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Sprint Customer since Jan 2005 (an email to Dan Hesse regarding Evo’s $10 charge)

Mr. Hesse,

I’ve been a sprint customer for many years (since Jan 2005). I picked up my first smart phone last year when I got the Palm Pre and I was very excited about the phone. As I’m sure you are aware, the Pre had hardware issues at launch and inventory issues as well – leaving me for a several days with a brand new broken phone while I waited for a replacement to become available. Still, I considered those issues to be Palm issues and not Sprint issues.

Here we are almost a full year later and my Palm Pre issues have not greatly improved. I have begun looking at alternative phones and was very excited to see Sprint introduce a quality Android phone in the HTC Evo. The HTC Evo has many features that I am excited about and I have been looking forward to launch day on June 4th.

I have been told, however that there will be a mandatory monthly $10 “premium data service” fee with the purchase of the Evo. I am in the Phoenix area which does not currently have 4G and after speaking with Sprint customer service, it seems the premium data service does not grant me the ability to use my phone as a myfi device, or give me any other premium data services outside of 4G connectivity.

Is this the case? Am I truly expected to pay an additional $240 above the initial cost of the phone for services that I cannot use and are not available to me? Wouldn’t it make more sense to charge $10 more to every Sprint customer in a 4G city regardless of which device they use? Everyone in a 4G city potentially benefits with increased 3G bandwidth as 4G device owners move their data traffic off the 3G spectrum. At least in this case, you can articulate the benefit received for the increased fee to your customers.

I understand that Sprint’s plans are already at GREAT rates and those rate plans have kept me on the Sprint network since 2005. Regardless, there seems something terribly wrong with charging for a service that is not actually provided. I look forward to a response from you and your team – thank you in advance.


Dale Sackrider, II
Twitter: http://twitter.com/dsackr
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dsackr
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