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Ask just about anyone and it’s clear the wireless industry could use a little more shaking up. While we applaud the strides T-Mobile has made in recent months, it’s time for the nation’s other major wireless providers to take the initiative instead of simply following T-Mobile’s lead. No doubt feeling the heat of T-Mobile’s explosive customer growth, Sprint could be finally ready to make some big moves of their own.
During a company “town hall meeting,” newly appointed CEO Marcelo Claure mentioned his plan to introduce a “disruptive” new wireless plan next week. Of course, that might not sound too enticing especially if you (or someone close to you) has ever had to endure Sprint’s painfully slow network. Claure knows this, acknowledging that Sprint’s network has “fallen behind” when compared to rival networks. This is the reason he feels they first need to compete with aggressive pricing if any work is to be done overhauling their network, (unlike previous CEO Dan Hesse who saw it the other way around).
With T-Mobile closing in quick on Sprint’s #3 spot, they better do something fast. Hopefully the new change in management will be exactly what the doctor ordered.
Who cares, it’s Sprint.
I do! I Left Verizon and went with Sprint. I have LTE coverage with Sprint where I did not with Verizon. Oh.. and my bill dropped 75$ a month.
My old housemate had Sprint. We live in Kansas City. AKA – Sprint’s world headquarters. My Verizon LG G2 speed tests were consistently 4 to 5 times faster than his Sprint LG G2 speed tests.
That’s just whack. Wiggity whack.
.
I think T-Mobile came out the fastest in Sprint’s HQ according to root metrics.
Improve your coverage or GTFH !!
Get that fu¢k ____?
Go tha F*** home?
Their coverage HAS improved in my experience. Places I’ve visited over the last 5 years of my Sprint contract that had 1-2 bars of 1XRTT or 3G EVDO now have 5 bars of LTE with consistent upload and download speeds of 32/12.
Judging Sprint based on their coverage if your experience was from years ago, even during the WiMax days, you’ve simply missed the full on Network Vision upgrades. Telling them to improve their coverage is dumb if you haven’t actually used them in the last three years when they’ve actually improved their coverage.
Sprint could pay ME to take their service and I would refuse. Rude, uneducated customer service staff and worst service of all carriers. Do us a favor Sprint and fold. You really suck!
Completely disagree. AT&T customer service has blatantly lied to me in my face in store. Multiple times. All to try and make a few more bucks. Honestly? All of the cell carriers have terrible customer service.
I like talking to the Tmo customer service. They’re nice people. If there’s a problem, I call them ready to chew them out, they say “Hello”, and I’m like, “Oh… so nice.” LoL!!
Actually, their customer service has improved marginally. I’ve had to make 3 customer service calls to them in the past 3 months, and guess what? I reached a resolution each time within a half hour from very kind and helpful people. Nah man, you haven’t had Sprint for a long time.
Well they are about to lay off a ton of them.
I’m conflicted. On the one hand, it’s awesome to see this kind of competition. It speaks volumes as to why mergers, particularly in the customer services and utility areas should never happen. On the other hand, what T-mobile did, they did in the best way possible. They worked on their network before they discounted it. Sprint has come and gone a long way since they “Build their PCS network from the ground up” days. Instead of trying to be disruptive, they need to focus on making a better product. Nobody’s leaving Sprint because of the money. Some of my closest friends are fierce supporters of Sprint because of their “great” grand fathered plans, and good for them. They would be silly not to. But, at every turn, they complain about the network, as do a lot of people. So, yeah, put the lipstick on the pig…
Sprint has been investing billions in their network and has lit up hundreds of LTE markets this year. To suggest that they have not been doing so is factually inaccurate. That said, they shot themselves in the foot wasting so much time on Wimax and are playing from behind, but over the last two years they have invested a huge amount in upgrading their network.
Fair enough, so where are the results?
Addison, Texas. I get 30-70 Mbps consistently.
That is the issue, they did it where it was easy because they don’t have the data backbone to support it. Their data network is terrible in any real city but they can advertise data rates in a tiny town like Addison because only 5 people are using it.
Its the same here in GA, if you’re lucky enough to find LTE in Atlanta you might get 6Mb/s, might. But out in Douglasville, if you get LTE, its like 40Mb/s because so few people are using LTE devices there.
I don’t know what results you are looking for.
If you live in a market that has gotten faster or wider coverage, then there are your results.
For me prsonally, I used to get all of 1 or 2 bars of 3g and now have LTE in my rural town and it hasn’t even been announced as an official market. The city near where I live has LTE on a much wider scale.
I’m trying to wrap my head around the big picture, and clearly mileage will vary so you’re doing well where you are.
