Very Sad Plans

[JAJameson2010]

I think I might have made a decision last night. I've been messing around with possibly putting in a external antenna at the campground, survive at home off the airrave thing and wifi where ever I go.

It's ridiculous! I'm in Wilmington DE and when I fist signed up for Sprint 18 months ago they had excellent coverage around here. Even some 4G while you were driving around in a car. Now I get barely anything and I drop calls if I simply and talking on the phone and driving 15 minutes away to my parent's house. We just spent a week in Myrtle beach and had basically no coverage, which made checking in with the "kids" (ok dogs who were being watched by a friend) very hard and stressful.

Switching back to Verizon will solve all of this. I used to be a fairly heavy data user 7-9 Gigs a month. Right now I barely hit 1 or 2 because I just cannot get the juice to do anything. I called Sprint last night and they were unable to go back the 18 months and tell me how much my highest data usage was, which leaves me in the dark signing up for a tiered data plan.

So I'm going to keep my ears out for a good Verizon promotion and will be switching probably over the winter. I need to at least switch by March since that's when we start traveling again. My contract is up in Feb and I think the BF has another year on his, so we will have to pay that ETF.

It really pisses me off to go back to Verizon, it's easily going to cost us $60 or more a month to switch, but they really are the best *sigh*


Actually I just went through the Sprint online account and my most usage ever was 19.54793 Gigs back in Oct 2011... ok maybe I cannot financially feasibly switch to Verizon. This sucks! Sprint has me so frustrated. How are people supposed to afford smartphones phones anymore?

 

[Citizen Coyote]

Good question. My data usage on Sprint's network is miniscule, since I'm almost always on wifi and 3G service here is spotty at best (I rarely turn on WiMax anymore, as that signal is even more wonky). I looked long and hard at the other carriers to see if it was worth it to switch. Here are my latest opinions on the other big three...

1. Verizon: great cell service and coverage, but you'll pay through the nose for it. Also seems to be the most arrogant when it comes to customer service, and practically hostile to modders/developers.

2. AT&T: good coverage, great speeds, much improved from the iPhone-exclusive days. Average/typical pricing, but hostile toward actually using your phone for anything other than making calls (want to stream a movie from Google Play? Better be on wi-fi, or it's a no-go).

3. T-Mobile: great prices, decent network, friendly to bringing your own (GSM) phone. However, coverage is terrible outside of metro areas, so if you travel get used to EDGE speeds.

So that takes us to Sprint: good prices, unlimited data, decent national coverage, but terrible speeds (at the moment) and reliability is suspect. Really, they all have their pros and cons. I've decided to stick with Sprint at least until I can fairly evaluate their Network Vision upgrades. I hope that by the end of the year I can do so, and then know whether to get a new phone/contract or eat the rest of the ETF and bolt.

 

[simcha]

Sigh... I guess I just don't see the point in switching for me. In the Bay Area we have decent coverage for voice and 3G with Sprint even if the speeds are absolutely abysmal. I've been a Sprint customer since 1999 whether they actually have the records or not (they lost my first few years for some reason). Everywhere I've moved since I started with Sprint in Chicago has had adequate coverage.

I'm adverse to change in general. I don't like the hassle of switching. I hear horror stories about all of the carriers here and elsewhere. It doesn't seem that a perfect carrier exists. And it doesn't even seem that there is a "good" carrier out there. Sprint comes the closest IMHO for my needs.

I wish that I knew I could rely on Network Vision to drastically improve speeds in my area and provide adequate LTE coverage. But past experience tells me that it's a crap shoot. Sprint tends to have excellent ideas and great vision. But their execution hasn't been exactly reliable in the past. I honestly hope that Sprint will follow through with Network Vision and that it is the solution to the bad speeds and spotty coverage that they claim it will be.

I'm about ready to get an Evo 4G LTE soon and therefore I will be entering into a new 2-year contract. I hope that my continued loyalty pays off. I'm not convinced yet though. And I'm not convinced that the other carriers actually offer anything much better than what I have now with Sprint. It seems like if you switch you are just exchanging one set of problems for another.

 

[droidcentric]

2. AT&T: good coverage, great speeds, much improved from the iPhone-exclusive days. Average/typical pricing, but hostile toward actually using your phone for anything other than making calls (want to stream a movie from Google Play? Better be on wi-fi, or it's a no-go).

What a load of h%&^$t i'm able to stream U-Verse, Netflix and Youtube from anywhere there is 3/4G data coverage. My bill is far cheaper then Sprint and AT&T just knocked over $60/month off my home services because they value loyal customers. I convinced my mother to drop Sprint and Bright House which got me another $100 in gift cards at $25 per each service bundled.

