Sprint discussion in face of 3G/4G competition (and a little GB)

[SamuraiBigEd]

Got to second that! I've had Sprint since '00 - back when they were Radio Shack only I believe - have lived all over the country, and NEVER had reception issues. Now, customer service on the other hand has been abysmal at times, but that's what the retentions dept. is for.

Sprint has never been exclusively sold by Radio Shack.

What I have been told but haven't been able to verify is that it was started by the C.E.O. of Southern Pacific rail road, hence the first two letters of the name. It was started as a cell service for the employees.

On edit: Found a little more info on it here - http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Sprint-Corporation-Company-History.html wasn't exactly how it was explained to me, but the chain of events shows the connection.

 

[SaleenFiend]

Got to second that! I've had Sprint since '00 - back when they were Radio Shack only I believe - have lived all over the country, and NEVER had reception issues. Now, customer service on the other hand has been abysmal at times, but that's what the retentions dept. is for.

I've had my share of isssues with Sprint thoughout the 10 years.. but I'm sure I would have had these anywhere else. Nothing has been left 'unsettled' so to say with Sprint. Someone, somewhere within their food chain has always found an applicable solution to my problem. I may have not been favorable of all of them, but some of them may have not been favorable in Sprint's eyes either.

BTW Sprint was never exclusive to RadioShack.. it just seemed they were heavily involved in Radio Shack. I bought my first Sprint phone @ a Sprint Store in 1999. (It's crazy how time flies - I was thinking I've been with Sprint for a bout 10 years... well It's actually been 12!!) They have made a lifelong customer out of me (possibly) and I'm sure I have given them a profitable gross in my department.

Jaws music....

AndroidSPIN Desire HD Gets Leaked Gingerbread

Cliffs would be great.. I'm at work!(& it's blocked)

 

[drexappeal]

BTW Sprint was never exclusive to RadioShack.. it just seemed they were heavily involved in Radio Shack. I bought my first Sprint phone @ a Sprint Store in 1999. (It's crazy how time flies - I was thinking I've been with Sprint for a bout 10 years... well It's actually been 12!!) They have made a lifelong customer out of me (possibly) and I'm sure I have given them a profitable gross in my department.

I've been with Sprint around that long as well. I don't think Sprint has ever been "exclusive" to Radio Shack, but I do remember them as the only "major" 3rd party chain that sold Sprint phones, until Best Buy ventured into it and then afterwards, Target, Walmart, Amazon, Online retailers, etc. started selling Sprint.

 

[drexappeal]

great points..

but you forgot tmobile...

and the saying..the squeaky wheel gets the grease... and iphone on att and verizon is the squeaky wheel. they need to spend more time and energy to battle on that front.. to not give up that battlefield and let the enemy do as they please.

but I am on sprint.. and I like your way of thinking..

LOL...Actually, I left t-mobile out on purpose. Ultimately, the amount of units/customers t-mobile has still has them somewhat in the bottom dwellers as far as providers are concerned, even though they have some great quality phones on their network and their network is not as bad as people make it out to be. I do find it funny how their push for "the biggest 4g network" is going, running on HSPA+. Just shows that the general consumer really would have no knowledge of the difference.

We'll see what happens, but there could be huge strides with HTC on all of the networks if they strategize appropriately.

DOH...Maybe I should've included T-Mobile in the discussion. I don't know how difficult the transition of a merger would be, but I think it would be in the best interests of BOTH providers to make it happen:

Post Tech - Analysts weigh in on Sprint, T-Mobile merger

There were talks of a possible merger 4 or 5 years back and that fell apart at one point. With the revived success of Sprint's Android phones (EVO, EPIC, EVO SHIFT) and T-Mobile's increasing popularity, it may just be a business merger that'll push them closer to competing with ATT & Verizon.

Question: Does anybody know if T-Mobile ever intended on going with LTE at some point or sticking with their HSPA+ (e.g. what they call 4G)?

Only issue that I can't really comment on (because I really have no knowledge of it) is how difficult it would be to merge the networks and technologies. If it's as difficult or worse as the Nextel merger with Sprint, then obviously that would be a failure just thinking of the concept. Even until now, I didn't know that Nextel built phones on Sprint are still running on a completely separate (thought they integrated), so when I upgraded one of my secondary phones to the new Motorola i880, I discovered really quick that it was a bad decision (Nextel phone = 0 service at my house).

 

[Slice28]

I had nextel for the longest time and then they converged with sprint at about which time the whole gimmicky walkie talkie thing died down and then I want to tmobile to jump on the sidekick bandwagon and just last june switched to sprint solely to buy an Evo because tmobile had such an embarrassing selection of android phones, which now has of course changed drastically, however im pretty pleased with sprint.. i seemed to get better 3g speeds out of tmobile in my area but i do get 4g since i live in philly, although it hardly ever works indoors which sucks.. all in all im happy about my switch to sprint, the evo has been a great phone and the service is very reliable

 

[3volut1on]

I stand corrected. I thought I read somewhere that Radio Shack was the first outlet for Sprint Phones back in the late 90's.

3G service has been excellent. 4G OTOH, has been non-existent as I'm in Phoenix. From what I'm reading I don't think Phoenix is ever going to see a Wimax signal with the current state of Clearwire and Sprints talks with Lightsquared and T-Mobile.

 

[JunBringer]

Hence, I convinced one family member to go from iPhone4 to a Motorola Atrix. I convinced one to go Blackberry Curve to Samsung Captivate (galaxy s on ATT). I convinced 2 family members to upgrade to Samsung Epic, 2 to get the EVO, 1 to get the Evo Shift, etc, etc...

Well done dude!