinfranchised or become "un-connected" at the expense of everyone else.