[EVO 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] taylorinnov:
I stay with Sprint for a number of reasons.

First and foremost is reliability. I live in Gainesville, FL and have never had any trouble with their service, even at times when my friends on Verizon couldn't even get a signal (Verizon just suffered a 6-hour outage here recently). Sprint has never let me down in this regard.

Also, as far as I know Sprint's CDMA system (the only one I use) is one of the last "pure" networks. By pure, I mean they built their network by themselves, with clear intent. This is far off from AT&T or Verizon which are basically just hodgepodges of smaller companies merged together, all with different architectures and different design goals.

Sprint's network was also designed in a time when PCS spectrum was difficult to work with because of the high frequency. They compensated for technical shortfalls in the base station equipment with top-notch vertical cable and extremely high gain antenna arrays on their towers. Today, the base station gear is much improved, but the antennas still remain. This combination is why Sprint handsets seem to have an almost unnatural ability to make and receive calls even with 0 bars. Bars only measure the strength of the tower signal as received on the phone. The other side is the strength of the phone's signal as received on the tower. It is here (phone -> tower) where those antennas really make a difference.

I can already hear you saying "But what about Nextel"? Well, Nextel's IDEN technology was never integrated into Sprint's original CDMA network. The two systems still operate independently. Also, Sprint recently received FCC authorization to use Nextel's spectrum for a new LTE network. That will be coming soon after Nextel is shut down next year.

Sprint has positioned itself quite nicely for expansion as well. The new LTE network they are now building uses the same class of spectrum (PCS) as their current CDMA network. That means that to get the LTE going, they can just install some new gear in the base of their tower. This is totally different than AT&T and Verizon, who must install new antennas and vertical cable runs on their towers to support their new spectrum. So Sprint's costs to roll out LTE will be much less than Verizon or AT&T and they can do so faster.

Also, once all Sprint's customer's phones support LTE, Sprint can simply pull the old CDMA gear and reconfigure their LTE gear in the tower base to use all their PCS spectrum. So the next step in 4G deployment (the phasing out of 3G) will be MUCH less expensive for them as opposed to Verizon and AT&T, who then must do what Sprint did to begin with - swap out the base station components that currently run their 3G service for LTE capable equipment. This means that while all Sprint's LTE phones can easily then enjoy increased capacity after 3G is phased out, Verizon's and AT&T's customer's phones will again have to be replaced as their current LTE spectrum radios aren't compatible with their current CDMA spectrum radios.

So Sprint's long term future looks great at the moment and capacity shouldn't be an issue for them for a very long time. Even if it becomes a problem, they still have access to TONS of MDS/MMDS/BRS spectrum available in the 2.5 - 2.8GHz range (Clearwire's 4G WiMax runs there in some places now).

Besides that, Sprint is making all the right business moves. They now have excellent US-based support, they have completely written off all the loss from the Nextel merger, and they are maintaining a smooth flow of new phones (unlike everyone else who was turning out a new model every week or so for a while there).

I also have gripes with AT&T and Verizon... First off, I have observed AT&T's engineering department making consistent mistakes that cost the company money and either don't help or worse, hurt their customers. (I'm not elaborating on this publicly.) And as we all know Verizon will nickel and dime you to death. AT&T's customer service is a joke, and Verizon's isn't much better. The problem with being big and profitable is that it is easy to forget where exactly all that money comes from.

I also don't like how AT&T and Verizon are pushing their grandfathered-in unlimited data customers to change plans. See, Verizon and AT&T need their revenues to grow to continue to look good on the stock market. They can't do this if their plans allow unlimited usage, even as operating costs rise, even as data usage rises. If they have to raise plan prices, they are the bad guy. So instead of raising prices, they set data caps low and simply wait for customers to demand more data and then THE CUSTOMER selects a higher data tier, at a higher price. Sneaky huh...

So in summary, I stay with Sprint because in the long run:

* Their entire network was engineered as one network, not many.

* Their network will be faster quicker.

* This will happen with fewer phone/hardware upgrades on my part.

* They have tons of room to grow.

* Their customer support is excellent.

* Their plans are reasonable.

* Their billing is consistent.

* They are kind to their unlimited customers.

**** Also, because of all of the above, I'm not only a Sprint customer. I own Sprint stock. ****