Sprint Wireless Broadband--all good things must come to a crashing end

[Matt Meiser]

I just received notice from Sprint that they are changing my Unlimited mobile broadband plan to a 5GB per month mobile broadband plan. Working from home, that is WAY under my monthly usage. Still no wired service available at my house so it looks like I'm either going back to satellite or taking a gamble and hoping that Alltel keeps their unlimited plan once the Verizon merger goes through--their reps have been told to tell people that they will have it for at least the term of their contract. The final decision is actually up to the owners of my company since they pay the bill. Current leaning is towards the latter.

Luckily Sprint's lawyers have come to their senses and realized that this a change to the terms and conditions of the contract so they are letting people out without fees. I still smell a class action lawsuit.

[Lee Schierer]

Matt, in some areas Verizon offers a high speed DSL plan for your home phone.

[Matt Meiser]

Not mine. All I can get from Verizon, who is my local carrier, is maybe a T1 line at ~$500+.

[Doug Jones from Oregon]

Matt...say it is not so! I too am with Sprint, Wireless broadband and would be very unhappy if they tried this with me...I have not received any such notice, yet.

Could be the deciding factor in me moving since the only alternative I have here is a land line with dsl that I don't want...used to run me $100 a month because it was considered commercial with no alternative.

Doug

[Matt Meiser]

Doug, look at your bill for this month, in the news section. Apparently existing "corporate liable" accounts aren't affected yet. I'm waiting for a call back to see if we could transfer liability for my account from me to my employer and keep me going.

I get my bill electronically. It was about 10 days late being posted for me to download. Apparently this was all announced around Friday so I assume they were holding up the bill to finalize this.

[Jim Becker]

Definitely get on corp liability, Matt, if you can do that! It would save you the problem of changing carriers, especially since it's actually working fine for you based on your reports.

As to the issue, all the major carriers are considering this type of change given the big ramp up of folks using smart phones and a lot more data transfer than in the past. I honestly think that the industry is headed to a "pay for usage" model down the road...and that's not just for wireless, but also for other forms of broadband. There is a lot of discussion about that right now.

[Matt Meiser]

Pay for usage would be better than what they are doing. According to the person I talked to yesterday, there is no option to pay for additional service.

[Doug Jones from Oregon]

Hmmm, bill, you mean that paper thing I fold up and put back into the envelope without looking at? I'm just so ticked with Sprint that I can't for whatever reason get on line access to pay my bill...the one reason I need to keep stamps around in
Sprint! Oh well, have the bill sitting on my desk waiting to open and process, guess I'll have to look at it now! Thanks for the heads up.

Doug

[Doug Jones from Oregon]

Matt, when I originally signed up they had two plans. One for a very minimal amount of download, 5mb might have been the number, and then a extra charge for the overage. They screwed up and put me on that plan and my first months charges were 3X the unlimited plan....

Doug

[Matt Meiser]

They still have 2, but now they are 40MB and 5GB instead of 40MB and Unlimited. You are forced to Unlimited, which as I understand is a material change to the T&C meaning you can at least get out of the contract.

[Joe D'Attilio]

Backi n the day...probably around 94-2000 I have worked for Cellular One(Venaguard Cellular), AT&T, Cellular One(Southwestern Bell), Cingular(merger between SBC and Bellsouth)- now AT&T.

I have seen the changes inside and out.

Just a little reference, here's a trip down Memory Lane...

At 19

ANALOG SVC .6 watt or 3 watt phone(bag and hardwire)
All phones compatible with any carrier or network

Pagers / Beepers just as popular.

Salary: $21,000 / annually and $18,000 in commissions.

Basic Plans: $29.95 for 45 mins and Overage Peak / Off peak minutes at differing costs per min.($.45/min / $.25/min)
Upgrade Plan: $39.95 75 mins no such thing as Free Nights, just weekends
Overage Peak / Off peak minutes at differing costs per min.($.39/min / $.20/min)

Coverage: Regional a COUNTY - IF YOU CAN GET A SIGNAL

Roaming: up to $2.00 and up / min + Long Distance
IF YOU CAN GET A SIGNAL oyu need the Roaming Manual todial the correct code

Voice Mail: $9.99/mon depending on package - What's call waiting, etc

Text: Huh?

PHONES: 2 hard wire, 3 bag phones and 2 handhelds to choose from


PHONE PRICES: FREE???? $50 min up to $800-$1000 for "the smallest phone" = Startac

at 23

Salary: $23,000 / annually and $10,000 in commissions.

DIGITAL PLATFORMS INTRODUCED (Carries split - CDMA - TDMA/ 90% of areas still Analog - Phones now need to be pruchased for changing carriers as most will not be compatible on different networks.

Pagers / Beepers were disocunted with Phone plan
Basic Plans: $19.95 for 60 mins and Overage Peak / Off peak minutes at differing costs per min.($.30/min / $.25/min)
Upgrade Plan: $39.95 90 mins no such thing as Free Nights, just weekends
Overage Peak / Off peak minutes at differing costs per min.($.20/min / $.15/min)

Coverage: 4-5 COUNTIES

ROAMING: $.99 /min + Long Distance - Std 10 digit dialing

Voice Mail: $4.99/mon also includes Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, No-Answer Transfer etc

Text: $9.99 for 100 texts (varying plans)

PHONES: 2-3 Mfgs to choose from 5-6 models each (including handhelds and hardwire) More expensive phones needed to be purchased to access new features or even a vibrating ring

PHONE PRICES: Free phone with activiation -

at 26

100% DIGITAL Phones still not 100% compatible across networks

What's a pager/beeper?

Salary: $26,000 / annually and $6,000 in commissions.

Basic Plans: $19.95 for 60 mins and Overage Peak / Off peak minutes at differing costs per min.($.10/min / $.10/min) FREE NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS
Upgrade Plan: $39.95 90 FREE NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS
Overage Peak / Off peak minutes at differing costs per min.($.10/min / $.10/min)

Coverage: NATIONWIDE Free Long Distance

ROAMING: $.99 / min

Voice Mail: Free - also includes Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, No-Answer Transfer etc

Text: $9.99 Unlimited

PHONES: All handhelds Mfg varies by carrier, 10+ Mfgs hundreds of models

PHONE PRICES: Free phones not available w/o rebate. Revert back to purchasing phones.

Internet: $9.99 or $19.99

As you can see the salary went up sparingly, quotas went up, services increased, prices stayed the same.

So yeah I'm with Jim on this, they will start charging for usage any day now. The prices may stay the same, services will obviously increase, but you need to pay for them...Nothing is free anymore...

Just my $0.02 as I sold it all