People blast T-Mobiles network because it doesn’t exist well, if at all, in some areas. However here in NYC, It’s outstanding unless you’re in a basement or otherwise well built fortress, (My old apartment). Sprint in NYC is downright awful, perhaps not coverage wise, but quality wise. Is their coverage wide spread? Hell yeah, every carrier has great coverage in large cities. But, that is mutually exclusive when it comes to quality. AT&T in NYC was great until they went on being the destination spot for everyone buying iPhones. Guess what, great coverage, piss poor quality, but they realized the problem and built the network to handle it. Sprint hasn’t done this.
I would suspect that is the case in a lot of Sprint areas. So, yes, there will be spots of the country where Sprint is great, possibly rivaling Verizon, but I would wager a guess that the quality is less than spectacular. If Sprint added some value to their PCS network, which was very cutting edge at the time, then yeah… Being disruptive and competing with T-Mobile is a great idea. But at what expense? T-Mobile hemorrhaged users for years till they gave people a reason to come back or stay. HSPA+ and LTE were great starts. Once this proved to work no matter what the load, they went after getting subscribers. WIth acquisitions of the 700 band and other parts of the spectrum in a bunch of areas, it’s getting better. Sprint needs to do this NOW.
No offense whatsoever against Sprint, believe it or not, I was about to jump ship from T-Mobile to Sprint after 14 years if they actually got married to AT&T because of their cost-vs-availability for the money. My expectations weren’t that high, over 14 years with T-mobile, I was used to shitty service. But they got a lot better. So worth sticking with, in NYC. In other parts of the world, I’m sure there’s a lot of people wishing for the same thing from Sprint. Better more quality network. Cost isn’t driving people away, service is.
I don’t have any real disagreements with what you are saying.
I do have a lot of hope for Sprint’s potential, though. I like how ambitious they are now, and I like some of the moves they have made.
Their recent agreement with the CAA ( http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/26/sprint-joins-rural-data-network-hub/ ) for example, strikes me as very forward thinking.
They still offer unlimited data plans.
They offer better integration with Google services (like Voice) than any other carrier.
They actually carry Nexus devices, as opposed to VZW.
They intend to become more than just a smartphone carrier, but a true wireless telecom.
I like the vision. I won’t deny it’s been rough sailing for a few years, but I’m getting a lot more LTE around me than I used to, so I’m ok.
I’ll admit I jumped from Verizon to Sprint recently. I’ll also admit that so far Sprint has by far shittier coverage in the boonies as in sometimes none where Verizon had LTE and voice coverage. But for 1/3 the price with Sprint that I was paying Verizon every month I’ll live with it for right now. Also since I have no contract this may be a trial for me as I may go AT&T soon and give them a try.
Sprint’s network is getting exponentially better! Bring on the down votes! …Oh wait :)
I’ve been with them for 5 years now, jumping from ATT.
I was dropping calls all the time with ATT, and paying through the nose for it.
Moved to Sprint, while the data coverage isn’t as good as ATT, I am paying a lot less, and have clearer and more stable calls.
I know some areas are worse for Sprint, but our towers are owned by Shenandoah Telecom, so we actually have a pretty good network here. I’m happy where I am, with significantly better pricing than ATT and VZ.
I’m switching to sprint once my contract with Verizon is up. I’m ready for a cheap alternative and the spark service in my area is really good. I know I will give up service area with sprint but T-Mobile here is awful and att will never be an option. Constantly checking my wife’s data usage is getting old. So slower data speeds is fine with me. Maybe Verizon prepay will get better and I might reconsider
where do you live?
Live around the Bristol tn/VA area.
I had sprint for years. I would give them a chance if sprint could launch LTE in San Jose. I know you will tell they have LTE in San Jose but i know a couple of people who still have Sprint and they both have never actually seen LTE show up on their LTE enabled phones neither at work nor at home. It’s been 2 months since they officially launched LTE in San Jose. I have TMobile since last may and speeds are night and day.
It’s in a couple places here in SJ, but its best in Milpitas.
So Sprint’s going to offer unlimited shitty service? What else is new?
I get really good coverage both in Atlanta and it’s burbs. When I visit my family in NYC, Westchester and Long Island it is absolutely horrendous. If you are in an area with good coverage it is a good value.
Just voice or data? Because I had to get rid of Sprint because LTE was only in 20% of the city and the rest of the time you were on CDMA, which was so slow that often my phone would mistake it for an outage. 600Kb/s at best and often slower, like 120b/s, even after having it repeatedly re-provisioned.
I was with sprint for over 15 yrs ,got tired of promises of 4G tower’s year after year after year , : Fool me once shame on you , Fool me Twice shame on me :
I gave up two years ago man, never regretted it. The hilarious thing was the Sprint rep was like “the next Network Vision” upgrade is coming, you’ll regret it!” I was around for the first “Network Vision” upgrade and it didn’t do jack.
What city, what phone?
Atlanta proper, Galaxy Nexus on every known radio version and iPhone WRT LTE. Hero and Evo for CDMA as well.
