Need For Timely Data Reports From Wireless Providers of Data, Voice, and Text ServicesI first got a sprint data plan and card hardware that I used in my router for my home computer system years ago, sometime back in or near 2007 and have used it up to the day I recently fired Sprint. I was paying about $62 a month for "so called" unlimited usage. A couple of years or so after getting the card I was emailed by Sprint that I was using to much data stream. So I wrote them and called them about it and asked them the definition of "unlimited" at the time. The continued to send me warnings and email when I approached or was over 5GB.
About 6 months after that, I saw ads on TV that had the president of Sprint say the same thing I had asked them about "unlimited" and the pledged to provide "unlimited". I retired and decided to reduce my monthly bills so I would not get in debt with all the expenses so I had a family member who worked for Sprint tell me he could get my plan changed to get my bill down to about half or so. So I went for it and soon thereafter find that the deal was tainted in that instead of "unlimited", I was limited with the so called "employee" plan to only 5GB much to my surprise when I got a bill for way more than I want to publish here. They forgave me for a bulk of the bill and I started to seriously watch my usage from then on. The called the new "employee" plan, the Advantage Plan or something like that.
Since I was on the Advantage Plan which gave me 5GB of data per month for a total of about $32, I had to watch my usage closely to avoid the high additional cost of overage. I tried for a couple of years to get Sprint to email me daily/weekly or alerts when my usage was over my time points. Their site has usage data but I could never verify or get them to report on the timing of such data use reports. Their data report was not dated and time reported so that I could verify my actual use at a point in time, especially at the end of a monthly billing period.
I told them that I want accurate, timely, usage data for the period of my service. I need the total of the end of the period at the end of the period and not several days later. I need to know the time or the usage total reading too.
I developed a nice spreadsheet where I entered the data uage at the time I obtained it on their billing website for my account. I kept finding too much time delay in the usage report. I needed timely usage/time data for my spreadsheet analysis and planning of usage. However, even with non-exact reports by Sprint, I was able to manage my time to have little to no overage. I could not get Sprint to understand what customers like me want to manage their usage to keep cost down.
The employee left Sprint due to what he described as "unreasonable" decisions of Sprint of how they treat their customers and employees. He is now very happy working for Verizon. Meanwhile, I get a letter that Sprint is going to raise the price of my plan to to about $45 and give me 6GB instead of 5GB. I have been looking for alternative was to combine my activities wirelessly to one simple provider to reduce my monthly wireless charges for INTERNET and phone activity and needs.
Solavei looked the most promising but they do not yet provide Wifi Hotspot or Tethering services to their "unlimited" voice, data, and texting services for $49/mo. yet. 4G networks have not come alive locally yet too for all the local providers from the research I have done too. U. S. Cellular does provide the services but not at the "unlimited" price advertised by Solavei but, with Google Voice one can have 5GB of data with the ability to tether or hotspot for less than $95 without having to buy another device using my Samsung Galaxy 2 Aviator smartphone. Here is the suspected drawback... slow when I ran a trial of the tethering or hotspot compared to Sprint about 4 months ago.
Maybe that has or will change for the better. That did not reduce my bill much but at least I am saving some money and will still be able to access the INTERNET on my phone, home computer system, or notebook computer mobility or at home. It seems fair to say that Sprint has no provisions to help seniors or retired people on a tight budget, good, reliable, and inexpensive data services. I plan to continue to research Solavei and especially consider them when it is time to replace my current phone which is only a few months old and the one I got to replace an HTC desire that did not last over 1.8 years with USC before it totally quit and will not turn on again.
The new phone that I would prefer, not knowing as much about the cheaper ones that will work with Solavei, would cost over $500 which is definitely not in my near future budget at this point in time. When you do a simple financial analysis of the total cost of your wireless usage, then it is not feasible to switch to Solavei even if they had the ability to hotspot at this time with the cost of new equipment, but maybe with used equipment.
Update - recently I used it with tethering with the upgrade to 5GB data with tethering plan for $25 added to my phone plan. They were supposed to turn it on at the same time I cut Sprint off but like most, they did it different than discussed. Hope they do not charge for the early upgrade but at least they will give me a cut if it is detected by me on the bill (hope in one hand and ....). It is faster than Sprint recently and saves me money to boot till I can get Solavei to provide the same for less plus get me a phone like their HTC One for much less than the $500 they ask.
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