Is Sprint really Floundering?

[bearballz72]

Hi all,

Was reading Alex's great article about his experience two months in with this Nexus 4. What took me back a bit was this statement in the article:

"While we?re speculating, let?s not forget about Sprint, which proudly carried both the Nexus S 4G and Galaxy Nexus. At this stage, an LTE-enabled Nexus 4 would make one hell of a hero device for this floundering carrier."

Flounder: To make clumsy attempts to move or regain one's balance.

It got me thinking, what does Sprint still need to do to remove this image as the "bargain" carrier, plagued by problem after problem, and make it a truley viable alternative to At&T and Verizon? Within the last year or two they've improved their customer service, in the process of rolling out a new LTE network, made deals with Softbank, Clearwire and U.S. Cellular. They also still have pretty competitive palns, no data capping and a pretty decent lineup of devices.

 

[Ry]

Hi all,

Was reading Phil's great article about his experience two months in with this Nexus 4. What took me back a bit was this statement in the article:

"While we?re speculating, let?s not forget about Sprint, which proudly carried both the Nexus S 4G and Galaxy Nexus. At this stage, an LTE-enabled Nexus 4 would make one hell of a hero device for this floundering carrier."

Flounder: To make clumsy attempts to move or regain one's balance.

Is Sprint really that bad compared to the other 3 carrier's? We all know Sprint's had their issues in the past, but it seems within the last year or two Sprint has made attempts to right itself especially with the Network Vision/LTE rollout, much improved customer service, deals with Softbank and Clearwire and U.S. Cellular. Not to mention their competitive plans and no capping of data.

Network Vision will improve Sprint. However, Network Vision isn't complete yet. For a lot of people, it's just bad.

 

[bearballz72]

Network Vision will improve Sprint. However, Network Vision isn't complete yet. For a lot of people, it's just bad.

When I was on AT&T they went through the same situation with their LTE network rollout. It was terrible (especially in downtown Chicago) and customers complained like crazy. They now love it.

 

[Ry]

When I was on AT&T they went through the same situation with their LTE network rollout. It was terrible (especially in downtown Chicago) and customers complained like crazy. They now love it.

But the fall-back of HSPA and HSPA+ is generally faster than Sprint's fall-back, EVDO rev. A.

 

[Citizen Coyote]

It got me thinking, what does Sprint still need to do to remove this image as the "bargain" carrier, plagued by problem after problem, and make it a truley viable alternative to At&T and Verizon? Within the last year or two they've improved their customer service, in the process of rolling out a new LTE network, made deals with Softbank, Clearwire and U.S. Cellular. They also still have pretty competitive palns, no data capping and a pretty decent lineup of devices.

I think the image problem has longer, deeper roots than that. Sprint was the first carrier to start building out a "4G" network with WiMax. In cities that got it, it was pretty good. But it sucked battery, and a lot of major cities where it was promised never got it before Sprint canned the WiMax build-out in favor of LTE. Second, there was the delay in getting LTE started, partly due to the Lightsquared fiasco. In the meantime, they had released LTE phones with practically no LTE service available. Finally, you have cities that were announced as "first tier" LTE cities still waiting for any kind of LTE news, all while Sprint announces LTE is live for cities that were not on any radar previously. For some, that's just a little too close to the WiMax roll-out for comfort.

Some of this is just growing pains. When Network Vision is fully implemented it should be solid. However, as Ry said, the fallback right now is awful. I know when I was using my Photon as my primary phone my data speeds were rarely over 1mbps unless I managed to get WiMax to connect (and even then, they were usually in the 5-6mbps range). I've heard many horror stories of people stuck in the 100-300kbps range from various parts of the country. For a top-tier provider today, that's inexcusable.

So yes, they are floundering when compared to Verizon or AT&T. Until NV is well established and LTE is common rather than a surprise, I think a lot of people will continue to view Sprint as stumbling. They're taking steps, but their route has been so circuitous that it's hard to see if they're going in a straight line yet. For what it's worth, I think they are even if it came too late for me to stick with Sprint.

