You can say nope as much as you like, but it doesn't make you right. As you just said, they never said it was because of 4G. It started with the EVO, but it was for all smart phones and was called premium data. Just because it started on the EVO doesn't mean it was for 4G. This has been discussed extensively in the past and confirmed many times over. The facts are clear
Sprint LTE
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You can say nope as much as you like, but it doesn't make you right. As you just said, they never said it was because of 4G. It started with the EVO, but it was for all smart phones and was called premium data. Just because it started on the EVO doesn't mean it was for 4G. This has been discussed extensively in the past and confirmed many times over. The facts are clear
dchawk81
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This is accurate. It started out on 4G smartphones only, and did not switch to all smartphones until last year. And I know that's true because I bought my EVO last summer and switched my Optimus S to my second line at that time, the Optimus line does not have the $10 "premium data" charge on it but my 3VO does.
I'm not sure what caused them to change it necessarily - it could have been from complaints from the lack of WiMAX coverage or it could have been to compensate for extensive data use from heavy users like us. I'm not going to pretend to know. All I know is up until some time last year it was for "advanced devices" only - the ones with 4G antennas.
Sent from my 3VO using Tapatalk
Most of Sprint's current suffering was caused by Gary D. Forsee, the previous CEO. He ran up the share price through a series of stunts and gutted customer service and the network. For his efforts he was recognized by Forbes and named one of their, "Worst CEOs" in 2009. Customers who complained too much about the Sprint's poor service were booted. The, "we'll build a crappy WiMax network and call it 4G and see if anyone notices" plan was his. The Sprint-Nextel merger was his too. He drove customers away in droves.
Dan Hesse's main mission is to stem the churn. He isn't interested in fixing Sprint - he's fattening the piggy to take it to market. Both Sprint and TMO are for sale and a healthy, growing network sells for more than a sickly, shrinking one. He's had to take some chances to turn Sprint around and some have paid off (iPhone) and some haven't (Lightsquared). The clock's ticking and he has to turn things around before Sprint runs out of cash. Sprint is serious about the LTE rollout and will get it built just as soon as their cash on hand will allow it.
Who would buy such a steaming pile? There almost as many suspects and motives as an Agatha Christie novel.
Microsoft - With the growth of smartphones running iOS and Android a lot of customers are being exposed to new operating systems and becoming OS agnostic. How are you going to keep them on the Redmond plantation once they've seen the usability and versatility of apps from Apple and Play Android (WTF is that all about?)?
MS has tried to rush a new WinCE shell into the smartphone market, but it's too little, too late. As of Q4 only 1.4% of handsets sold were WinPhones. Carriers are reluctant to carry them because they don't sell. Customers don't see them as viable in part because the carriers don't carry many of them, there aren't as many apps for them and their hardware is a couple of steps behind the competition. To rub salt in the wound Apple is dominating in the phone and tablet markets. Buying a carrier would let MS dictate that all new phones sold would be WinPhones and give them a push towards market relevance once again - at least until all the customers left.
Apple - Apple has enjoyed great success in portable devices. While Apple makes a lot of money selling devices the carriers do take a cut. Why share? Apple is famous for vertical integration and having their own network would allow them to ring the cash register one more time. Ownership would also give them more control over the user experience. Making the best phone kind of loses some shine when you let AT&T provide the service. If they bought their own network and made the newest iPhone an exclusive to the iNetwork there would be MASSIVE churn. Of course, they would be able to charge more for the premium Apple service as well.
Google - The success of Android and the acquisition of Motorola has put Google firmly in the phone and tablet markets. Google didn't write Android to spread the gospel of open source - they did it to better gather user data to sell targeted advertising with, just like they did with Chrome and Google.com. A national wireless network would give them even more ways to track customers and gather data. They would also be able to have data-links in their self-driving cars. Google would most likely be a defensive acquisition though (ie. they would buy after Apple or MS bought another network and started locking them out).
Amazon - Their success with the Kindle and Fire makes them widely viewed as the next tech phone company. Amazon uses data for their tablets and to provide their service. They recently announced a deal with Delta Airlines that would let you use wi-fi on Delta flights for free, as long as you use it to shop on Amazon. With their own devices and their own sales portal their own network would let them make Amazon.com your homepage, let Amazon Prime members have unlimited data on their phone plans, let customers have cheaper plans/phones for devices that show ads or open the doors for all kinds of bundled promotions.
