We've had our Sprint PCS phone account for more than two years, and four months ago we upgraded our plan to include three more Sanyo SCP 4500 phones (for a total of 4) and 2000 minutes of airtime (400 anytime/1600 nites/weekends) for a basic fee of $49.95. They also threw in free Voice Command and six months of free Wireless Web. Our monthly bill averages around $95.

We're basically very happy with Sprint at this moment, although there have been periods when we've found ourselves gnashing our teeth over their plodding and bureaucratic customer service. However, they've always managed to ultimately redeem themselves in these encounters, and they're light years ahead of the service and quality that we experienced in our brief flirtation with Cingular Wireless (see our review re that service).

The Plan

We originally had a 200/800 minutes plan with one phone for $30 per month, and the upgrade to four phones and 2000 minutes has left us with with plenty of extra minutes each month. Even with a teenage son and a daughter away at college, these shared minutes have completely covered us -- with no per minute charges -- for the entire period that we've been on the new plan.

One of the best features of the Sprint plan may not be readily apparent to the casual shopper -- the absence of high contract termination fees. We found out after the fact that Cingular charges $150 per phone, and their agent (Mobile Systems Wireless) charges an additional $400 per phone on top of that (!!!) Queries to AT&T and Verizon revealed that they also charge significant termination fees, although not quite as outrageous as Cingular's. When we briefly terminated (and shortly therefter started again) our Sprint service, it was a breeze to do. Just a simple phone call to them and they put you on a disconnect schedule, with no termination fees. When we tried to terminate our Cingular account, it was the beginning of an intense and tortuous nightmare (again, see our Cingular review for details).

Note that some Sprint plan options include a $100 termination fee in exchange for a $10 reduction in monthly fees (we opted for this when we upgraded). However, this is nothing compared to what the other companies are charging.

Reception

We live and work in the Los Altos/Mountain View/Palo Alto area, and excellent reception is an essential prerequisite for us. Sprint delivers this in the above area in flying colors. The contrast is especially stark in comparison to Cingular's. We've had very few dropped or missed calls, and static has been nonexistant. Reception meter readings are rarely below two bars, and usually three or four in our living & commute areas.

Coverage

This has been generally excellent for us in the Bay Area. One of us commutes daily to Palo Alto from Los Altos, and the reception is clear through all of this drive with the exception of about one mile of the Foothill Expressway between Page Mill Road and Stanford's Campus Drive. We also drive daily in the Los Altos Hills area, and the reception is excellent on Moody to around Elena, where it begins to break up with intermittent pockets of reception as one moves westward. No problem throughout the Mountain View, Sunnyvale, San Jose and San Francisco areas.

When we've driven Yosemite, the San Joaquin Valley or Lake Tahoe, the reception has always been good along the main highways. In the former and latter, however, there's no coverage on location -- although Reno is covered (but not Truckee). Sprint has been promising Tahoe coverage for the past two years, and as avid skiers we've been impatiently waiting.

Drives to the wine country revealed uneven coverage off the highways, and no coverage at all in the Mendocino area and along Highway 1 in that area. The Coast Highway south of SF is similarly poorly covered. Works in Half Moon Bay, but fades en route to Santa Cruz. Picks up again in SC, but is uneven around that town, somewhat uneven in the environs of UC Santa Cruz but better in the main part of the town. Coverage cuts out between Santa Cruz and Monterey, then picks up again there and in the surrounding towns. It's uneven, but getting better, in the Hollister area (based upon two annual camping trips to the Pinnacles national park).

NOTE: Whatever cellular provider you eventually choose, be sure to check out their phone's reception and coverage from your home and living/'commute areas. Ask them to lend you a phone so that you can do this for a very brief period, and walk away if they won't.

Customer Service

We've come to the conclusion that it must be the nature of cellular phone companies not to be able to provide decent customer service. Perhaps there's something about the size of the companies or the nature of the business (communications?)

We had what's best characterized as a horrible experience with Cingular, but with Sprint it's been more like a slow, obfusticating and frustrating one. We've had several instances of incorrect billing, on one occasion receiving an invoice with $300 in overcharges. On another occasion we were not credited with a $100 purchase rebate, and it took at least five phone calls and two letters to get it fixed. However, in both (and other) instances the problems were eventually remedied, and in all our contacts with their service reps they've been patient, polite and apologetic. Never nasty, which is what we experienced when we began to complain to Cingular's reps about our reception.

Voice Command

This actually works as advertised, reading our speech very well, and is a very nice feature to have. You set it up using their web site, and it's very easy to enter and change information. We got this feature for free, and suspect that they gave it away in hopes that our use of it will significantly increase our air time -- as the meter is running when you use this feature. However, we actually don't use it that much because our Sanyo SCP 4500 phones have the voice actuated dialing feature.

Wireless Web

Another cute feature, not really used much by us though. We've used it a few times to look up a phone number, get driving directions, and check our web email. Easy to live without now, but we suspect that this will radically change in the near future when new features come out.

Web Site

The Sprint PCS web site is a great feature of the service. You can monitor your air time usage on each phone, check your account status, and order new accessories or phones or upgrade your plan easily. You can also program voice command from the website. What isn't so hot about the web site is the glacial and inept customer service feature. Several times we logged in customer service items and got our reply several days later, with the respondent one time telling us to call the customer service telephone line (!) Not too impressive.

Long Distance

The Free Long Distance from anywhere within Sprint's service areas nationwide is an outstanding feature for us. We now do all our long distance calling through Sprint., and are now much more inspired to stay in touch with our extended family.

Roaming

Beware of Sprint's liabilities in areas where it doesn't provide pcs service. For example, we found out the hard way that Sprint doesn't have a reciprocal roaming agreement with GTE/Verizon in the rural Monterey area. This isn't that important for us, as we don't depend upon our pcs phones in rural areas. For others who do, be sure to check the specific areas to make sure that Sprint has the reciprocal agreements. Otherwise your phone won't work on roam in that area.

The Bottom Line

Sprint is an oversized, inefficient and bureaucratic company that somehow manages to deliver comparatively very good pcs phone service to people who live in relatively urban areas in northern California. People doing a lot of rural traveling and who must also have use of their pcs phone may be better off with another provider.


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 95/mo.