Consumer Reports Ranks Sprint Worst in Customer Satisfaction

Sprint is terrible here in Houston. I know many who have tried it and they have all switched away from it pretty quick and complained about how bad the service is. I hardly ever see anyone with Sprint phones around here. Most everyone I know around here have At&t or Verizon, and a few have T-Mobile. At&t has the best coverage (and probably the most customers) in this part of Texas.

I hate Sprint as a cell phone provider, but their cell network works well in my area. For a while I was using Sprint, then switched to Virgin Mobile (also Sprint), now Freedompop.

After switching to Freedompop, cell towers appeared, with high speed (LTE) which were previously not visible to my Virgin Mobile phone. I get better connectivity inside buildings.

I switched from a Virgin Mobile Triumph to a Samsung Victory. $79 and no monthly fee, with LTE isn't bad for my needs. The problem with Sprint, is Sprint, not their network where available in my experience.

I'm sticking with Sprint for the unlimited and am generally OK with them. Am in Tampa area through next month pretty far outside in rural area with no ISP available - Sprint data is 5-20M, get 20-50M in the city. Will admit I sometimes do the rooted tethering thing once in a while and it works fine, is the reason I stick with them as I can do 50GB/month or more sometimes and they do nothing. No sign of throttling yet. I'd rather have 3M unlimited than 100M with a 10GB cap.

The network is improving every month but they need to get Spark on 100% of sites per market, not 70%.

Same in central Minnesota, except Verizon has the best coverage by a hair up here. Verizon and AT&T have LTE everywhere. Sprint and T-Mobile, on the other hand, are both pretty terrible.

»www.sensorly.com/map/4G/ ··· coverage

Sprint is launching the "Cut Your Bill In Half Event" today: »www.sprint.com/halfprice

Promotion FAQ's: »support.sprint.com/suppo ··· 2014:FAQ

Promotion Press Release: »newsroom.sprint.com/arti ··· id=11678

That's because the service is half assed.

I wouldn't recommend Sprint to my worst enemy, same goes for Verizon as well. Both of their networks suck big time in my area. AT&T is by far the best network in my area, not one dropped call in eight months and 4G data speeds have been excellent.

Verizon in my area used to be the worst, now they're the best. They're pretty decent in Maine too.

And they answer the customer service phones in the USA.

You mean "half-fast"?

I normally despise Fios commercials (why waste our time with a product that most of the country will probably never be able to even purchase?) but I have to admit that one made me chuckle.

Ok, so let me see. I pay $0 for data, $0 for talk, and Sprint will cut my bill in half?

Uh, what?

My cell bill is $0 per month, I don't see how Sprint will cut that in half and make any difference. Nothing from Nothing leaves nothing, you gotta have something if you want to be with me ... came to mind.

»www.youtube.com/watch?v= ··· V54ddNHE

Nice song. I don't think they had you in mind though.

Likely not.

FreedomPop lets you call over wifi with your own number big deal... I can do it with hangouts vonage mobile and bunch of others.

You pay nothing because you pretty much get nothing.

You don't understand. I get 1 GB of free cellular data (LTE if available, or 3G if no 4G) per month. My phone calls are VOIP. If on Wi-Fi, the calls use Wi-Fi, if not on Wi-Fi, my calls use cellular data. Every time I make a call on cellular, Freedompop credits the cellular data cost of my call.

So it's 1 GB of data, free. 200 minutes of talk, free. 500 texts free. Use different VOIP provider for voice and or text, and it's unlimited for free.

Wi-Fi is only used when you enable it.

And no roaming off the sprint network. Have fun with that if you ever travel.

Sounds about right.

The ONLY reason I'm with sprint is because of unlimited data. I refuse to have to worry about data limits. On the other hand, with Sprint in my area I can't get data at a rate that would ever reach a cap. Still takes 3 minutes to load the simple google.com from 6am to 10pm, outside of that it's possible it might only take 60 seconds.

Unlimited data is pretty worthless if you can't even browse quickly, let alone watch a video.

I'd have to agree with that, unlimited data is indeed worthless if you can't use it.

I used to not like to worry about data usage but with AT&T's new 15 GB Shared Plan I have more than enough data between my brother and I that I don't worry at all about firing up NetFlix, YouTube, or any other heavy data usage app on my phone. And speeds on AT&T's 4G LTE network are excellent with consistent real world speeds of more than 15 Mbps (even during the day!).

Face it, Sprint's network is absolute garbage! Why people throw money at that pathetic excuse of a network is beyond me. If you don't like the big two, there's always T-Mobile, they at least have a decent network.

Sprint 3G is slowish, LTE is decent. If you get LTE, and your area has decent Sprint coverage, it's a great network. Sprint from Sprint is usually bad due to customer service and fees. Sprint from an MVNO has been half way decent.

