The problem with your thoughts is if someone decides to upgrade their old POS blackberry (old curve or tour) and get the 3g curve, there is nothing about it that says you'll utilize data more than your old blackberry especially if you could give a rat's ass about social crap, yet you're stuck paying $120 more per year. 3g service pretty much is what it is, and they're not utilizing 4g. Some people actually need a smartphone because it's smart. Calendar, contacts and email that aren't nearly as in depth as dumbphones. Yet these people are all being penalized. Not everyone surfs and streams. If that's the case it makes me feel better turning off my radio and streaming TuneIn Radio and Pandora all day long while I'm driving. Use the Sirius app when I have lifetime service on my Stiletto 2. If half the people in my company use a gig or less a month, I might as well use 20gb.
I recetly bought a bunch of BB Curve's ($100 new) and activated them on accounts for people that wanted them so I wouldn't up their phone service. Then on the 29th I'll buy a bunch of 4g phones (shift, epic, and evo) on those accounts, lock in the current non premium plan the BB's are on and utilize those phones elsewhere or just sell them and make money. Can buy some more BB's and do ESN swaps until the contract is up.
Also, the only phones that are really worth their salt are the 4g models. All the rest are crap. So if they're going to be stuck paying the extra $10/mo, might as well get the Evo Shift if you were considering the Transform. The phones are worlds apart. Heck, you could buy the shift, sell it on ebay, buy the transform on ebay and make money.
And, as a small business, the lines now get blurred when it comes to pricing. My business rep hasn't chimed in about the phone upgrades. We've been a customer for well over a decade, but do all of our lines qualify or just the one on the 4000 minute plan? What happens the next time Sprint gives us clunkers like the Moment, Hero, Instinct and Intercept where their useful life is lucky to be a year due to lackluster hardware and lack of updates? That 2nd year is torture.
And your phone is subsidized because of a 2yr service contract. They're not doing you a favor there. They are locking you in knowing they'll recoup that money for two years.
I spent plenty of time defending sprint when all the SERO whiners complained incessantly. But I just don't see the ROI in a blanket way for customers, especially from a company that continues to leak customers like a sieve. One of the companies I represent does a piss poor job of marketing, development and so on. Has a hard time increasing sales because of it, and the products are actually decent. But fixes, updates and such just don't come in a timely manner whatsoever. So what happens, they keep jacking up prices EVERY year so they can satisfy share holders leaving us to scramble, back pedal and such to try and pass along the price increase to the customer, and in some cases we just end up dealing with a lower commission because we can't pass the increase along. But the funny thing is, I don't see improvements coming any sooner, instrumentation for the products getting better. So my extra money goes where? Heck, I have a phone I paid a $50 premium for up front and an extra $10/mo more than normal. And the service they've provided on it has been far less than premium. So I'm already paying more for less, and now the rest of my people get to as well.
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