Our contract with Sprint is coming to an end July 31, 2013 and I'm tired of how much we pay for how poor our Sprint service is.
My wife and I both have an Epic 4G Touch (WiMAX) which we never got service for in Louisville, KY, and Sprint has now abandoned.
I'm not going to stick around in hopes of them ever starting up LTE here.
I've started shopping around, and I really want to switch to T-Mobile.
A co-worker and I sit on the 4th floor of a concrete and steel office building right next to North facing windows. My Sprint 3G bandwidth (Sprint has no "4G" here) is 539kbps/434kbps to a server in town. His T-Mobile 3G bandwidth (test phone did not have 4G) 4299kbps/2302kbps!
My wife can get a ~20% through her office for Verizon, and my mother, who is on our plan, gets 50% from AT&T.
Trying to compare different carrier sites can get confusing, so I built a Google spreadsheet with a lot of numbers and some guessing.
I've spent roughly a week working on it and I've found it to be exceptionally helpful.
So helpful, I want to share it with all of you.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0An3-IhR4bhJvdDJQNjBWWjVpbEtVaU03b2VYZGRVWFE&usp=sharing
I've removed the discounts from the formulas, and put a sales tax field so you can change the sales tax percentage should yours not be 6%.
If you're familiar with how spreadsheets work, you can easily add lines (rows) or service add-ons (columns).
Actual communications taxes and fees vary greatly, so I adjusted the amount to be 14% since that's the number that made the Sprint page match what my account is (not exactly I have a 25% discount on mine, but it would match sans the discount [-ish]).
I don't have a tax law degree nor the time to research exact numbers for every place. This will still give you a rough estimate, and err on the high side hopefully. If you know exactly what yours are, feel free to change it to exactly that.
The sheet is shared publicly, anyone can view without having to login.
If you want to change some stuff you'll need to copy it to your Drive (File > Make a copy...) or download it (File > Download as...).
All sheets except for the Comparison sheet have 3 smartphones and a flip phone.
All you need to do is change the prices to what you get on the carriers' websites.
Watch for cells where I left personalized notes
The Comparison sheet aggregates the data from the other sheets so you can view them all together.
I discovered, from my own needs, T-Mobile would save me around $1000/year.
Mods, please move if this would better serve someplace else.
Feedback is greatly appreciated!
A 500 MB data cap? Ouch...
seandop said:
A 500 MB data cap? Ouch...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's actually more than we need, so there's no point in paying extra for unlimited.
The data used by all 4 lines on my Sprint account is ~800MB on an average month.
So T-Mobile's 500MB is more than enough, but AT&T's 300MB is only enough for one of the lines; unfortunately the next size up is 3GB lol
This is why I used the 1GB ATT Mobile Share plan.
If you need unlimited data, just change the numbers to reflect what you need.
Related
i was bored and was looking aroudn t-mobile uk and vodafone uk.
i found out that pretty much all their phones are free on contract (awesome)
and wireless plans are cheap as heck 60usd gets you 800 min, unlimited texts and internet 60 gets you half that here, if even (heck, it would cost you 35 bucks just to addon unlimited internet and texts)
but now heres where im perplexed, in the us we have unlimited nights and weekends on pretty much all plans and all networks, as well as in-network calling for free.
does that also exist in the uk and europe?
t-mobile used to have those evenings and weekends plans but they don't offer those anymore. Not too sure about Vodafone though.
Free evenings/weekend calls aren't as common on contracts as they used to be, partly due I guess to the increasing headline figure. It is however a releatively common perk on the pay-as-you-go circuit. Top up £x per month, and get free evening and weekend calls.
I can see the logic to it if you assume business users are predominantly on contracts and consumers on PAYG. The business user won't need his work phone out of hours (much), so no point offering unlimited off-peak when you don't have to, and will have their own phone for personal use anyway (part of why there are more mobiles than adults!). The home user is (hopefully!) engaged with work/school during the day, so makes few calls during this period, and if they're a heavy user off-peak, get that as a perk each month when they top up £x.
Also worth bearing in mind with any cross-ocean comparisons is "caller and recipient pay" there vs "caller only" pays here, so assuming an even split of incoming/outgoing calls, 100 minutes in the UK will get you as far as 200 minutes would in the US.
I get unlimited land-line calls on my orange contract - which means that my 800 minutes a month goes very far because only mobile phones come out of that pot.
