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| Question for ex-Sprint Business cutomers We've heard some reports of people who had signed up for Sprint Business DSL in May getting significantly shafted.
Sprint apparently pitched the hell out of the service in May, signed customers up, and shortly thereafter announced their exodus from the business DSL market.
Problem being, they've signed these people up for two year agreements (which you would think would be terminated if they stopped providing business services?)
There's a 1000k early termination fee on the side of the user.
Since the decision, they've given these customers a 400 dollar credit, but are offering those customers ADSL (1.5 mg down, 384k up) for the same price they were paying before.
Has anyone found themselves in a similar situation? If so, can you please give details and clarify some of what they are offering these customers?
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Cobra!! |
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| They will give you 400$ if you terminate your service before set 16th.
I signed up for 2 years, with the 1k$ looming over my head. |
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robbinPremium,MVM
join:2000-09-21
Leander, TX
kudos:1 | reply to Karl Bode
said by Leviathan:
There's a 1000k early termination fee on the side of the user.
You should be careful in stating "facts" like this. The fact is that is not my termination fee. However, as I signed a nondisclosure statement with Sprint as a part of my contract it would not be ethical for me to discuss this in a public forum. While I am not happy with Sprint's business decision, I will not be part of some campaign to publicly discredit and besmirch them. As previously posted, they are offering all users a $400 migration fee to find other service. |
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 justinAustralian
join:1999-05-28
New York, NY
kudos:7
IPv6
Business Connectiv..
Console/Handheld g..
Home/Office setup ..
Photos of Broadban..
| of course, any user can avail themselves of the instant message function if they are concerned about privacy.
And what is this holier than thou "part of some campaign to publically discredit and besmirch them" attitude? Do you feel that reporting on companies that offer something then turn around and pull it back is not news and should be kept quiet? Where is the "campaign"? We've reported, and are as likely to report, good news of higher speed products from providers including sprint .. are those reports unfair "campaigns to credit them"? Its all news. sheesh. |
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| reply to robbin
I'm not interested in some kind of smear campaign, I'm just looking for additional details...
A "migration fee"? So there is no early termination fee whatsoever?
If you quit today, you'd be paid 400$ with no other applicable fees?
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Cobra!! |
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| Im lucky because im within my 90 day period so i get 2 months of service for free and a check for a little over $100. When i cancel all non MRC (monthly reoccuring charges) are taken off. Sucks its gone, but 2 months of insane speed is nice.. It will be missed  |
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robbinPremium,MVM
join:2000-09-21
Leander, TX
kudos:1 | reply to justin
said by justin:
...And what is this holier than thou "part of some campaign to publically discredit and besmirch them" attitude? Do you feel that reporting on companies that offer something then turn around and pull it back is not news and should be kept quiet? Where is the "campaign"? We've reported, and are as likely to report, good news of higher speed products from providers including sprint .. are those reports unfair "campaigns to credit them"? Its all news. sheesh.
Justin -- As long as the reporting is fair and even handed, then I do not have any problem. However, the original post contains four paragraphs with such things as "people...getting significantly shafted", "pitched the hell out of their service...and shortly thereafter announced their exodus", "problem being, they've signed these people up for two year agreements", and "since the decision...offering those customers... (1.5mg down, 384 up) for the same price" The whole post is leading and designed to encourage dissent and negativity towards Sprint.
There is nothing "holier than thou" about my attitude. I am contractually involved with Sprint and am currently having to change over to another provider. I do believe that news should be reported (in a responsible manner). I also believe that Sprint has been very respectful in their dealings with me (this is the second cancellation of a two year contract with me in less than a year as I was just ordering ION one year ago)
You state that "We've reported...". I fully support your website here and believe it is one of the best on the internet. Nowhere in Leviathan's post, nor his profile, nor anywhere else that I have searched on this website do I find any mention that he is a reporter for DSLReports (Broadband Reports -- still can't get used to the name change). As you are evidently vouching for him, I will do my best to cooperate and give him the information necessary to accurately report what has happened.
I apologize if any of this seems to imply that anyone (especially Leviathan) has behaved in a less than ethical manner. That is not my intent, nor my belief. -- Robbin |
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robbinPremium,MVM
join:2000-09-21
Leander, TX
kudos:1 | reply to Karl Bode
Leviatan -- I want to apologize for implying that you were part of a smear campaign.
