So, I just witched cell service providers to Sprint. One reason is that an old family friend is an independent Sprint dealer. The other is that they have the best price for unlimited data service and I wanted not to worry about surfing too much. My old service provider was AT&T where I had a discount for being a (former) GE employee.
So... my fear that Sprint would not work at my house is gone. Service connectivity is just fine including the data link. Even when I am in parts or Monrovia that have a weak signal the 3G data link is good. 3G speed seems reasonable. In 1999 my work gave me an on-call phone and the Sprint service did not work at my house. They had to switch to Verizon. Times have changed. :)
The negative difference I see between Sprint and AT&T is that Sprint Customer Support is less than customer friendly. I applied for a discount as a Government worker and the online process did not work. They have @fda.gov as the email address for FDA but FDA has been using @fda.hhs.gov for the past 3 years. When I called the first line person was friendly but helpless. She got a supervisor and he was a bit curt. They would not check into fda.hhs.gov or correct the fda.gov issue. He insisted that I fax or "upload" the form and proof (paystub with critical info blacked out or ID).
Turns out that the upload process is pretty broken unless you do things "just right." and of course "the form" cannot be downloaded in an easy to use format but is a mess in the only format that seemed to work well and was supported - .txt. The upload system kept giving me file format error messages telling me to use .doc or .jpg or .txt - when I was. I finally stuck the .jpg file into a word document with a .doc extension and changed the "form" from Sprint.jns.txt to Sprint.txt. Yup, it got real picky about the number of dots in the name. Just a very tedious process that I can see a lot of people giving up on even though it is a 15% discount.
The whole process has left a bad taste in my mouth about Sprint Customer Service. AT&T technical service is not that great and they have metered data service and more $$ but their customer service has usually been very good. Sprint better step up.
Oh, the Samsung Galaxy S III I got is impressive. Just don't overload it with music and run out of memory. It is my first Smartphone but even my daughter was impressed and she had an iPhone 6 years. I do find the applets primitive compared to laptop functionality but the laptop just does not feel comfortable in my pants pocket. And the GS3 has a better camera. :)
Update: The Sprint version of the Galaxy S III does NOT work in Europe and cannot have a different SIMM inserted - there is no SIMM card. :(
I am also tired of Android Apps insisting on having access to every function and secure area of my phone even if the app does not need those functions... And I am tired of custom apps for specific web sites having such limited functionality that I have to revert to the browser.
1.4 year update: Sprint has 4G in unexpected spots but not many and it does not seem much faster than 3G - in this case SLOW. Most of the time my signal strength is poor and often my friends with AT&T and Verizon get a decent signal while I get one unusable bar. A text message might get through. The unlimited Data feature is proving to be more marketing promise than useful service. Whether 4G or 3G surfing is slow and I don't see much difference in speed. As a result I am using a tiny amount of data per month - well under the typical 1-2 Gig that would be included with basic data service with AT&T or Verizon.
Right now my plan is to seriously look at other providers, most likely AT&T or Verizon, when my contract is up.
- Yup, with Verizon since 2015. Need to put dates on these posts. They really need to bring back the "Can you hear me now?" guy because I am finding a surprising number of spots where I get no signal. On the other side, there are places I get a weak signal when my friends with AT&T don't.
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