Also: NYC, Chicago, DC, LA, Sacramento, Seattle, etc. You get the hint. I was a consultant and traveled to pretty much every metro in the nation.
Despite being a launch city almost a year later when I finally gave up the actual covered nowhere near reflected teh maps. It was more like roughly 20% LTE and those speeds were still slower than GSM on AT&T and T-Mobile. Usually i was on CDMA and it might as well have been dial-up.
Oddly enough if I wandered out to a rural town, if they were lucky enough to be on LTE, it was like 40MB/s. But those were towns with a few thousand people in them.
Sprint exaggerates their maps (like every other carrier). If they lie more than other carriers I have no idea. Sprint surrounds the city and then moves in. Example, the loop in Chicago is the worst of the market. Your phones weren’t even Spark phones, and it was two years ago. I get it though, they exaggerated, you wanted it, and you weren’t getting what you wanted. Honestly I don’t know if they knew what they were getting themselves into, it is taking them to long and now they lost customers due to NV upgrades.
Fool you 15 times……
You got me there, but to be fair it out was only the last 4 yrs of promises of 4G.. when the Evo first came out….I still have my original Evo 4 G ….still looks like it just came out of the box….
what good is an aggressive pricing plan if your speed and coverage suck?
How about pricing to match your coverage and speed?
I like what Sprint is doing, it’s gotten a lot better-and it continues. I do like the idea of throttling prices. A throttle your prices campaign would be good but I’m not sure Sprint wants that word associated with their company.
*Walks in*
“Still using CDMA as your core network?”
“Yep”
“Still getting 600k at best when on CDMA and 4MB/s if youre lucky enough to find LTE?”
“Yep”
*Walks out*
4 MB/s is gooood…….
Just now, in my apartment.
I think your network icon is messed up. It should say “4G” not “LTE”.
Eh. Sprint experimented with that ugly 4G LTE logo before ultimately going to a straight 4G logo that matches the 3G logo.
It was supposed to be a joke relating to how they’re on LTE, but they’re getting 4G speeds, not 4G LTE speeds.
IDK… Probably why I’m not a comedian. LoL!!
Which fits into my statement below about major areas. If you are in a city then its slow as hell.
I regularly pull 18 down on T-Mobile in the urban area of Atlanta on 3g, so I dont even need another radio hitting the battery.
Took this in Atlanta last time I was there. Nexus 5 on Sprint still on the 1900 band.
Actually in Atlanta or douglasville?
Because its not just me saying, the quote from the new CEO himself when explaining their upcoming pricing plan:
““When you have a great network, you don’t have to compete on price. When your network is behind, unfortunately you have to compete on value and price.”
Actually in Atlanta. Was there for a Braves game and took that speed test out in the parking lot. I got the same consistent speeds no matter where I went. I was down in Locust Grove last month and discovered the 800 band was live and it delivered the same download speed with 12Mbps uploads.
I’m getting 17.9 down and 1.18 up in Dallas right now. Up on the 4th floor off of I35
That’s pretty decent. The upload could be better, but pulling 17.9 down inside a building is still good. I’ve actually found that Sprint’s 1900 LTE band penetrates buildings better than Verizon’s 700.
In my backyard. This is without band 41 (2.5 spectrum). Don’t exaggerate.
The thing is the 2.5Ghz spectrum is AWFUL for penetration any kind of structure which is why I’m guessing you had to go to your back yard?
Also it will literally take Sprint years to get the 2.5GHz nationwide. In the near and long term the 2.5Ghz LTE will be spotty. They need more cell sites than they currently operate to work with this spectrum.
I live in Milwaukee, there is no 2.5. I am using 1900 and 800. Your negative perception of Sprint is causing you to assume the worst. The speed test probably indicates that I live in Wisconsin and as far as I know there is no 2. 5 in the state at all. Stop hating. HATER
Crickets.
Not quite true. I get band 41 at work where I get peak apeeds of +60 Mbps and it’s a pretty large multi story office building holding thousands of employees.
Sprint needs to aggressively GTFO.
I’m LOLing all over my office!!! Two thumbs up!
Two things:
1. Sprint needs to DRASTICALLY improve their coverage if they want any new customers coming their way.
2. Are those Palm Pre and Pixi ads in the windows?? C’mon Phandroid, is that the only Sprint store pic you had?lol
I left sprint because of the poor coverage. Price wasn’t the issue.
Sprint is pretty good in my area compared to T Mobile.. but alas I’m an AT&T customer and will remain for quite a while longer.. Bakersfield, Ca.
I’m a T-Mobile fan as much as I am an Android fan. Sprint would have to do a lot to win my trust that they are moving in the right direction. If they adopt a uncarrier model like T-Mobile then I might start to wonder, but the same old business model with cheaper pricing doesn’t build my trust. Right now they are the most expensive.