Nothing's free, and it's not so clear
Written: Dec 18 '00
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Pros: good coverage area
Cons: much room for improvement
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| Linds81's Full Review: Sprint Mobile Phone Service in St Louis |
Our family has been dealing with Sprint and their service for about 3 or 4 years now. It has gotten much better over the years, but Sprint's service is nothing spectacular.
I have a very old, "hand me down" plan. When my father's contract expired, he kept the plan, but with no contract. When we decided it was a good idea for me to have a cell phone, I took over that plan. 3 years ago, his plan was 120 peak minutes and UNLIMITED off peak minutes. Sprint has changed to "night and weekend minutes" which you may purchase in blocks or mirror your peak minutes. This has caused us MANY problems. We have never gotten a straight answer to what exactly the plan has in it now. It should still be unlimited night and weekend minutes, but the bill always says I only have 500. This is a huge rip off, but I rarely come close to going over if I indeed have only 500 off peak minutes. We kept this plan instead of getting a new one since a Sprint PCS salesperson told us the free nights and weekends was discontinued and we could have the free nights and weekends as long as we had the plan. In short, every salesperson that has looked at our plan has told us something different, i.e. "you do/don't have long distance," "you only have 500 off peak minutes," etc. Luckily, I have never come very close to running out of my 120 peak or 500 off peak. In short, the customer service doesn't seem to have their act together unless they are trying to sell you a new plan. I think that if they let people continue to use old plans, they should have a little knowledge of them to help their long time customers.
My Likes and Dislikes
Likes
-good coverage area- I have a friend who has AT&T service, and there are several areas (especially in downtown) where her phone will not work. Mine works pretty much anywhere.
-you can get a good deal, if you know how to use it- take for instance roaming. This is VERY expensive if you don't order roaming minutes. If you know you will be on roam, you can call customer service and order 50 minutes for about $10. (You definitely need to read your manual cover to cover to find these details out).
-good variety of phones- there are SO many kinds of phones to choose from, so almost anyone can find one to suit their needs.
-the phones themselves- Sprint operates at a higher frequency, so that means a clearer signal. If you're in a big concrete and metal building, no phone will operate perfectly, but my phone operates decently while lower frequency phones barely operate at all.
Dislikes-
-dialing out- sometimes, especially at off peak hours, I have to try MANY times to dial out, since I get a busy network signal (it sounds like a faster busy signal). I can't help but think how mad I would be if I had an emergency and could not dial out. However, this happens much more in Columbia Missouri where I go to school and the network for Sprint is much newer and consequently smaller. (I also have never been able to find out if I am using up minutes when I get a busy network signal. I would hope not though..)
-NO FREE DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE!!!!- don't even try to dial information. You have to call Sprint customer assistance to get a phone number. That gets to be a little expensive.. I am not sure how much it is per call, but if you need to call a number of places, say restaraunts, and you don't know any phone numbers, be prepared to pay.
-dropped calls- I experience a good deal of dropped calls with this service. I could understand if I were driving around and a call was dropped, but if I am standing in my kitchen, I don't expect a call to be dropped out of the blue, but with this service, it happens.
-customer service- I already went over that, I can never get a straight answer. I also went over the Web, and it took FOREVER to get a response that wasn't helpful at all.
-calls aren't always "crystal clear"- I don't really notice a clarity difference between my phone and my friend's other providers phones, unless we are in a concrete and steel building, when the frequency difference helps.
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All in all, I am pretty happy with my Sprint service. I don't expect perfection, and I don't get it. However, I think Sprint is a tad better than the competitors, from what my friends who have other providers have told me. I won't rate Sprint higher until they get better customer service (or at least consistent customer service), more capability so I don't have to dial repeatedly to make a call and my calls aren't dropped, they really make their service CLEAR and when they stop charging for silly things like directory assistance.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 34.99/month
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Epinions.com ID:
Linds81
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Member: Lindsay
Location: taking a big, long break...
Reviews written: 40
Trusted by: 9 members
About Me:
Your typical college student.. too busy to write many epinions!
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