Telef?nica, S.A. - a Spanish broadband and telecommunications provider in Europe and Latin America. Operating globally, it is the third largest provider in the world. They've been chomping at the bit to expand into the U.S.
Expect an acquisition announcement in the next 6 months+. Expect another announcement shortly afterwards.
Dan Hesse's main mission is to stem the churn. He isn't interested in fixing Sprint - he's fattening the piggy to take it to market. Both Sprint and TMO are for sale and a healthy, growing network sells for more than a sickly, shrinking one. He's had to take some chances to turn Sprint around and some have paid off (iPhone) and some haven't (Lightsquared). The clock's ticking and he has to turn things around before Sprint runs out of cash. Sprint is serious about the LTE rollout and will get it built just as soon as their cash on hand will allow it.
Who would buy such a steaming pile? There almost as many suspects and motives as an Agatha Christie novel.
Microsoft - With the growth of smartphones running iOS and Android a lot of customers are being exposed to new operating systems and becoming OS agnostic. How are you going to keep them on the Redmond plantation once they've seen the usability and versatility of apps from Apple and Play Android (WTF is that all about?)?
MS has tried to rush a new WinCE shell into the smartphone market, but it's too little, too late. As of Q4 only 1.4% of handsets sold were WinPhones. Carriers are reluctant to carry them because they don't sell. Customers don't see them as viable in part because the carriers don't carry many of them, there aren't as many apps for them and their hardware is a couple of steps behind the competition. To rub salt in the wound Apple is dominating in the phone and tablet markets. Buying a carrier would let MS dictate that all new phones sold would be WinPhones and give them a push towards market relevance once again - at least until all the customers left.
Apple - Apple has enjoyed great success in portable devices. While Apple makes a lot of money selling devices the carriers do take a cut. Why share? Apple is famous for vertical integration and having their own network would allow them to ring the cash register one more time. Ownership would also give them more control over the user experience. Making the best phone kind of loses some shine when you let AT&T provide the service. If they bought their own network and made the newest iPhone an exclusive to the iNetwork there would be MASSIVE churn. Of course, they would be able to charge more for the premium Apple service as well.
Google - The success of Android and the acquisition of Motorola has put Google firmly in the phone and tablet markets. Google didn't write Android to spread the gospel of open source - they did it to better gather user data to sell targeted advertising with, just like they did with Chrome and Google.com. A national wireless network would give them even more ways to track customers and gather data. They would also be able to have data-links in their self-driving cars. Google would most likely be a defensive acquisition though (ie. they would buy after Apple or MS bought another network and started locking them out).
Amazon - Their success with the Kindle and Fire makes them widely viewed as the next tech phone company. Amazon uses data for their tablets and to provide their service. They recently announced a deal with Delta Airlines that would let you use wi-fi on Delta flights for free, as long as you use it to shop on Amazon. With their own devices and their own sales portal their own network would let them make Amazon.com your homepage, let Amazon Prime members have unlimited data on their phone plans, let customers have cheaper plans/phones for devices that show ads or open the doors for all kinds of bundled promotions.
Telef?nica, S.A. - a Spanish broadband and telecommunications provider in Europe and Latin America. Operating globally, it is the third largest provider in the world. They've been chomping at the bit to expand into the U.S.
Expect an acquisition announcement in the next 6 months+. Expect another announcement shortly afterwards.
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um, what? They don't need to convince me of anything. I'm just telling you what it was. They NEVER said it was a 4G charge. You've already admitted this yourself, so why are we still arguing?
As I said, it started with the EVO. With new contracts on smartphones it started shortly after.
Again, this has been discussed at length here. Feel free to go back to old threads and look it up
HawaiiD
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leanaf82
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From June 4, 2010 January 29, 2011 only 4g smart phones were getting charged the $10 dollars. Between that time everyone who got an upgrade to a 3g smart phone, opened a new line with a 3g smart phone, activated a 3g smart phone or did an ESN swap to a 3g smart phone did not get charged this fee. During the period of time of all of the smart phones released only the phones charged this fee was the Evo 4G, the Epic 4G, and the Evo Shift 4G. It would seem logical to me if it was not originally a charge for 4g all new smart phones released after the Evo 4g would be charged the "Premium Data Fee". Sprint never officially said it was a 4g fee but if you look at the facts it was. When Sprint decided to started charging the Premium Data Fee to every customer who upgraded to a smart phone, opened a new line with smart phone, activated a smart phone or did an ESN swap to a smart phone their was press release about the new charges and an article on the Android Central main page about it. I know Sprint never said it was a 4g fee but they call it "premium data" which was a vague way of saying 4g. It had to be a lawyer who came up with that term. When they started taking heat for charging the fee to customers in non 4g areas the changed they meaning of premium data. If my 3g speeds are premium then so was my dial up aol.