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Leaked-ATT-Letter-Demolishes-Case-For-TMobile-Merger-115652
Yesterday a partially-redacted document briefly appeared on the FCC website --accidentally posted by a law firm working for AT&T on the $39 billion T-Mobile deal (somewhere there's a paralegal looking for work today). While AT&T engaged in damage control telling reporters that the document contained no new information -- our review of the doc shows that's simply not true. Data in the letter undermines AT&T's primary justification for the massive deal, while highlighting how AT&T is willing to pay a huge premium simply to reduce competition and keep T-Mobile out of Sprint's hands.
We've previously discussed how AT&T's claims of job gains and network investment gained by the deal aren't true, with overall network investment actually being reduced with the elimination of T-Mobile. While AT&T and the CWA are busy telling regulators the deal will increase network investment by $8 billion, out of the other side of their mouth AT&T has been telling investors the deal will reduce investment by $10 billion over 6 years. Based on historical averages T-Mobile would have invested $18 billion during that time frame, which means an overall reduction in investment.
Yet to get the deal approved, AT&T's key talking point to regulators and the press has been the claim that they need T-Mobile to increase LTE network coverage from 80% to 97% of the population. Except it has grown increasingly clear that AT&T doesn't need T-Mobile to accomplish much of anything, and likely would have arrived at 97% simply to keep pace with Verizon. AT&T, who has fewer customers and more spectrum than Verizon (or any other company for that matter), has all the resources and spectrum they need for uniform LTE coverage without this deal.
For the first time the letter pegs the cost of bringing AT&T's LTE coverage from 80% to 97% at $3.8 billion -- quite a cost difference from the $39 billion price tag on the T-Mobile deal. The push for 97% coverage apparently came from AT&T marketing, who was well aware that leaving LTE investment at 80% would leave them at a competitive disadvantage to Verizon. Marketing likely didn't want a repeat of the Luke Wilson map fiasco of a few years back, when Verizon made AT&T look foolish for poor 3G coverage.
The letter also notes that AT&T's supposed decision to "not" build out LTE to 97% was cemented during the first week of January, yet public documents (pdf) indicate that at the same time AT&T was already considering buying T-Mobile, having proposed the deal to Deutsche Telekom on January 15. In the letter, AT&T tries to make it seem like the decision to hold off on that 17% LTE expansion was based on costs. Yet the fact the company was willing to shell out $39 billion one week later, combined with AT&T's track record with these kinds of tactics, suggests AT&T executives knew that 80-97% expansion promise would be a useful carrot on a stick for politicians.
While the $39 billion price certainly delivers AT&T customers, equipment, employees, and spectrum, most of T-Mobile's network replicates AT&T's existing resources in major markets, and T-Mobile's network is significantly less robust in rural markets where AT&T would want to expand. While the deal provides AT&T with a shortcut to sluggish tower builds in a few select markets, by and large AT&T will be faced with terminating many redundant positions and decommissioning a lot of duplicative equipment. They'll also have to close a large number of retail operations and independent retailers.
Again, the reality appears to be that AT&T is giving Deutsche Telekom $39 billion primarily to reduce market competition. That price tag eliminates T-Mobile entirely -- and makes Sprint (and by proxy new LTE partner LightSquared and current partner Clearwire) more susceptible to failure in the face of 80% AT&T/Verizon market domination. How much do you think wireless broadband market dominance is worth to AT&T over the next decade? After all, AT&T will be first to tell you there's a wireless data "tsunami" coming, with AT&T and Verizon on the shore eagerly billing users up to $10 per gigabyte.
Regardless of the motivation behind rejecting 97% LTE deployment, the letter proves AT&T's claim they need T-Mobile to improve LTE coverage from 80-97% simply isn't true. That's a huge problem for AT&T, since nearly every politician and non-profit that has voiced support for the merger did so based largely on this buildout promise. It's also a problem when it comes to the DOJ review, since proof that AT&T could complete their LTE build for far less than the cost of this deal means the deal doesn't meet the DOJ's standard for merger-specific benefits.
Taken from CheezyNutz in the 3d forums.
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using XDA Premium App
Don't buy this for a second, either way, Sprint won't ever be in Financial position to purchase T-Mobile
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA App
Thanks
Nice update to see, I definitely am not a fan and hope this merger/acquisition fails.
if they do, it will end up bad
look what verizon did with alltell a few years ago.
altell exists now as a small farm-towm carrier
Hi, all.
