utiz4321

I am curious to here what you think the missteps of the sprint management team have been. Any time I have been critical of Sprint's moves (mainly what it has been doing to compete in an increasingly competitive market) it has been an obleack criticism of sprint's management team yet you never seem to agree. So just curious.

I don't get. What is the difference in use between 13 Mbs and 38 Mbs?

This is the exact thing I was told I could not do the last time I tried to switch to the new plans. Then when I said well the lets do a cross upgrade then switch to a new plan I was told I was gaming the system and couldn't do that either.

Gsm launched in 1991 (in Finland) CDMA2000 first was launched in Korea in 2000.

No, they can. Two year pricing is not going away yet.

Not true at all. There are many reasons why some one would opt for a zero percent finance of a 600 dollar phone that have nothing to do with them not being able to afford it. One it is a better deal, taking into account the time value of money. Two it may be more convenient for them. They may have other larger purchases coming up or variable ones but they have stable income and there phone breaks. The popularity of financing over out right purchases shows that your logic is flawed. Most people could drop 600 on a phone, yet most people opt for putting on their bill (in one form or another) and most people pay their phone bills ( non-voluntary churn is very low and that is overstates non-pay disconnects) that says both that people can afford their phones and would rather pay for it over time. Then there are people who can't afford to drop 600 on a phone or 6000 on a car but pay for it over time and make the payments. This person can and does afford both. Then there are people who couldn't afford the monthly or the up front cost and they are traditionally on metro, leap or virgin with a low end device (now sprint or tmobile with a low end device). A more abstract objection I have to you thought, is I think a system that puts higher end and higher quality equipment in to more consumer's hands is better than one that puts it in fewer. If the wireless industry is moving to the later that is a bad thing, but I don't think it is.

Because of the way the upgrades have worked out my plan. One of the people on my plan needs a new device (and they really can come up with the expense up front) but there line was used by another person on my account. As a result they are not eligible to finance a phone. Their only option is to buy one at retail which they can't do. In a sense the subsidy is in the financing for them.

I don't think people can afford houses because most of them have to finance them. People having to finance something is not the same thing as saying they can afford it. Further sprint is the only company that would penalize people who simply wanted to change the phone they where using as none of the other carriers do this and to me this is a bad policy with no obvious gain to sprint. Deleted my original reply on accident. This is my best approximation. Lol

I get what your driving at, this is a move driven by competition (like NV) but the way they design these programs are important. If this stipulation is true (not sure that it is) this is a very customer unfriendly policy. further sprint is the only one that feels it should exist and I can't think of a good reason for it (nor can the sprint employees I talk to). Execution is key and this is a fail with a set of customers. How big that set is remains to be seen but it includes me.

That is what I though. But three stores now (two in Ohio and one in AZ) told me that if the phone was not active on the account the balance becomes due. I simply can't understand the logic behind this at all. Also no need to have a take or leave it attitude. The wireless industry is highly competitive and sprint can't really afford to have that attitude (at least at the moment). Further, I am not the only person who like to switch phones and if this is true those people should know about it. Sprint needs to be customer focused and drive their desisions based on positive customer experiances. The days of take or leave it in the wireless industry are over and if sprint and it's employees don't get that they will not be around. Also totally under stand giving back the original phone, that is the same with all carriers and makes complete sense. But that is not the issue I am concerned with.

The only problem is that according to three different sprint stores if you use easy pay and your phone breaks and you don't replace it though insurance or if you simply want to use a different phone the entire remaining balance of the device on easy pay becomes due. I have a nexus 5 (purchased out right) and did an iPhone 5s on next (the stores claimed it work the same for easy pay) if I switch to my nexus five on this line I get hit for the remaining balance. Also can not cross upgrade under this plan, even though with ATT and vzw (not sure tmobile) you can under their next and edge. I was unaware of this at the time I did next but I usually like to switch my phones often and now I am forced to stay with an active iPhone 5s on my line. This is not what I would call transperent or more flexible, which is what I initally thought when I read about these plans. A big disappointment to me, I am hoping I was misinformed three times.

So tried to change to the framly plan and do a cross up grade. I was told you can not. This in my view is a major draw back (if it's true). I know for a fact ATT and vzw allow cross upgrades on their finacing plans. I have had 5 phones with sprint for over 6 years and have been bouncing upgrades around for the entire time. Now I am kind of stuck. Can any sprint employees confirm this.

They don't have to force you off your old plan to end handset subsidies. The could simply say easy pay or retail are the only way you can buy a phone. Keep what plan you want.

Sprint and all wireless carriers need to provide a seamless wireless data experience to survive. There will come a day when data will be as reliable as voice. That means when I go to access a web page, video, music or any kind of data it works seamlessly. No delays, no real waiting (equivalent to fix line service) and in that world the company that isn't able to accomplish that will die off. But speed has little to do with that. There is no differance between 5 Mbs and 200 Mbs to the end user of a smart phone.

I try to work on my formatting . I don't think I have been expressing my self very well so I try a slight different take. If we look out at the state of the wireless industry when sprint plans on having 100 market covered with spark where will their competition be (assuming tmobile is not bought out)? Vzw, will more than likely be done with its 20x20 deployment, tmobile will have all markets that they have the spectrum to deploy the wide band lte deployed and well along with its 700 mtz deployment. Att is a little hard to figure out but I would say the will probably have 100 markets with WCS. I think we can agree that band 41 is where sprint has a real competitive advantage, but when they have 100 markets deployed who do they have an advantage over? Only really ATT. The competition will have a similar level of service (band 41 still gives sprint speed and capacity advantages) in a broader area and it will have been out for a longer period of time. Sprint really can't afford to be play catch up on the network side if they expect to take market share. This is one way it which the roll out is slow, slow compared to the competition. Another way this is slow is if you campare it to NV. NV 1.0, a total rip and replace of Sprint entire network only took about 3 yrs if it finishs mid year. One of the advantages to NV was the ability to add new spectrum quickly. Well nearly 2/3 the time of the original project to cover a 100 markets is in comparison slow.