 

[anon(394005)]

Citizen Coyote laid it out quite well. But yes, Sprint is most definitely floundering. They're playing catch up after numerous mistakes that have set them back pretty bad. It's not helping that they're rolling out LTE to small markets instead of large ones. It gives off a very bad impression and frustrates those who have been patiently waiting for it. Many of those people rightfully so are fed up and leaving. So how many will have the patience to continue to wait and how many will leave? That's a tough question. Regardless, it's gong to be a long and tough road ahead. I hope I'm wrong, but I seriously question if they will ever truly recover and catch up to Verizon and AT&T.

 

[PWC Realtor]

Sprint seems to be the best at being a network for prepaid and MVNOs. I switched to T-mobile after realizing that paying for unlimited data is useless if even with heavy usage you can only use 500 mb a month because of terrible bandwidth.

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[bearballz72]

Citizen Coyote laid it out quite well. But yes, Sprint is most definitely floundering. They're playing catch up after numerous mistakes that have set them back pretty bad. It's not helping that they're rolling out LTE to small markets instead of large ones. It gives off a very bad impression and frustrates those who have been patiently waiting for it. Many of those people rightfully so are fed up and leaving. So how many will have the patience to continue to wait and how many will leave? That's a tough question. Regardless, it's gong to be a long and tough road ahead. I hope I'm wrong, but I seriously question if they will ever truly recover and catch up to Verizon and AT&T.

The Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Baltimore metro areas are small?



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[kg4icg]

The Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Baltimore metro areas are small?



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Also add DC, Boston, NYC, LA, San Francisco, Miami.

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[anon(394005)]

Also add DC, Boston, NYC, LA, San Francisco, Miami.

The Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Baltimore metro areas are small?

No, those are not small markets, but the problem is that Sprint isn't fully deploying LTE in those markets like Verizon or AT&T has done. Instead they turn on a little here and there which results in sporadic coverage until they get more areas turned up. This adds to the frustration of those who want LTE. They hear a market has been turned up, but the coverage is anything but solid. In comparison, Verizon and to a lesser extent AT&T didn't actually turn up LTE until the vast majority or the entire metro area was ready, thus in effect blanketing the area with coverage and leaving no question that LTE service was turned up. I experienced this first hand in Birmingham, AL where the April 2011 tornados destroyed some cell towers west and northwest of the metro area. Instead of turning up LTE on the unaffected areas and working on the damaged ones, they delayed turning it up by six months until all the towers were ready. I understand Sprint doesn't really have that luxury at this point, but at the same time the way they're turning up LTE is frustrating end users.

 

[bearballz72]

True, but we're not privy to the critteria of what qualifies as a LTE ready area, at least in each of the 4 major carriers minds . But let's be fair here, AT&T and Verizon had a couple years head start on their LTE deployment. AT&T is still announcing new areas.

Sprint's been at this, what 8-10 months (?) and you already have some pretty large metro areas covered. Hindsight always being 20/20, Sprint should of been rolling out LTE instead of Wimax. Now they're playing catch up.

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[gollum18]

I disagree with sprint being a bargain carrier. When NV is finished their network will be just as good as Verizon's or ATTs and definitely better than tmobiles.

If you don't have discounts sprints plans can be just as expensive as Verizon's. We have 5 lines on our plan and our bill runs just under 270$ a month.

Albeit my dad and sister have a plan on Verizon with 2gbs of shared data with unlimited talk and text and their bill runs around 240$ a month. I don't know why people go with verizon, it must be the service because it sure isn't their pricing.

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[kg4icg]

People forget that with VZW and AT&T, LTE was a add on to there network like a stop gap. With Sprint, it is a total network revamp with NV where all the towers except 178 of them will have it all including redoing the back haul.. So to expect it to be done overnight is a pipe dream in of itself.

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[Ry]

I disagree with sprint being a bargain carrier. When NV is finished their network will be just as good as Verizon's or ATTs and definitely better than tmobiles.

If you don't have discounts sprints plans can be just as expensive as Verizon's. We have 5 lines on our plan and our bill runs just under 270$ a month.

