I Jedi

September 27, 2011 at 6:01pm

Sprint is pretty far behind at this point. They were, as stated, the leading number one source provider for 4G, but ever since Clearwire has been going under, 4G for Sprint customers has been slower than expected. In my area, we were told we were going to have 4G about a year ago, but it looks like an early 2013 release. On top of having issues getting their 4G rolled out, Sprint lost 100,000 customers in its third quarter, if I remember correctly. It did add 100,000 thousand additional customers in the third quarter to even it out, but this just represents that Sprint is only holding its head over water by some degree. On top of this, their shares have been sinking to around $3.XX per share, which means less money for the company as compared to AT&T and Verizon's $25.XX and up share value.

The other points that should be made is that recently (September 9th), Sprint upped its ETF to 350 dollars maximum for certain plans with certain devices. This has pissed off many customers, including myself, who enjoyed the fact that Sprint wouldn't try to reap us in the ass, if we decided to leave. I suppose Sprint was losing too much money keeping its ETF too low. Finally, Sprint is about to cap its hotspot data plans to 5 GB/monthly; therefore, they no longer offer TRUE unlimited data. Unless you're tethering through an app., you will be changed five cents for every megabyte you go over the 5 GB/monthly rule. (This rule ONLY, again, applies to hotspot, which means connecting other devices to your phone to share bandwidth.)

In other words, Sprint is starting to restrict its network, and raising its ETF to persuade customers not to jump ship to a different carrier. While this may keep customers, it will persuade some to leave after their contracts are up, and will also stop many more customers from joining the Sprint Network.

The only saving grace for Sprint is that it still offers cheaper data plans than does Verizon or AT&T, and that eventually it will roll out its 4G network to more customers, but at a much slower pace than Verizon or AT&T; however, if customers continue to leave in mass, Sprint may be forced to cut its unlimited bandwidth in order to combat costs, and/or raise data plan prices. That is a worst case scenario, and Sprint is not lost, but it is certainly not doing well either.

If you're considering which provider to go with, consider how much you want to pay, how good Verizon, Sprint, or AT&T's networks are in your area respectively, data plans (caps, roaming, minutes, etc.) Don't just choose a provider because they have a hot, new phone. Chances are that another network is around the corner to pushing out a new champion in the smartphone arena.

As a Sprint customer myself, I have been very disappointed with Sprint as of the past year. My only real complaint, which is pushing me to jump ship, is the fact that Verizon already has their 4G network up in my area, but Sprint still doesn't have their 4G up. My friend, who is on Verizon, gets about 10 Megabits per second while I only get around 350 Kilobits on a good day, as well as high ping. Usually between 200ms to 1000ms. When I joined, I joined because of the HTC Hero, not because I thought Sprint had a good network. Now, I am paying for my decision not to look at the carrier along with the phone.