Sprint only charged this fee to 4g smart phones owners for a half a year and never mentioned anything about charging this fee to 3g smart phones until January 18, 2011 (7 months, 14 days later). http://newsroom.sprint.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=1771
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And data plans were once optional on all phones. Now they are required on smartphones. When and where charges started is not really relevant. As phones so more, charges change. We're talking about a company that started charging $10 per smartphone vs capping data, charging $30 for capped data, throttling data, etc.
Phones change, networks change, plans change. If anyone with an android is on the same plan they were on ten years ago on any carrier raise your hand. You can argue the point of what it is as much as you want. The fact is you will pay an average of ten dollars less on Sprint than any other postpaid provider with no cap or throttle.
Phones will continue to change, and plans will follow. Only way I've seen to avoid such charges is to get a flip phone and never upgrade.
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk
Phones change, networks change, plans change. If anyone with an android is on the same plan they were on ten years ago on any carrier raise your hand. You can argue the point of what it is as much as you want. The fact is you will pay an average of ten dollars less on Sprint than any other postpaid provider with no cap or throttle.
Phones will continue to change, and plans will follow. Only way I've seen to avoid such charges is to get a flip phone and never upgrade.
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk
leanaf82
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- Sep 1, 2010
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I might have rambled and ranted a bit in my previous post but my point was that Sprint gave a vague explanation of the original fee either because of incompetence and poor communication or to cover themselves form litigation for charging for a features only available in limited areas. For those 7 months it was a 4g fee because it was only charged to 4g phones. After the changes went into effect on 01/30/11 I still saw people complaining about the fee on 4g not knowing that policy had changed.Those were the people who I saw being corrected in certain threads.
OK, I'm done with that subject I like what Sprint offers overall compared with the other carriers. They are affordable, they offer unlimited data, and I have few dropped calls. Every time I get a dropped call it's with someone on att. I think Sprint is headed in the right direction with network vision. Att seems to be moving slow in their lte roll out and Verizon has their occasional lte blackouts which shows they still are working the kinks out. I feel good about Sprint.
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Exactly. As I said, Sprint never said it was for 4G. That's all. We all know it was, but that is not what they said or advertised. It was also suggested in the beginning that it would be applied to all smartphones at some point.
Does anyone know how fast Sprint's LTE will be since they're only using 5x5 MHz block of spectrum vs. AT&T and Verizon who have twice as much LTE spectrum?
j_grouchy
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- Apr 5, 2011
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I think you can avoid the $10/month charge if you buy one of those "eco" smart phones like the Replenish. Not sure if that is still part of the deal, but it was last year when I was upgrading.
Yeah, that's one way, but that's a limited time deal. I just meant in terms of standard policy it goes on any smartphone.
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Cool virgin islands before phoenix az how stupid. By the time lte comes out all the first hand lte phones will be obsolete
Its easier to cover an island than it is to cover a major metropolitan area.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
Except for a few protection sites Phoenix never got WiMax either. If I wanted to get a WiMax signal I would have to drive more than 30 minutes from my home or workplace. Sprint had been promising a WiMax rollout in Phoenix up to the day they announced their 4G u-turn.
It would be one thing if Sprint focused on small deployments (islands, prisons, leper colonies) FIRST, but they're not. Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles are all first-round cities and an odd collection of large areas and third-rate cities are also in the first two rollouts but not Phoenix. Places like Minnesota, "South West Florida", "Southern Connecticut", "West Michigan", "West Washington" on the one hand and "cities" like Detroit, Indianapolis and San Bernardino on the other. If Sprint wants to sell service in Phoenix they need to support it - otherwise GTFO.
It would be one thing if Sprint focused on small deployments (islands, prisons, leper colonies) FIRST, but they're not. Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles are all first-round cities and an odd collection of large areas and third-rate cities are also in the first two rollouts but not Phoenix. Places like Minnesota, "South West Florida", "Southern Connecticut", "West Michigan", "West Washington" on the one hand and "cities" like Detroit, Indianapolis and San Bernardino on the other. If Sprint wants to sell service in Phoenix they need to support it - otherwise GTFO.
I agree I have to drive far just to get wimax....its horrible...sprint needs to rethink where they should deploy lte first. I would just like a 4g phone that's actual 4g
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