That $10 charge for "premium data" is for 4G enabled phones only. You're paying a luxury tax for being an early adopter for 4G. Sprint's 4G, when it actually works, is awesome.
Couldn't agree with this more ... http://blog.chron.com/techblog/2012/02/atts-moral-obligation-if-you-throttle-it-help-us-count-it/ Logic dictates that I should switch to the 3GB plan for the same price as I currently pay for unlimited so that I can get that 2GB-3GB range at full speed. For some reason, I am stubborn as hell, and I feel as though they are "winning" if I do that. I do know one thing. If you have uVerse, call and schedule a cancellation of your UVerse TV for a week away and see what they will give you. Usually get some good "6 Month Promo rates." If they don't give you any, follow through with the cancellation, and that gives you a week to decide if you want to switch to something else, or you can call and cancel your cancellation with nothing lost.
No sir, the premium data is for any smartphone. I just went back and did a quick test on their website, picking the 3G Samsung Transform Ultra. The premium data charge is still marked as mandatory. They go on to say: [rquoter]The Premium Data add-on charge is required for smartphones. Sprint smartphones currently are: Android, iPhones, BlackBerry, Palm, Instinct and Windows Mobile phones. On average, smartphone users use 10 times more data than customers with basic or feature phones. With this charge, Smartphone customers will continue to receive unlimited data and experience Sprint’s simplified services and rates, being able to take advantage of a rich data experience while on the Sprint network. If you would like an unlimited data plan, for a lower rate, and avoid this charge, you may want to check out some of our feature phones which do not require the $10 Premium Data add-on charge. [/rquoter]
Well that blows. It used to be only 4G phones, apparently they changed the policy sometime last year. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-news/sprint-brings-premium-data-charge-to-all-smartphones/554
Correct. I also believe they started getting rid of the Sprint Premier program. I remember those crazy good SERO plans back then as well One thing to remember about most MVNO's (Ting, Virgin, cell phone's at Kroger, Boost, etc) is that they almost always run off of Sprint. At least all the CDMA phone's do with the exception of Page Plus which works off of VZW. The GSM MVNO's most of the time use T-Mobile (H20 uses AT&T), and while they advertise it's unlimited, they reserve the right to start throttling you after a certain threshold. If anyone has Simple Mobile or H20, I'd like your opinion on that. I know Virgin Mobile has recently started throttling as well. Hopefully Sprint will still offer unlimited data once it gets it's LTE plans going.
I used H2O for a few days. Had it on my BlackBerry, so didn't really get to use the data services really (just some basic stuff), but it was an OK experience. I ended up going to T-Mobile for the $30 plan (and so I could give myself an excuse to get a new phone). If I wanted AT&T's coverage, I'd probably go back to H2O. I think there is another MVNO like them that uses AT&T's network (Jolt Mobile I think?). None of them have any unlimited plans IIRC. Not really any throttling I think, but you're limited to 250MB or 2GB (or something like that). H2O had slightly better rates than AT&T's GoPhone program I believe. Didn't get around to trying out Simple Mobile. I did hear good things about them though. I think I did read they do some throttling though. Think after 1GB-2GB, goes down to ~100 kbps.
I'm glad somebody could verify this. That's what I suspected was going on. I regularly hit 2GB and my speed with Virgin just absolutely tanked.
If anyone's curious, here's a site that breaks down a lot of the different prepaid plans available: http://www.prepaidphonenews.com/2011/02/best-prepaid-data-carriers-and-plans.html It was originally written a while back, but looks it was recently updated to include new details (e.g., Virgin Mobile's new "soft cap").
No, but I've been on almost every plan that's out there and could let you know what the best deal would be for your situation..
I appreciate the offer to help (re-reading my post, it might have sounded hostile but I didn't mean it that way when I wrote it). But, I already had settled on something by the time I posted.
2GB is not much at all. I'm between 80GB and 120GB per month. I would find another Internet provider.
I wonder if this is cumulative in some fashion. I would imagine I average around 2-3 gbs a month, but I haven't seen this message yet. 17?!?! holy hell
You're talking about your home ISP right? That's a serious TOS violation right there if you're talking cellular data lol.
This is exactly why people will be switching...I dumped t-mobile for Simple, same network but instead of paying $100/mo, I pay $43 for unlimited everything...4g is $60 so not bad...