Regarding the letter from Sprint -- The first paragraph basically states that Sprint is no longer able to economically provide service in my area in the current business environment. It further states that my current service will be discontinued as of Sept. 16. It also states that I can discontinue my service prior to that by calling them. They did offer another service (the 1.5/384 you mentioned in your first post) at $129.99.
It goes on to state that regardless of my accepting their offer, $400 will be credited to my account to more easily facilitate a migration of my service.
I will be happy to send you a copy of the letter if you so desire. I will also share any history of my experiences with Sprint beginning with ION in August of 2001 and the cancellation thereof announced in October. I then went though approximately six months of dealing with Sprint through a rather unorganized transition to Sprint Biz DSL (those of us that stayed with them basically begged them to allow us to transition to Biz). They gave me a credit of $975 due to the ION cancellation, and now another $400. I signed two year contracts in both cases and paid no install or equipment fees.
While I am not at all happy with the cancellation of Sprint Biz DSL, I feel the real story is why can't ANYONE provide a similar service at a remotely similar price. Sprint has provided excellent service with no downtime that I am aware of. It looks like the ILECs have won and soon there will be no one else. -- Robbin |
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| reply to robbin
said by robbin:
You should be careful in stating "facts" like this. The fact is that is not my termination fee. However, as I signed a nondisclosure statement with Sprint as a part of my contract it would not be ethical for me to discuss this in a public forum. While I am not happy with Sprint's business decision, I will not be part of some campaign to publicly discredit and besmirch them. As previously posted, they are offering all users a $400 migration fee to find other service.
You must work for Sprint, if not you are way to loyal to a company who has all ready shafted you twice in a year. Also, what are talking about a nondisclosure statement? When and why would you sign this for DSL service? As far as I know there is no nondisclosure agreement as part of the contract and why would this be needed for DSL service? Did Sprint give you privileged information that can that can help competitors since you are a loyal customer? What is unethical about saying you were put in a situation as described above? By the was $1000 IS what the early termination fee is, but it MAY be different for exION customers. However, to my knowledge it is not. |
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robbinPremium,MVM
join:2000-09-21
Leander, TX
kudos:1 | I definitely do not work for Sprint or any other anything for that matter. I work for myself (and have for the last 20 years).
What is this about Sprint "shafting" me? I have had service with them for almost exactly 11 months now. For 4 of those months they provided me with 4 phone lines and a totally unusable number of long distance minutes (I forget how many, but I am sure I could find the contract if you really want to know). I have paid Sprint a total of $925.95 for all of this service. I currently have a credit with Sprint of $972.97 as of 7/15. There should be one months worth of service taken out of that (as they bill for service in advance) and then another $400 added to it. Do the math -- I have had excellent service for 11 months, some phone service and long distance provided -- and in the end I will be getting over $1000 back from Sprint.
I will quote part of my contract as regards the nondisclosure --
ATTACHMENT A
Sprint Business DSL Version 1.0 Terms and Conditions
"The following terms and conditions govern Sprint's provision of Sprint DSL (""Sprint DSL"") to Customer."
9. Confidential Information.
"If the parties have not signed a nondisclosure agreement, the provisions in subsections A through E below will govern the parties' exchange of information."
C."Confidential information ..."
1)financial information including pricing;
The termination fee is off by approximately a factor of five according to my contract.
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Reviews:
 ·Future Nine Corp..
| reply to robbin
said by robbin:
Regarding the letter from Sprint -- The first paragraph basically states that Sprint is no longer able to economically provide service in my area in the current business environment. It further states that my current service will be discontinued as of Sept. 16. It also states that I can discontinue my service prior to that by calling them. They did offer another service (the 1.5/384 you mentioned in your first post) at $129.99.
It goes on to state that regardless of my accepting their offer, $400 will be credited to my account to more easily facilitate a migration of my service.
Is this letter being mailed to all Sprint Biz DSL customers? I have not gotten one. I'd sure like to know what's going on with my service. |
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robbinPremium,MVM
join:2000-09-21
Leander, TX
kudos:1 | I was under the impression that everyone was receiving one. I believe that there are two versions, one offering the new $129.99 service and one basically stating that they will no longer be servicing your area at all. |
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| reply to Karl Bode
Lev,
I cancelled my Sprint Biz connection a few weeks ago, and will get a $400 Sprint check less any monthly charge due. I think that's more than fair. It's true that ION then Biz being terminated is unfortunate, but I admit that for the money nothing even came close to the bandwidth I got. I can't complain. It was the best deal to be found anywhere. It's also true that there was no advance warning and the sales people took orders right up until the day they learned of the termination, which was a hassle for many people who just ordered. But the sales people were hit with this just like we were. That is the doing of management.