Albeit my dad and sister have a plan on Verizon with 2gbs of shared data with unlimited talk and text and their bill runs around 240$ a month. I don't know why people go with verizon, it must be the service because it sure isn't their pricing.

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As long as Sprint is priced where they are relative to Verizon and AT&T, they will be considered a bargain option to those two.

 

[Mellimel22]

The Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Baltimore metro areas are small?



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My thoughts exactly haha

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[Mellimel22]

As long as Sprint is priced where they are relative to Verizon and AT&T, they will be considered a bargain option to those two.

I love sprints pricing and its the reason why half of us is with sprint. And the cs

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[zapfrog]

Last time I had sprint it was sprint/Nextel about 11 years ago when Nextels big thing was walkie talkie phones. Back then they were expensive as hell!

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[Mitri360]

I've been with Sprint for almost 2 years now several different phones 3g, wimax, and now lte. In separate states. I on average use about 10GB a month.

The problems I see with Sprint are that they start and stop their plans before finishing any. Verizon is cdma just the same so why is it Verizon has even evdo everywhere.. let alone lte. There are still to many places where sprint still has 1x as their only option. But they've changed plans 4x since data became a major player.

Att got the iPhone, Verizon got the droid, and sprint had BlackBerry and Palm. So everyone hit the smartphone era around the same time. Sprint has a unfinished look because they don't finish anything.

This time they say lte everywhere. Can we really believe it when after we'll say 5 yrs we still don't have 3g everywhere?

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[kg4icg]

I've been with Sprint for almost 2 years now several different phones 3g, wimax, and now lte. In separate states. I on average use about 10GB a month.

The problems I see with Sprint are that they start and stop their plans before finishing any. Verizon is cdma just the same so why is it Verizon has even evdo everywhere.. let alone lte. There are still to many places where sprint still has 1x as their only option. But they've changed plans 4x since data became a major player.

Att got the iPhone, Verizon got the droid, and sprint had BlackBerry and Palm. So everyone hit the smartphone era around the same time. Sprint has a unfinished look because they don't finish anything.

This time they say lte everywhere. Can we really believe it when after we'll say 5 yrs we still don't have 3g everywhere?

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And you just contradicted yourself. How can you say no 3G in 5 years when you only been with Sprint for 2 years? I've been with Sprint for 16 years before there was even a Verizon Wireless or AT&T wireless. By the way, "Droid" is just a VZW marketing name. Some of the problems Sprint was having over the years is because of VZW and the name it was previous to becoming VZW of today was it wasn't honoring It's roaming agreements and still isn't today. You think redoing your entire network is going to be like what VZW and AT&T doing LTE on another frequency that no one else in the world uses in which LTE roaming agreements will be totally useless. Then turn around and tell there Unlimited customers, no more perks and unlimited is what we say it is, so after 3gb on AT&T you're throttled and VZW makes you pay there retail price on phones which is msrp + 50 dollar mark up just to keep your unlimited in which they could take it away at anytime because after 2 years you are not on a contract anymore. Then there is the restrictions and crap on AT&T and VZW phones that drive people crazy at times, and how long was it after Sprint that VZW and AT&T released the updates for the same models Sprint has.

Then there are the people that say Sprint should have started LTE instead of Wimax, but at the time Sprint and Clear was bringing out Wimax there was no LTE for at least 18 months. so that theory get's thrown out the door, and then the restrictions the FCC placed on Wimax limiting it too a 5mhz carrier while letting AT&T and VZW build LTE with 10 MHz carriers even though Sprint and Clear had enough spectrum to do 10 MHz + carriers in which when they do start rolling over the wimax network and turning it into LTE-TDD, in which they will have 10-20 MHz carriers in the 2500/2600 mhz bands and have roaming in Asia along with it. For now Sprint is rolling out 1X-Advanced on there 800 SMR frequencies while at the same time redoing there 3G network and putting up LTE-FD on there 1900mhz pcs bands. which is 1 of the reasons why Sprint can go with a embedded sim card in there LTE phones because it is on the same frequency as there 3G instead of being like VZW and AT&T on the 700mhz bands.

 

[ubigred]

Sprint LTE needs A LOT work in Houston! :thumbdown::thumbdown:

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