I used to have sprint years ago back when they were widely known and reviled for their horrible customer service, and due to a few bad run ins myself and the itch for that shiny new iPhone 3G (no S) I switched to AT&T who was ranking much better in customer service at the time. Sprint service at my house was also fairly horrible but to be fair ALL cell service at my house is fairly horrible, AT&T gad 1 bar at best at my place the entire time I had them and Sprint normally went roaming onto verizions network, which was also 1 bar.
4 or 5 years later and AT&T has fallen big time both in customer satisfaction and the whole limited data thing while sprint has done a lot to clean up its image. That old iPhone 3G was getting quite long in the tooth so I decided to bite the bullet and head back to sprint. Obviously them being the only large carrier still offering actually unlimited plans had a lot to do with it, and I'll admit I found their easy to understand billing compared to Verizon and AT&T a bit refreshing (basically the price you see when you're adding it to your cart is the final price not including taxes, where with both Verizon and AT&T the initial price may seem lower but after you've gone halfway through the checkout process and they add on all the extra fees the real price is significantly higher). Add to that I live in one of their LTE markets making the decision even easier.
So I go to the store and walk out with unlimited data + everything else for 20% less than I'd have paid at either V or A, get home, and of course cell reception is still horrible as I mentioned before. I decide to break down and just order one of those femto-cells and fix the problem myself so I go online to the sprint store but can't find anywhere to buy one, which is odd because I knew I saw they came out with one several years back. After a bit of googling I found that the reason it's not on the store is because if you have reception problems at home you just call a special number and they'll review your situation and if they're convinced you have a deadspot they send you the femto cell for free*. I call that number and with minimal fuss they agree to send me one, it arrived today, plugged it in and can now make calls anywhere in the house and areas that used to be roaming 1 bar or just plain no signal now get 3-4 3G bars (it's a 3G femto-cell, doesn't do LTE but I have wireless n at home so who really cares).
So far I'm definitely not regretting my decision to switch, and I'd recommend anybody who had bad experiences in the past to re-evaluate. They definitely seem to have turned themselves around so far
*They did say that the femto-cell would count as another line of some sort on my bill and that ~3$/mo in taxes would need to be collected, but I can't really hold it against sprint if the government is the one adding the fees. I'd assume even if I bought my own on another carrier similar fees would apply there as well
4 or 5 years later and AT&T has fallen big time both in customer satisfaction and the whole limited data thing while sprint has done a lot to clean up its image. That old iPhone 3G was getting quite long in the tooth so I decided to bite the bullet and head back to sprint. Obviously them being the only large carrier still offering actually unlimited plans had a lot to do with it, and I'll admit I found their easy to understand billing compared to Verizon and AT&T a bit refreshing (basically the price you see when you're adding it to your cart is the final price not including taxes, where with both Verizon and AT&T the initial price may seem lower but after you've gone halfway through the checkout process and they add on all the extra fees the real price is significantly higher). Add to that I live in one of their LTE markets making the decision even easier.
So I go to the store and walk out with unlimited data + everything else for 20% less than I'd have paid at either V or A, get home, and of course cell reception is still horrible as I mentioned before. I decide to break down and just order one of those femto-cells and fix the problem myself so I go online to the sprint store but can't find anywhere to buy one, which is odd because I knew I saw they came out with one several years back. After a bit of googling I found that the reason it's not on the store is because if you have reception problems at home you just call a special number and they'll review your situation and if they're convinced you have a deadspot they send you the femto cell for free*. I call that number and with minimal fuss they agree to send me one, it arrived today, plugged it in and can now make calls anywhere in the house and areas that used to be roaming 1 bar or just plain no signal now get 3-4 3G bars (it's a 3G femto-cell, doesn't do LTE but I have wireless n at home so who really cares).
So far I'm definitely not regretting my decision to switch, and I'd recommend anybody who had bad experiences in the past to re-evaluate. They definitely seem to have turned themselves around so far
*They did say that the femto-cell would count as another line of some sort on my bill and that ~3$/mo in taxes would need to be collected, but I can't really hold it against sprint if the government is the one adding the fees. I'd assume even if I bought my own on another carrier similar fees would apply there as well