Exactly why I left Sprint and 2 SERO-P plans behind(I was with them for about 7 or 8 years). What good is unlimited data when you only get 3G speeds most of the time? With the added benefit of my wife's corporate discount(something I could never use on Sprint with SERO-P) we were able to get a big data bucket with Verizon, so we don't even worry about going over. All at very close to what I was paying with Sprint, yet I now get service that actually works... even indoors.

I would have agreed until they turned on spark in my area. I get fantastic coverage and I'm 90% of the time on LTE.

I think it's an area by area thing. In my area, like yours, it's mostly LTE and data speed is great.

I'm on Sprint 4G LTE non-Spark and I have no difficulty watching videos, browsing. Are there dead spots sure every company has dead spots. In the Dallas County Criminal courts building T-Mobile is completely useless. Indeed the only carrier who's data does work flawlessly throughout the building is Sprint. Granted this may not be the experience across the nation in every city. There are places though where Sprint is great.

Me I'm looking forward to my next phone and tablet upgrades advancing to SPARK speed

Are you 've full coverage of 4G in your area.

That building may have a DAS system that supports sprint....

Not in Minneapolis. 4G data is either nonexistent, or if it exists, is 1-2 Mb/s at best. And Sprint claims the entire metropolitan area is covered in 4G. Yeah right. Multiple people I know have the same experience.

Texas is one of states Sprint provides good coverage and speed. I live in California, and the Sprint cover has been the same since the beginning of their time. Can you believe it took 2 minutes to open an email with an attachment? I wasn't even trying to open the attachment, and the email was only 5 lines long when it finally opened.

We're on unlimited Sprint 3G and we like it a lot. Thankfully our speeds are good, from 500 kbps - 1.1 Mbps depending on tower load, weather, and other factors.

Sometimes we've had these weird issues where speeds go down to dial-up, but that hasn't been happening lately.

I should also note it's not something I miss frequently. It doesn't matter when I'm at work because no-one gets cell reception indoors at my work site (until they finish an on-site repeater for Verizon, or maybe it was a mini-cell). Then if I'm at home I have Wi-Fi. When I'm traveling is when it's most useful to me and at that point I'm not usually in such a bad service spot.

I should note I am completely jealous of my friend who is on a grandfathered unlimited Verizon plan. They try so hard to get him to change his plan, but he enjoys his LTE. I think he was over 113 gigs for his billing cycle the other day...

And because of people like him, we no longer have unlimited data. Tell your friend "thanks for ruining it for the rest of us."

There's unlimited data and then there's responsible use of unlimited data. Even though it says unlimited it doesn't mean you have to be a damn pig about it. Even All-You-Can-Eat Buffets have limits.

From the landing page....

"For example, a Verizon customer paying $140 per month for 4 lines
+ 10GB of data can get 4 lines + 10GB of data on Sprint for $70 per month."

That's a lot of billing information from different customers to keep track of. I hope this doesn't turn into a cluster****.

I was with Sprint for... 15 years, I think it was. Switched to T-Mobile just about a year-and-a-half ago. Hated to do it, but Sprint's coverage just kept getting worse and worse. Plus it was time for me to switch to a more current smartphone and Sprint had no affordable plan for my wife and I.

Enter T-Mobile and their Uncarrier initiatives. Sprint lost us, at that point. I haven't seen anything from Sprint, since we made the switch, to even vaguely interest me in switching back.

Even if Sprint had purchased T-Mobile: They still wouldn't have gotten us back, because I would have moved to Verizon Wireless.

Other than my wife and I, at the time, there was only one other person in our circle of acquaintances that was on Sprint, and he was just waiting for his ETF time to run out, then he was leaving them.

Sprint lost its mojo many, many years ago. Sadly: It looks like they're never going to get it back. What a shame. Sprint was once a really great carrier.

Sprint, btw, when we were still with them, regularly ranked at the top, in customer satisfaction. That was before they started the "Network Vision" upgrade process or were acquired by SoftBank.

Jim

This report is no surprise to me. Just this morning my secretary sent a text that I never got. We tried it in the office and that time it worked. Then for fun she tried calling me and it rang six times on her phone before my phone started ringing (she said if it hadn't been a test she would have hung up thinking I was not answering). Overall I have never been happy with Sprint with pathetically slow data and only stay on them because the phone and service are paid for by my employer. I got them to consider switching to T-Mobile but the top guy loves Sprint and would never jump. I considered moving my paid off iPhone 4S to T-Mobile but Sprint says they will not unlock it (ever) so I will have to replace it regardless. Even if the firm were to upgrade to iPhone 6's Sprint's policy as it stands right now means they will never be unlocked because the iPhone 6 was developed and launched BEFORE February 15, 2015.