So by switching my mobile to AT&T and having my mother do the same it saved me well over $800 this year. With the promos they gave to my mother she too will save well over $800 on her service. Plus it feels so much better to have dependable service no matter what the cost rather then paying for unlimited data and services you can rarely use most of the time. It was also a huge surprise that AT&T gave me so much in savings which basically makes my mobile service entirely free for the rest of this year.

 

[JAJameson2010]

not everyone is in an area where At&t offers any type of home services.... It's great your getting such a wonderful deal but around here coverage is just as good as Sprints poopy coverage

 

[dan330]

TMobile just changed their data limits...

[Update: Confirmed] T-Mobile's New Unlimited Data Plan Will Actually Be Unlimited

hope this helps you a little

 

[Citizen Coyote]

What a load of h%&^$t i'm able to stream U-Verse, Netflix and Youtube from anywhere there is 3/4G data coverage. My bill is far cheaper then Sprint and AT&T just knocked over $60/month off my home services because they value loyal customers. I convinced my mother to drop Sprint and Bright House which got me another $100 in gift cards at $25 per each service bundled.

Did I say anything about streaming Netflix or YouTube? No. I said you can't stream Google Play movies over AT&T's network. That's not h%&^$t that's fact. Given that Google Play is designed to be a huge part of the Android experience, I'd call that hostile toward using your phone for things other than making calls. And I'd certainly hope they let you stream U-Verse, seeing as it's their own service.

All those discounts and savings you got are great, fine and dandy, but are tied into you getting U-Verse service. Would you have received them had you not switched to U-Verse, or convinced others to switch? Verizon also has home media service (FIOS), but I didn't bother mentioning that either because it wasn't relevant to me as a cellular customer.

As for T-Mobile's upcoming switch back to unthrottled unlimited, all I can say is good on them. Seems to make T-Mo a great choice for people who stick to metro areas.

 

[tenceriker]

What a load of h%&^$t i'm able to stream U-Verse, Netflix and Youtube from anywhere there is 3/4G data coverage. My bill is far cheaper then Sprint and AT&T just knocked over $60/month off my home services because they value loyal customers. I convinced my mother to drop Sprint and Bright House which got me another $100 in gift cards at $25 per each service bundled.

So by switching my mobile to AT&T and having my mother do the same it saved me well over $800 this year. With the promos they gave to my mother she too will save well over $800 on her service. Plus it feels so much better to have dependable service no matter what the cost rather then paying for unlimited data and services you can rarely use most of the time. It was also a huge surprise that AT&T gave me so much in savings which basically makes my mobile service entirely free for the rest of this year.

It's great that you got a deal bundling all of AT&T's services together and it makes sense provided you are in an area to do so. Not everyone lives in such an area and the fact that you do live in one means that you need to take that into account before you begin spouting off recommendations. For example in Metro Atlanta Comcast is pretty much everywhere after AT&T sold thier rights to the lines and left in disgrace back in the late 90s. Flash-forward to now and AT&T Uverse is fighting back into the city and meeting heavy comcast resistance which means mean people like myself can't even get AT&T TV service despite the fact that AT&T is out to work on the lines more than Comcast. I would never make a recommendation about bundling without first making sure I know more about where someone lives and that the service is adequate for the person's needs.

As for the OP, I'm not sure what you can do other than doing a large amount of research on forums like these. Sprint is generally the most reasonable cell phone solution provided you are in an area with good coverage and decent 3G speeds. If you really have after reviewing your posts decided to stick it out with Sprint then the next consideration should be with looking into more than just the LTEvo. It's a great phone but the end of summer means a load of phones are about to drop and we won't know the best picks of the year until November.

 

[droidcentric]

Did I say anything about streaming Netflix or YouTube? No.

You said "hostile toward actually using your phone for anything other than making calls" which is the untrue part. I don't know of the issue involving Google since it would be pointless to fork out a rental fee for what i'm already paying for. But that's only one service and U-Verse did not allow streaming for all of it's content because of bandwidth requirements at one point either. Anyone who wants to stream content has plenty of choices but for those in areas with slow data it matters not if Google Play is restricted or not because you wont be streaming period.

 

[Citizen Coyote]

You said "hostile toward actually using your phone for anything other than making calls" which is the untrue part.

I'm guilty of hyperbole then and should not have used the word "anything" in my first post. However, of all the carriers AT&T seems to be the most intentionally restrictive when it comes to using all features of a smartphone. That ultimately was the point I was trying to make, but I could have done it better. The Google Play thing, their previous (and now rescinded) restriction on side-loading apps, and the current debacle over who has access to Apple's Facetime over the cellular network... these are all issues that none of the other big carriers have.

I'm not badmouthing AT&T; based on my own research their service is overall pretty good these days. If you're happy with their service (and it sounds like you are) then that's great. I'm just pointing out some of the cons as I see them with having AT&T as a provider. All of the carriers have problems. There is no easy answer as to who's best.