I have been wrestling with this decision for the past month, and I've decided to switch, even though I will rack up $750 in ETF's, mainly from the Droid Charge I had to get a couple of months ago when my OG Droid died on me 6 weeks before I was eligible for upgrade.
I've been seriously looking at Sprint or TMo's Value Plan, but due to some promotions I'll mention in a sec, Sprint gets the nod. Being able to get an SGS 2 for myself and the wife is just delicious icing on the cake. And I also don't want to end up an AT&T customer again, so that's another big strike on the TMo side.
In case you don't know, Sprint is running a port-in promotion this month, where you will get $125 in bill credits for each line you transfer in. Also, I checked on their website to see if I had a discount through my employer, and they sent me this offer instead:
My Nextel - Custom Aisles Error
That's a $50 service credit per phone, and free shipping and activation through their web store. Since I'm porting 4 lines, that's $700 in bill credits AND free activation (worth another $144), so that makes it really easy to say bye-bye to big red.
The biggest factor for me with Verizon is the price. We currently pay about $220/month for 700 minutes, unlimited text, and 2 data plans, 4 lines total. Now the kids are ready for smart phones, and I just can't justify/afford tacking on another $60/month, especially when their data plans will be limited to 2GB.
And don't even get me started on what they charge for the phones. $700 retail for the Droid Charge? Give me a break. And when I saw that the Bionic was going for $300 with contract, I knew they had officially lost their minds. That phone was obsolete before it even hit the store shelves, and yet it's their "flagship" - at least for another 2 months until the
Nexus Droid Prime comes out (which I'm sure will be so overpriced and loaded with bloatware it will be a joke).
With Sprint, for 50% more than the cost of 1 Bionic, I can get a pair of SGS 2's for myself and the wife, and a pair of Nexus S 4G's for the kids (that $29 web deal is insanely good for a phone that is really way more than a teenager needs). For about the same monthly price, we will get twice the minutes and data plans for everyone. And something I've always wanted to do - port our numbers to Google Voice so we can take full advantage of it - will now be possible with Sprint. Unless I'm missing something, combine all that with the credits mentioned above, which basically negate my ETF charges, and it really seems like a no-brainer in my situation.
Now, in the interest of fairness, I will say that Verizon's LTE network is top-notch. In my area, I routinely get 15-25 mbps down, putting it on par with my home broadband connection. However, since 90% of the time I'm either at home or in the office and using wifi, that's more of a luxury than a necessity, and I can't really justify the higher cost. However, if you are a road warrior who needs the fastest data rates on the go, it may well be worth the premium Verizon is charging for their service.