So in a nutshell, Sprint's lousy rating is well earned and deserved.

Do you have an Airave?

I see many complaints about Sprint but honestly at least in my area it's very good, I know a number of people locally on Sprint and they are all very happy with it. As far as popularity goes Sprint seems to be number two around here as well behind Verizon but ahead of AT&T. Sprint has solid LTE coverage in my area and the voice coverage is pretty good also, now I realize Sprint has some bad areas but at least in my area Sprint is VERY good.

In the Pacific Northwest, Verizon rules as when they bought out GTE (and with it GTE Northwest) 15 years ago they really built out all the urban and rural networking. But their prices are double that of Sprint (and without good data plans).

And due to Craig McCaw (Seattle), a lot of the 'off brand' coverage from the early days that Sprint bought up made basic urban and interstate reliability good, and when the Clearwire towers (there are tons of them in this part of the country including one right across the street from me) get re-farmed to 'Spark' later on next year, the new LTE/4G data pipe will take a big jump (although it is all new 2014 construction here, as is T-Mobile which has a large following/user base around these parts).

So it works good; there are gaps here and there (rural) that if I went there more than once or twice a year (and where Verizon is available, no AT&T or T-Mobile) it might make sense. But for 363 days out of 365, it simply doesn't. And I 'eat' 20-30GB a month in data (esp. during football and baseball seasons), if I switched to Verizon my costs would be in the $3-500/month range.

So I'll easily eat those 2 days a year without cell coverage.

Agreed, hence why AT&T is very good in NoVA, they got great tower placements that Cingluar had when they acquired Cellular One.

It's funny how Ting ranked better than Sprint despite using the Sprint network for service.

I paid the ETF to get out of Sprint. At the time they were glacial in deploying LTE in SoCal and their international data plans were insane. I dropped them for T-Mobile an am very happy. Cheap travel calling with free text and (slow) data. More recently they upgraded their LTE to I guess 15X15 and I am getting 75/25 from it. When I see talk of Sprint buying T-Mobile, my eyes well up.

Sprint fucked up a couple of ways.

1. They deployed CDMA instead of GSM early on, CDMA tech sucks compared to GSM from problems like lack of voice and simuteneous data and data on EVDO is much slower than HSPA. Because of this, they cannot just upgrade their 3G equipment and have near 4G speeds on their 3G network, but they are forced to deploy a completely new nationwide LTE network.
2. Sprint fucked up by not power deploying LTE and giving up on WiMAX, because they had to back track and tear down WiMAX and start from scratch after already investing for 3 years on the WiMAX network.
3. Now that LTE is here they made three mistakes: not deploying LTE as thick as their 3G system, using 5MHz by 5MHz LTE when everyone else uses a minimum of 10MHz by 10MHz, lastly by not enabling voice over LTE for simultaneous voice and data on devices. If they ever fix these problems, for example every cell site has LTE and 3G can be turned off, then the network will be worth something again.

T-Mobile has the network to be on these days but the phone cost is outrageous. Ie, note 4 costs $750, Note Edge costs $870, makes me wish T Mobile still had contract service because I was used to getting devices like this for free and not having to pay for my device.

Seriously if Sprint deployed 10x10 LTE also that would make the system scream like T Mobile, and I do feel they will continue to make strides and might have a useable system by 2016. Today the system gets you by if you don't care about anything but web browsing on your phone, but what I want to do is tehter my laptop and do a 2MByte upload like I do on T Mobile.

Also I don't know if Sprint knows but the modder community on Android devices for their network is significantly more lacking, compared to all other vendors. I just went over to xda-developers for example - only two custom ROMs so far for the Note 4, but T Mobile has like 20.. This tells us that you are likely to have a way nicer modding experience on T Mobile, because you will actually have a nice selection of custom ROMs to choose from. Sprint, I don't think either of the two custom ROMs available now are very good, considering the quality of those T Mobile ones.

Solution to that? Maybe Sprint should become more data transparent, unlocking friendly, and including more features like unlimited hotspot that modders drool over.

Funny thing is that WCDMA is based on the air carrier technology of cdma. LTE can trace its roots to that as well.

I also paid an ETF of 500 bucks plus to get off their incredibly unreliable system.

Sprint service in Miami is the absolute pits! I was recently in a coffee shop directly across the street from Dadeland Mall, one of the highest traffic areas in the region and had precisely zero bars. A quick speed check on my 4G Verizon iPhone showed 12 MGBS and the Google Wi-Fi in the coffee shop was better than 40 MGBS. Sprint needs to get on with their 4G upgrades as quickly as possible or miss the boat.