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Sprint's Bait and Switch on Unlimited 4G Mobile Broadband

Why wouldn't you just cancel and use Clear unlimited 4G service? Sprint is just reselling this service to you for probably more money than you'd pay getting it direct from Clear.

Because the Clear 4G service is not available throughout New York City. I need the availability of 3G as well as a backup.

Ah well okay then. What you are going to find out if you push this thing is that Sprint will simply terminate your contract and disconnect your service. They did this to hundreds if not thousands of people not that long ago because they were calling into customer service and complaining and trying to finagle their way into service credits. Sprint reserves the right to terminate your service for pretty much any reason it wants it seems.

Considering that AT & T case that exploded this week (see »How to Beat AT&T in Court For Throttling 'Unlimited' Service ), I suspect they may be treading more carefully than that now.

In addition, keep in mind that I've made it very clear I'm ready to push this thing to court if need be. I don't know how they feel about lawsuits (they obviously have the money for them), but I'm sure it's not something they relish, particularly if it gets them negative publicity.

Here you go.

»www.wirelessnwifi.com/Unlimited4G

Yes, I've been keeping that option in my back pocket all along.

I'm not prepared, however, to give up on Sprint yet. My lawyer still thinks we have a case. So he and I are prepared to keep up this preliminary sparring to see how it all works out. My lawyer has warned me that, at some point, the two of us will have to sit down, game-plan out our legal case and work out how we're going to make it fly. Mind you, he still thinks we have a clear path to a persuasive case, in small-claims court or wherever; but he has always said that we should be prepared to consider any alternatives that might be offered.

My lawyer believes it may not even come to a court case. After a few more months of this headache, he suspects Sprint will try something different to make it all go away, perhaps a quadrupling of Sprint's maximum data cap, e.g. approx. 50 gigs per month, or something like that, accompanied by some sort of increase of the monthly fee, perhaps doubling it to $120 or something like that.

The exact details of any deal are very murky obviously, as my lawyer guesses we're still one or two months away from that. But he expects that some offer like that is more likely than a court case.

Personally, after reading that AT & T case, I think we can win in small claims, but I'm perfectly happy with some other outcome as long as it acknowledges either that cancellation of the Unlimited 4G and its replacement by a 5-gig-capped 4G connection is not covered by the TAC and constitutes an illegal and fraudulent termination of service rather than merely a change in service, or that such a termination, and replacement with a data-capped service, constitutes an alteration that is not covered in the TAC, and which therefore requires my consent.

Also, with regard to Wireless 'N' WiFi (WNW), I have always had some misgivings, even though everyone I've spoken to there seems really nice. My concern is that, in today's bitter economic climate, they may go belly-up, leaving me high and dry.

I'm also concerned that they are dependent on the good graces of Clear for their 4G Wimax network and on Sprint for their 3G network. What if one or both of them simply tells Wireless 'N' WiFi to take a hike, that they no longer want their product to be resold by WNW? Once again, I could be left high and dry.

So that's another reason why WNW, while the most obvious alternative to my current situation, remains less than an ideal solution for me, in my opinion.

reply to Max Signal
With regard to reseller options, I just discovered something that quite startled me.

The last time I checked, Millenicom offered two 3G plans, one capped at 20 gigs and one capped at 50 gigs. However I thought they offered no 4G plans.

But just now I took a look and it looks like they now offer a 50gig 4G plan. Their price is a little higher than WNW. M offers it at $70 while WNW offers it at $60.

I wonder if they're both offering the same thing. If they are, it is odd that WNW offered it almost a year before Millenicom offered it.

I'm also a bit surprised I hadn't heard about Millenicom's offer before now. Does anyone know how long it's been around?

reply to criggs
Clear offers 3g as well on the mobile cards.

Thanks for the thought. I presume they're using Sprint's 3G network, correct?

With regard to Clear, I obviously am not dealing with the potential problem of a reseller who doesn't own a network. But with Clear I get the distinct impression there's a whole other set of issues apparently.

I'm referring to the fact that, if one goes by what one reads on line, there is massive dissatisfaction among Clear's customer base, far higher than among Sprint's customer base. The web is replete with horror stories galore concerning Clear's customer service, their billing, their throttling policies, etc. etc. If one goes by that info, signing up with Clear could be the equivalent of buying into a hornet's nest.

With regard to Clear's 3G availability where 4G is not available, I just went to their page at »www.clear.com/plans to get some info about that, and came up empty. They don't even MENTION 3G!!! So can you tell me, please, what's the story with that? Is the 3G usage capped? Is it free below the cap, meaning there are no additional charges for using 3G unless one goes above the cap? Assuming there is a 3G cap, how much is it per megabyte once one gets above the cap?

Thanks in advance for answering these questions; appreciated.

reply to 25139889

Would you also characterize this new 50-gig 4G option from Millenicom as bleak? If so why?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts on that question.

Mostly the carrier direct options are bleak, although even the Millenicom offering is $10/mo more than I'm paying now, and I get service on 2 devices.

reply to mix

In my case, I have two Sprint accounts, the Simply Everything voice account and the Mobile Broadband account. When Sprint fires customers, do they fire them just from the account over which there is contention, in my case the Mobile Broadband account? Or do they fire them from all accounts? Or does that vary from case to case?

Thanks for the clarification. Sounds like their case is not really analogous with mine. But I appreciate the time you took to describe it. Thanks again.