I wish I knew why it couldn't have been continued. I figure it was because there weren't enough customers to make it profitable. One thing I never understood was that when I did a search on dsl reports for dsl providers in my area, Sprint never came up. I stumbled onto it when I was surfing around the website and came to the Sprint forum. I was a former ION customer and still didn't know Biz was available. That seems like poor marketing.
Unless the ILECs made it so much hassle it wasn't worth it, I think Sprint could have dominated the business dsl in their markets. Especially if they followed through with the one month free for an existing customer who referred a new customer. But the sales department wasn't organized as well as it should have been, and different sales people would often give conflicting information. I don't think the quality of marketing and sales was anywhere near what it could and should have been.
If you think we individual customers are taking a hit, just consider larger businesses who ordered multiple circuits and then invested in expensive load balancing equipment costing thousands of dollars.
I'm glad I was able to have the service while I could. The problem is that now I'm spoiled. It's like eating a fresh ripe mango picked right off the tree. After that the ones you buy in stores just don't seem very good. I used to be able to download a 21 MB test file in 30 seconds, and ftp upload files at about 85 KB/sec. Now I'm back to Bell 1.5/128 mo-to-mo temporarily, but I'll decide what to change to when I see if the Worldcom 1.5/768 plan will continue or not, or if the new Bell 4M/384 service launches. SDSL is a bit expensive for me. The new Sprint plan of 1.5/384 for $130/mo is not a very good deal.
Anyway, this is another perspective from a former BIZ customer.
LTG
[text was edited by author 2002-08-23 10:08:45] |
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phrider
join:1999-12-17
Los Angeles, CA Reviews:
 ·CYBERONIC INTERN..
| reply to robbin
said by robbin:
I was under the impression that everyone was receiving one. I believe that there are two versions, one offering the new $129.99 service and one basically stating that they will no longer be servicing your area at all.
Any one get the "no longer be servicing your area at all" letter?
Where are you located? |
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| I got a letter the day the annoucement came out, in fact an email it was...
stating my service would be uneffected by the recent changes annouced.
So I'm sitting here with my fingers crossed it just keeps running well like it is now.
Thank god I have not had any technical issues I've needed to call in on. I tried to call to check on changing an earthlink email account, since you still have to go through Sprint to have them get with earthlink to do it, but no answer at the old ION support line.
In fact I had not had to call for issues since April 2001 when a few bugs were first being worked out with my ION setup, April 4, 2001.
KNOCKING ON WOOD.....
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Alan Falk |
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| Well I live in the Northern Southern California area...Ive received no email no notices in the mail....nothing...Just bills... |
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| I'm in Seattle, and I haven't gotten any notice from Sprint whatsoever, either. However, when I called them after reading news reports about Business DSL being discontinued, they told me my service would be turned off 9/16. I ordered Worldcom 1.5Mbps/768Kbps ADSL through Cyberonic about 2 weeks ago, and they're currently in the process of installing it. I'll turn down the Sprint loop when I'm convinced the new one is installed and working. |
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tracytI got it 6016 768
join:2000-12-30
Spring, TX | reply to Karl Bode
Extra MONEY is nice!!!!! |
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thumbs down from:
robbin 
| reply to robbin
Let me guess. You were one of those people who ALWAYS ratted out people like me when we did anything even slightly wrong. Are you on drugs? When you get SHAFTED you have the right to complain. I can't believe that Sprint had the gall to include an NDA with the contract. That just shows how Serious they were about providing this service. The screwed people with ION and now they are SCREWING people with BizDSL.
Sure, they are offering you $400 to hit the dusty trail. Big deal. They did the same with us ION users, telling us that it was a great favor and that they didn't have to offer us anything. Does $400 really cover the time and effort it takes (including possible lost business due to IP/DNS changeover) to move to a new ISP? If so you are in a far better position than most of us. |
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| reply to Karl Bode
I dont know why people are saying they signed a NDA. I signed nothing, agreed to nothing... |
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