I realised today that having a 5GB cap on my main internet connection is pretty low, since I either go over it or edge close to it every billing cycle. It really sucks when they throttle it; it's worse than EDGE in most cases, and totally impossible to use with work. Since I found out that they now have a plan with a 10GB data cap, I figured I'd jump on it.
Turns out that not only would doing this extend my contract two more years (don't want to do this), it would actually increase the amount I pay now since the rate plan on the 5GB data plan was increased to $49.99 from $39.99. That obviously sucks.
Worse, I head over to Verizon's page and they're offering the same plans at, practically, the same prices. On top of that, they have real 4G coverage (FiOS- or cable-ike speeds) whereas T-Mobile's HSPA+ signal is not great in my area (not much better than 3.0 Mbps DSL connection).
I'm extremely close to switching (don't mind paying cancellation fees; could probably get some of them back from selling the modem) , but want to hear other people's experiences first. Does anyone here have a data plan with them and, if so, are you satisfied?
Please use the Q&A Forum for questions Thanks
Moving to Q&A
well i just signed up with tmobile oct 17th and today i am already over 1gb. I wil be switching back to sprint simply because they have the unlimited data. I am really pissed though because i don't like any of sprints phones.
Real unlimited w/o throttling. For as long as you stay with them. I have been with the various iterations of cingular/at&t for about 30 years now. They tier and seperate device charges, give a little less for a little more. I am really fed up with them. Verizion is s.o.s. also. Thing is t-mobile has a history of crappy phone selection and their customer service is rated low. this is a limited time offer and Gold and Platinum users are given priority, not sure what the hang that amounts to, but it is a wierd clause. My AT&T chains will be not be severed until Nov. and I am thinking of switching, getting a low cost phone till one of the next gen phones come out. Be nice not to have to worry about a data limit. Just like the ol' days.
I have been a loyal Sprint customer for ten years now (please don't judge). At one point, I was even on SERO and my wife convinced me to switch to a family plan (once again, please don't judge). Anyway, here I am today out of contract with 2 smartphones (Evo and Epic 4G), 1500 anytime minutes, an Airave (since Sprint doesn't work in my home), terrible 4G service (in Central Florida) and a $155/month bill all after a 22% discount. I'm ready to make a drastic change.
After looking at Sprint's website, combined my wife and I use a monthly average of 1200 minutes (about 1000 of them are mobile-2-mobile), 3000 text messages, and about 1.9GB data. We are pretty equal on data on texts, but I use about 300-400 minutes and she uses the rest (her phone doubles as a work phone).
I have been going back and forth with either renewing Sprint, signing my life away to Verizon, or going prepaid. The benefit of going with Verizon is that I also get a 17% discount (work) off their service. However, that only covers the data plan (stupid). So, I could fork over about $138+tax and move to unlimited everything with 4GB of shared data. My wife likes this idea because we don't have to worry about roaming and Verizon has decent service in Central Florida (as well as other places that we travel). Plus, she can get an iPhone 5 (but she may change her mind if navigation doesn't improve). Since we have a newborn though she is constantly taking pictures with her phone and sending them to family so I thought an iPhone 5 would be decent for that.
I like the idea of buying a couple of Galaxy Nexus's and going with two Straight Talk lines. We have been on Android devices for so long I hate to give them up especially after seeing Jelly Bean in action. Plus to me an iPhone is just like my iPad just pocket sized...why do I need two? However, if we travel to an area where there is no service the phone doesn't Roam, it just stops working. She is in sales and unfortunately has to work at times such as Christmas where we will be in an area where T-Mobile and/or AT&T don't work but Verizon does.
I thought about even putting her on Straight Talk and me on TMo $30 using the VOIP (since I work from home I don't see myself going over 100 cellular minutes a month if I'm careful).
Now, I've been reading about Solavei ($50/mnth) which allows roaming but I'm not to keen on MLMs. (I've seen MLMs break a few friends). However, since you don't have to participate in them this could be an option.
So, the question is, what would you do? Is the Galaxy Nexus worth the $350 on a prepaid vs. buying an iPhone 5 and getting locked for another 2 years? The money isn't really the issue (since we are already budgeted for the $155 per month but it would be nice to save some $$). How often do you find yourself Roaming on Straight Talk or TMo? How is the VOIP? What about Solavei (I read a forum about it and it sounds enticing, but once again MLMs bug the hell out of me).
I guess I'm not looking for some straight answers, but maybe someone to help me straighten out my thoughts. I really appreciate any feedback.
Thanks for reading.