Sprint USA

I've got Sprint's 'SERO' plan. SERO stands for Sprint Employee Referral Offer, and it is (officially) open to anyone who knows a Sprint employee. I knew someone from college.

The SERO plan is great... you get basically unlimited of everything Sprint offers, except for minutes, and it is about $30/month. That's unlimited picture and text messaging, unlimited data, Sprint TV (although not all the channels), etc. etc. All for $30/month (500 minutes)

Sprint's coverage is decent enough that I don't have problems with dropped calls too often. They're leading the major companies in terms of their 3G data buildout, with 3G service having been operational for some time in most markets. Data is fast, although I've seen better.

Customer service is the usual mess that I've had with pretty much every cell carrier I've tried (AT&T, Verizon, and Cingular (before they were bought). Nothing special, but nobody has anything special.

I liked the service, I liked the phones. I hated the way they did business. I would honestly get my bill 2 days after it was due and then they would shut my phone off for non-payment. Then, when I would call, they were very rude and would treat me like a criminal.

I switched to AT&T for better coverage and better phone support, but not a bad choice. They know they're at a disadvantage and charge less as a result. Their data network was the best for quite some time (while Verizon and AT&T played catch up) and did work extremely well. Their coverage may be better in your area, and they might be a good option if you don't value phone selection/availability.

I was a Sprint customer for about 6 years (at the beginning of 2008, I switched over to AT&T). It certainly wasn't terrible but it wasn't great. My biggest complaint was that I consistently had dropped calls - it seemed like the type of building I was in or where I was in a building had a pretty big influence on signal strength (examples: leaning out of my dorm window in Rhode Island I had pretty good service but in the halls, it was miserable; outside of my dad's house in the SF Bay Area, I had great reception but inside my room, it tended to cut out at least twice per call). It would also go on analog roam quite a bit even when it really shouldn't have been roaming at all. I would have to shut off my phone and turn it back on for it to find the non-roaming signal. That too irritated the bejeezus out of me. (And unlike AT&T, with Sprint I never got service while skiing up in Tahoe.)

But on to the more positive stuff...I actually thought their phone selection was okay for the most part (at least I did when I was 16). When I went back in December 2007 (in an attempt to decide if I preferred the phones offered at AT&T), there wasn't a single phone I was particularly excited about...so perhaps my tastes just weren't very refined back in my earlier Sprint days.

I did however like their wireless internet card which I used for about 6 months. It certainly wasn't cheap but it was pretty great to be able to access the internet on my laptop from a variety of places (i.e. driving up through California on Highway 5). Again, signal strength was sometimes an issue. And I don't have another service to compare it to...but overall, I was pretty pleased with it.

Final verdict....not terrible, but I certainly didn't shed any tears over leaving Sprint.