The article basically boils down to my wireless service with tmobile sucks where I live and play. Every carrier can find people who could write this article.

What phones use WCS? What is the ecosystem? It will take them another year to two to deploy WCS In any meaningful way. From my understanding they have enough AWS to add another carrier but not enough to add the speed that vzw can. So that puts them in the same spot as sprint, As far as network message anyway (although I suspect they'll keep going with the most reliable claims). As far as my two year claim having being false, I am using sprint' s own claims so unless they are deceiving us or wrong I don't know how my claim for 2.6 can be false. My point is sprint has said they wish to differentiate based on their network. Can they do this based on band on their FDD deployment? Nope, again according to sprint this only brings them to rough parody with with the other carriers (and that if it were complete today). 2.6 is the way they differentiate but unfortunately for them their competition isn't standing still. Tmobile has grabbed low frequency spectrum and is deploying WLTE, vzw is throwing out 20x20 AWS and ATT will have WCS in about the same time frame as sprint will have 100 markets covered. This will drown out the network differentiation message. It simply to slow to be effective. Sprint doesn't have a great network message until 2.6 is widely deployed and unfortunately their time table makes it to late to be effective. That is my opinion anyway guess we will see in two years.

You are right to point out that tmobile will not have their WLTE across their entire lte foot print and the exstint of this roll out is important. But vzw will have a very extensive roll out of the AWS lte well before 2016. I doubt ATT is going to stand still either (although it is much harder to see where the come up with additional spectrum.). Here is why I think it is painfully slow, tmobile will be hammering the faster network and in carrier message for the next two years (providing they are not bought out which is what I think they are angling for) Verizon will continue with it message and likely see their reputation remained unchanged, ATT might be the only company that might have problems as it is hard to see where they go from here. What is sprint message for the next two years? There pricing plans are innovative and maybe that will be it. But they aren't really the cheapest (nor do They want to be known as that really). So what do they go to market place with as the reason people should choose sprint? Are network is the slowest (in terms of average speeds), our plans aren't the cheapest, every one is doing HD voice (except vzw), they will have the most advance network but the average end user won't see it that way, They'll see slower lte data, so what is the marketing message that they can deliver on. one of the appeals of NV was the speed of the original time line and had it been exicuted sprint would be at rough parody with all the other carriers today. But it wasn't and so they aren't in most areas. Maybe it can argued and maybe it is true that sprint band 41 rollout will keep them in line with their competition but that is not what sprint needs to be doing right now. They need to pull a head of the competition and really try to differinciate their network ( which is what they claim to be doing). For the reasons mentioned above I don't think their current time table will allow them to do this. But maybe this new pricing scheme will be the message.

137 Mpbs would be wast as a hotspot for a laptop also with the data caps every carrier places on hotspots. This would be good for streaming HD video and downloading, two activaties that would have you screaming past your 5 gig cap in no time. Where this does provide a benifit for tmobile and their customers is in capacity. They have a smaller customer base than even sprint so this will likely mean higher average speeds and lower instances of the network being overloaded in places where they are able to deploy WLTE.

That is still depressingly slow. This negates any of the competitive advantage sprint would hope to gain from there deployment. By 2016 tmobile will have had 100 plus speeds out for well over a year. Verizon will have their 20x20 aws deployed in many places for nearly 2yrs. Mean while sprint customers will have two 5x5 (in most place) lte channels to pull from until 2016 with still large portions of their customer base not having acess to spark for an undefined time after that. The competition is just going to eat them alive. Who knows what ATT is going to do but two years is a great deal of time for them to figure something out.

If you up grade offer on the plan that you are on you would have to purchase one phone every other year At retail an one on subsidy. So assuming iPhone (easiest to do) then 200+650-300 (high resale, when I tried to sell my sprint iPhone 5 the only serious offer I got was 225) =550 dividing by 24 and you need to add 22.91 to you current plan to equal the same amount of phones on the new plan.

So hopefully the sprint hopes to have 100 additional cities covered by spark by 2016 was a typo, because I don't think the competition is going to stand still long enough to make this a meaningful roll out.

Yes

What I got from reading the material is that there will be some kind of promotional period in which you will be able to switch with out paying the 15 dollars. That is the way I read it anyway, but we will have to see.

Your not factoring in phones on one set of plans while factoring them in on the other. Even if every one bought nexus 5 on the new plans you would still need to take 350/24=14.58 a month Per line. Not everyone wants a nexus 5 however so that's a rather bad assumption. The problem with the plans is that you need to factor in the cost of the phone and when you do this you end up behind. So let's go for seven phones. 45*7=315 plus phones. Assume iPhones that is (650/24)7=190 roughly. Or 505. Now unlimited my way 80+70+60+50+50+50+50=410 Phones 3 on one up at (27-15)3=36 Four on two year (200*4)/24=34 410+36+34=480. That is at the new plans sweet spot of 7, the gap widens with lines 8-10. Now most people don't need unlimited and 3 gig or 1 gig work for them so the plan is more flexible (older plan only has 1 gig) but like for like it is more. But the 15 dollar discount is going away so there is that and you are right it depends on how sprint does the early upgrade part too. If it is like tmobile (which I think it will be ) then it is not a good deal.