bkco14

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.

100% Agree

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.

That is what I was afraid of. Thanks for the information.

I have been in communication with someone from Dan@sprint.com. I don't know how reliable they are, but they were saying a lot of the tower work will be done by August. I have been hearing that song and dance for a year now. Based off what I am hearing on this site, I am not getting my hopes up and thinking we may not see anything until the end of the year. I got my hopes up around Christmas that the 3G portion would be fixed since I was seeing around 800k - 1M downloads on a frequent basis, but 2 weeks later it was back down to 30k. Now my signal has degraded to the point where I usually have 4 bars, but now I mostly see 1. I am hoping the 3G will be fixed soon as my parents are now starting to get angry as the network times out on them and they can't really do anything. I keep telling it will get better based off what I have read in the Chicago market thread, but their patience is starting to wear out.

Has anyone heard anything about the Quad City area?

It was 119.99 and $10 add on for each line due to premium data. So, $140. And if you received a discount, it was taken off $100. So a 20% discount would get you $20 off as well. New plan, employee discount is applied to each data fee of $30. So, at 20% discount, you will take $6 off per phone

This is a massive increase for family plans. 1 - Now if you have a discount it is taken off the $50 price instead of $100 (so you now lost half your discount) 2 - It was $20 to add a line + $10 data charge. Now it is $30 for data on each line and you still have to pay between $30 and $40 to add the line. This makes an increase of $50 for 4 lines Original plan for 2 lines was $119.99 + $20 for data (so $140) Now it will be $50 + $40 + $30 + $30 (so $150) 3 lines were $170 now $210 4 lines were $200 now $260 If you had a 20% discount: 2 lines were $120 now $140 3 lines were $150 now $200 4 lines were $180 now $250 This is a massive increase any way you look at it. Families are getting hosed (anywhere from 20% - 40% more which is awful) Now before people say this is for new customers only, remember what Sprint did with their last plan changes? If you wanted a new phone, you needed to change plans. I wouldn't put it past them to do that again.

Anyone noticing any improvements in the Quad Cities? It seems for the past 2-3 weeks my data and voice have gotten worse.

Awesome news!! So am I safe to assume that in about 4 months we should have usable Sprint service? If so, I can't wait. I have been with Sprint for 13 years and I am rooting for them as they are the underdog, but 2013 is my make or break year with them. Hopefully they bring their A game to this region as we have been suffering for 2-3 years

I want to see if Sprint is embellishing the truth. I have had a ticket open for a year fighting with Sprint because their data crawls between 10-50kbps instead of the 400-600 they advertise. I kept getting told every month that the completion date keeps getting pushed out in the future. I have been in contact with someone who answers the dan@sprint.com email address. She told me that NV is starting in our area which I don't believe since I think you told me one time that the Quad City area won't start until around fall '13. Has things moved up in this area? Thanks for your time

Thanks. I hope that is the case and the NV equipment won't be too far off.

I know that they have been working on some towers in the QC as I have seen fast 3G speeds. However, even though network.sprint.com shows 37 updates, it still feels like most of the QC is still really slow and really spotty since I still hit 1x data an awful lot. I just figured they were doing band-aid fixes for now. I hope NV and LTE get here soon as this area has felt neglected for 2 years.

I don't know if Lincolnshire is done, but I was there visiting for 2 days near Half Day Road and Milwaukee Ave. I was reaching speeds in the 1.25MBs - 2Mbs range consistently. It was a really nice change of pace considering in my city 3 hours away I am lucky if I can hit 80kbs consistently.

I said that it is a fun analogy (light hearted). Thanks for your wonderful insight. You will still be late to the party right? HTC had 5 months to prove this and they didn't do it. I love everyone in society blaming everyone but themselves. Is it really Apples fault that HTC couldn't prove they weren't infringing on the patents for the past 5 months? Is it the ITC's fault that HTC didn't show them proof for 5 months? No, it is all HTC's fault for not providing the proof.

I don't understand everyone's hate on Apple regarding this. It was not Apple's fault. HTC knew (since December of 2011) that they had until April 2012 to show the ITC that they were not infringing on the patent anymore. But guess what, they never showed proof. So, now that the time period expired, the ITC blocked the phone until they can get proof that they are not infringing anymore. This is all on HTC's shoulders. Here is a fun analogy. Say you want to go to a party on Saturday, but on Monday your mom said that you had to clean your room and show her that it was clean before you can go. You decided not to show her that you cleaned your room and you tried to sneak out of the house on Saturday to go the party. But, your mom caught you and now you are going to be late to the party because your mom wants you to show her that your room is clean. HTC played chicken with the ITC and lost.

Road Trip

So, we post paid subscribers pay $10 for premium data on top of the plan costs and have to deal with our data connections timing out because they are so slow, but Sprint thought it was a good idea to bring in another MVNO while their network is junk and it appears that they can have an unlimited data plan for $19/month. I know people will say that Sprint bringing in extra money is a good thing, but I fail to see the silver lining when the network doesn't work and they don't have a lot of spectrum. Can their network really handle more subscribers at this time?

So, Sprint's network is already being held together by duct tape around the country (that is an extreme analogy, but their data network is slower than dial up) and they think it is a good idea to have yet another company start up and use their network. How about we finally get a service that we can rely on first. http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/14/voyager-mobile-starts-may-15

Mine works the same way. Since Sprint's 3g speed in my area tops out at 30kbps, roaming is almost 5-7 times faster. That may explain your situation. Have you done a speed test of Sprint's speed in your area? (this is for iMessage as iMessage uses the data network)

Yeah, I saw your write up, but I was hoping for some people who had this work done to see what exactly is happening in the real world.

On network.sprint.com for your area, did you just have a lot of data speed upgrades? I am asking because I want to see if the band-aid fixes they are doing before NV actually work, or if the network goes down to a crawl once the subscribers realize they have data that is usable again. My area is supposed to be getting the band-aid fixes in about 4 months, but NV isn't scheduled to start until sometime next year, so I hope I don't have to wait over a year for usable data.

Let me add to that. Did the 3g speeds improve and stay improved, or did they go back down again once customers saw they had usable data again.

I hope we can stay on our grandfathered plans, but knowing how sprint likes to change plans, I don't have much hope. I just want them to reward the customers who stuck it out with sub 100 kbps data while the other 2 carriers have at least 10 times that speed.

I am banking on that too. I am hoping I made the right choice. I just want want to have my fears put to rest that I am making the right choice with my money and that I will be rewarded with my patience (or lack ther of at times) of sticking with Sprint. ;-)