Sprint ETF

[eharty]

Sprint service where I live (western Chicago suburbs) has gotten so bad that every call on either of our phones is dropped at least once during the call. Data speeds are so slow that I no longer bother unless I have a wifi connection. So, I was wondering if anyone had been able to avoid the ETF due to the poor service?

 

[yellar]

I was with sprint for about 6 months and their data speed was horrid here in north east Oklahoma also. I got out of my contract for free but wasn't really trying to. I found a prl hack to force my phone onto Verizon for data that actually worked, and even tho I used 4-8 gb of data a month, it was actually my wife's line they flagged and wanted to cancel over because she used 3-4 gb every month listening to pandora at work. I worked for sprint and short of moving to an area they don't have service or constantly roaming they won't let you out. All they will do is offer an airave to use at your house. The only sure fire thing is to force your phone to roam and use a bunch of data every month. They have so much fine print about their data speeds its not funny. About the only thing you may get is credit on your bill for dropped calls because they allow so many a month, I forget what the number is but they will credit you for them up to 20 dollars if I remember right

 

[Paul627g]

@Ed_H.. Hey friend, I know we have touched on things together in the past..

Anyways , your correct dropped calls and service has turned to utter garbage here in the burbs of Chicago... Plainfield here and its horrible... I contacted Sprint the other day and got a one of the uncooperative reps. Got the usual speech... "Were sorry for your inconvenience that you have been having... " The rep was a real "help" he verified that we have good 3g/4g voice coverage here in Chicago.. LMAO....

When I complained about the dropped calls I was told they can offer the Airave.. Again I said great but that doesn't help service away from my home. I told the rep I don't even bother using my phone from home anymore, wife just texts me when she needs to talk and I use the house phone and call her work phone on a competing carrier with good service.


Bottom line, its going to be an uphill battle with Sprint. They know the service is horrible here, I walk into my local store and the reps there are repeating the same speech over and over again to the customers complaining saying how it will be better once the Network Vision upgrade is finished...

 

[eharty]

Hey Paul...good to hear from you!

I know what you mean...I was on a call with a client yesterday and the call dropped 3 times before I gave up and had to go home to call from a land line.

Sprint tells me that I have good coverage and to get my phone serviced. My wife's phone also has the same issues with dropped calls and no data so it is unlikely that both phones are screwed up. Ironically, Sprint's coverage map shows great voice, 3G and 4G coverage in all the places where we have problems and they talk about many improvements already made in the area! Sprint gave us an Airave and it helps at home but even that has issues sometimes with the phones not connecting properly or garbled sound.

It is nice that Sprint is cheaper but that is not an advantage if there is no coverage. As much as I dislike the idea of changing to VZW or AT&T, we have to have phones that work. I hate the idea of having to pay the ETF since the only reason I would change to another carrier is Sprint's crappy coverage.

I sure would like to get a GS III but not on Sprint.

 

[briankeene]

Well I'm in Plainfield too and I'm tired off playing with them. I will be watching netflix ALOT, I watched 1 hour coming home from work and my phone is watching netflix next to me. Well its trying to keep a signal. I will burn as much data as I can and hopefully they cancel me!

 

[jean15paul]

Well I'm in Plainfield too and I'm tired off playing with them. I will be watching netflix ALOT, I watched 1 hour coming home from work and my phone is watching netflix next to me. Well its trying to keep a signal. I will burn as much data as I can and hopefully they cancel me!

They will only cancel you for too much data if you're roaming because roaming cost them money.

There is one other option. Occasionally Sprint changes the terms of their contracts, and when they do you have something like 3 months to refuse the new terms and cancel without an ETF. They've actually done this twice in the last year (once by increasing some service fee, and once by changing the way discounts are applied to multi-line accounts). This isn't something you can control, and I don't know if any other changes are coming soon, but if you're looking to leave keep your eyes open for contract changes.