I’m making a change. I’ve left Sprint for another carrier. It was not an easy decision. I’ve been with Sprint for 14 years. Longer than I’ve been married. However, they no longer meet my needs and seem incapable of making a change that will allow them to do so.
Our relationship hasn’t always been an unhappy one. I initially chose Sprint for one reason and one reason only. No contracts. I could get 132 minutes of talk time with no contract. I was leaving AT&T due to horrible service. Both in reception and with customer service reps. I had been stuck basically unable to place a call for months due to a lack of service, but when I called AT&T I got a different story with each call. I did not want to get stuck in such a situation again, so I definitely did not want a new service contract. Sprint was the only one that offered a plan with no contract, so I made the switch.
Initially, our relationship was great. When I lived in Dallas for the first year or so of the contract, I was in love. Calls were clear and they never dropped. A dream come true. My initial experience in South Florida was not as great, but it was livable. Then they became the first carrier in our area to offer 3G data. We got new phones immediately and loved it. Eventually, we moved to smartphones and were still happy with our service. Then it happened, October 14, 2011, arrived and Sprint got the iPhone. You can guess what happened next. Sprint’s network couldn’t handle the onslaught and our service tanked. We stayed though cause Sprint was by far the cheapest. T-Mobile was a close second, but when it was only 2G in our area, it wasn’t even a consideration.
We’ve been more than patient with Sprint. They constantly say things will improve, but they don’t. Some areas where I live have had LTE for over a year and Sprint service is great in those areas. But there are too many places where there is only CDMA and Sprint’s 3G is unusable. Might as well not even have service in those areas, because you won’t be able to do anything. You can have the greatest smartphone in the world, but it might as well be a dumb phone if you have no service. My husband and I talked to Sprint and the message was always the same. We’ll mark it so that service improves. But it never did. Then at the beginning of this year, I got a new message from Sprint. Upgrades in my area were complete. That would have been great news if there weren’t so many areas where I still had no coverage at all. It was time for things to change.
We made a decision then and there to make the move. Our choices were T-Mobile or AT&T, as I won’t support Verizon. This time around, I would once again be no contract, so we had to wait until we could purchase our phones outright. But that day is here. A new carrier has been chosen and I’ve been using them for a week.
Our new carrier is T-Mobile. So far, we are pretty happy. The store representative we worked with, Moises, was friendly and as helpful as he could be. Data speeds are far better than Sprint. Right now I am using a cheap HSPA+ phone while I wait for my new phone to arrive and speeds are still good. It’s nice being able to access the web quickly and without frustration. My only frustration has been customer service and this is one area where I will miss Sprint. Because Sprint’s technical support and customer service reps are located in the United States, understanding communication is easy. That has not been true with T-Mobile. However, we rarely contact customer service, so this will probably not be a huge issue in our future relationship.
Yes, I’m a little sad to leave Sprint. Fourteen years is a long time. However, I am excited to be supporting T-Mobile as they have become a major disruptor in the industry and I want to support that. Here’s to the the next fourteen years.
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