Sprint Effing Up

Sprint’s zillion dollar deal to get that iPhone is also buying them a reputation for intolerably poor network performance. It’s a snafu. Even the Zimbabweans are talking trash!

This Sprint subscriber comment, one of over 1200 from an eighty paged thread with 220K+ views (also getting some press), encapsulates the increasingly vocal discontent among Sprinters:

I have been a Sprint user for years and have been using the Evo 4G since the launch date I Purchased the Iphone 4S yesterday and have terrible results as far as network speed. On the EVO I consistantly got 120 kB/s on 3G at least; so far with the Iphone the most I’ve got is 45 kB/s but most of the time is closer to 15 kB/s.

Feel this lady’s pain, feel it:

When I was in the grocery store yesterday I was trying to use my 4S for data and couldn’t.  I had a full 5 bars of signal and a 3G symbol and it wouldn’t connect, so then I ran a test and was getting 0.00Mbps – 0.01Mbps.  Went outside and only got 2 bars and was getting 0.25Mbps.  How can Sprint explain this if they are not throttling speeds or if there is no antenna problem?  I’m not paying Sprint for Wi-Fi access, I’m paying them for 3G which they don’t provide even though there are plenty of towers in my area.

I think I’m now locked into the contract so the only way out is to sell the phone for full price on eBay and pay the ETF or tell Sprint to shove it and report me to collections. Maybe Sprint will go out of business soon and then we can all sign up our phones with another carrier with no contract.

These people are actually begging each other not to run speed tests in order to save bandwidth. And not just iPhone owners, this guy’s got an Android, taking a below-the-belt jab at Sprint:

I really think it is sprint. My EVO timmed out trying to load the google search page. I have never had data so slow from sprint. I ran speed test.net and I’m only getting 4 or 5 K download speeds. I’m getting frustrated.

Sent from the NOW MAYBE LATER Network.

Ouch:

An earlier poster here back to update everyone on my spped. Things have gotten worse for me in San Marcos (San Diego). I just recently got 0.00Mbps DL and 0.10Mbps UL. Its impoosioble for me to stream anything at the moment.

Androids and iPhoners are turning on each other:

Dont even complain about weather or not Sprint is crippling the iPhone data. It’s all of you iPhone users who think that piece of **** is actually a good product who are clogging up the network and f**king up service for everyone else. I’m using an Epic Touch 4g, My father is using an Epic 4g, my girlfriend is using an Epic 4g my kids are using an EVO and they all suck ***. Typically this is what I get when I turn WiFi off. Real nice Sprint. Then if I can manage to get any signal at all… well the numbers speak for themselves. And we all pay "Premium Data" charges.

I blame Sprint for selling that stupid iPhone and I blame iPhone users for causing the already crappy network to get even worse. Nice going.

Incredulous iPhone guy returns fire:

Let me get this straight.  Now some of you are blaming the consumers for having the "nerve" to buy an iPhone and, heaven forbid, wanting to get some enjoyment out of it?

Incredible. Absolutely incredible.

Phoenix0115 drives his or her bottom-line home:

I’m tired of waiting on sprint to do something about the horrible slow data, I can’t do anything. If I don’t see any resolution by Thursday, I am going to terminate my contract.

If you want to enjoy the drama yourself, or vent yourself if you’re a Sprint customer, here’s the link and its on-topic title: iPhone 4S on 3G data network too slow to be useful

I’m not cherrypicking for anecdotal speedtests and angry bloggers to bash Sprint. I’m the guy who hates, really hates, AT&T. But Sprint made this investment to sell a lot more phones, otherwise the investment wouldn’t make sense, therefore how hard could the math possibly be to determine that iPhones plus unlimited plan plus what I’ll call modest infrastructure would yield too much subscriber and media blowback over being known for having the worst network? This is good business right here?

Hey, maybe responding to this by ditching their beloved unlimited package and going 2GB like the other iPhone carriers was the plan from the start. Doesn’t it now sound like the responsible thing to do?

I’m happy with T-Mobile but I like Sprint I hope the additional subscribers prove to be worth the AT&T-like reputation (but with thinner coverage) for network performance they are in the process of earning. If it weren’t for this noise, if Sprint were to get the next Google Nexus before T-Mobile, I might have bailed; now I definitely won’t. It sucks actually, having Sprint ruled out and off my list. I was this close.

In their defense, Sprint’s ramping up that WiMAX (wow) and, a little more importantly, working on LTE (also “Super-LTE” with a company that’s quite insolvent), but with an offered ETA of somewhere in the neighborhood 2013 barring hiccups. No problem.

Damn shame.

Hey Sprint, wherever you found that twenty billion for Apple (loan shark?), you may want to go hit that guy up for another pile of billions and strike a roaming deal to get your customers a taste of Verizon’s LTE.

Doug Simmons