Broken connection for Sprint Nextel

(continued from previous page)

Sprint's troubles with the Nextel migration could have been exacerbated by the fact that the company is trying to juggle several large initiatives at once. At the end of 2005, after finalizing the merger with Nextel, Sprint entered into a joint venture with four cable operators to develop integrated wireless broadband services.

It also launched its over-the-air music service and began promoting its data services to entice customers to subscribe to its new 3G services. In 2006, Sprint started upgrading its existing 3G network to the next version of technology known as EV-DO (Evolution Data Optimized) Revision A. And in August of 2006, Sprint announced it would invest $3 billion to build a new fourth-generation, or 4G, wireless network over the next two years by using Wimax technology.

"The company totally lacks focus," said Albert Lin, an analyst with American Technology Research. "Trying to create grandiose visionary initiatives, like a 4G network or a converged cable and wireless service, sounds good, but it's difficult to implement."

What's more, the company has been without a chief operational officer since August, when Len Lauer, who had handled day-to-day management of the company, was forced out. Sprint executives had said they wouldn't replace Lauer, but this month CEO Gary Forsee said the company would start a search for a replacement.

"Sprint has definitely been experiencing some operational difficulties," said Michael Nelson, an equities analyst at Stanford Group. "But management has recognized that there are problems and they're trying to right the ship."

In the meantime, investors and subscribers not willing to switch providers will have to wait to see if Sprint's management team can turn the situation around. At a market valuation of about $50 billion, plus the $20 billion in debt the company is carrying, Nelson said it would be difficult to imagine a takeover anytime soon. But judging from the other megamergers in the telecommunications market, such as the $86 billion takeover of BellSouth by AT&T, anything is possible.

[Tom CyBold]

Sprinting to oblivion?

As a stockholder and resident of Sprint's hometown, I can only hope that someone on the bridge can get this rudderless telecommunications supertanker up to speed and pointed in the right direction. Kansas City depends on the payroll and prestige of this onetime great company, but many former employees and metro area residents wonder if the Nextel merger was a mistake. Sprint execs, please prove us wrong.

[rjladdjr]

Sprinting to oblivion

Sprint merely acquired Nextel for its premier customer base . thats that , The merger was a mistake because Sprint has lied from the gip about improvements , all i have seen are more and more issues along the way, I am still a NEXTEL subscriber and a dealer.Im gonna tough it out til the end. The right direction? is for someone to come along and buy out Nextel from Sprint? is it possible? wheres Craig McCaw when you need him to buy a wireless company.

[oopscdazz]

If Any Company does:

deserve problems this is the one. Nextel customer service is the pits to deal with and will charge you with miscellaneous items consisting of anything and everything they possibly can. This has been coming for a long time and it couldn't happen to them soon enough. They're harassments of their customer base are well known but any empolyee cutting should come from the top rather than the rank and file.

[tephelan]

Sprint / Disney Mobile

Doesn't the New Disney Mobile Service use the Sprint Network.

Wonder if that will make a difference in the next quarter profits.

[direct225]

sure does and that will do more harm to Disney than help for Sprint

People aren't stupid. If they know Sprint is behind Disney's service, they will know that the poor customer service and dropped phone calls are part of the deal. Disney's great reputation will not be enough to save Sprint.

[i_am_still_wade]

Good bye, don't care

Nextel's coverage was abysmal. They would have dead zones in big cities along major routes. I know because I had Nextel. The final straw was the Sprint merger. I told them so when I canceled. Nobody has more dropped calls than Sprint. And nobody nickel-and-dimes you more than Sprint. So good-bye Sprint. I won't shed a tear for you.

[delder]

Sprint customer service was bad even before merger

It took Sprint customer service over an hour to suspend service on a lost phone. It is just about impossible to prove that you are you when when you need them to do something like suspend a phone. Their web site has never worked right, especially for multi-phone accounts - we have six, but soon it will be 0.

[facerw]

Bad Service

I gave up on sprint after several problems which began on March 2006. Billing issues and poor service forced me off and I was a customer since March 2002. Now I've moved off to Verizon Wireless and will not go back.

[complex09]

You are not the only one, Sprint sucks.

Sprint did the same thing with me. Nickel and dime. The final straw was this . . .

Every two years I could get a new phone at a discounted price, then last year my phone was accidentally destroyed so I got a refurbished phone with-out a discount and was told I would get a discount this year. Then this year Sprint rep blindly tells me I would not get the discount this year because I got a new phone last year . . . . duh, I did not use the discount because it was not available and was the reason why I got a refurbished phone. To top it off they told me that I was not eligible for another extra year! I even tried talking to a customer service manager after talking with four different customer reps at four different times; to show them the problem with their phone upgrade plan. It was all the same response of disregard even though I had been a loyal Sprint customer for seven years! SEVEN YEARS!

I was quite shocked at how much money Sprint had sprint to get customers to in the end just tell the customers they don?t care if they switched to another carrier!

I?m happy to have switched from Sprint, my plan with Version is saving me money every month, I can do a one year contract which means I?ll get a discount on a new phone each year. Screw you Sprint, you suck! You'll be lucky to be around in eight years with suck poor service.

[tc1uscg]

No one is safe

It's sad to see CNET writers not getting the full story, or even forgoing being subjective on what went on with Nextels network before Sprint took over. Sprint's CDMA network doesn't even use the same antennas as Nextel's iDen. I can see the excuss of network overload but that was happening before Aug of 2005. People just thought Sprint would walk in, snap a finger and it would be money from heaven. People have forgotten just what a cell phone is and as with VoIP, people feel they should be able to pickup the phone and get a dial tone every time. Hello.. time to get a clue. Once you come to terms with what they really are (radios), you learn to live with dropped calls. As far as billing issues, hey, I've gone round and round with my landline provider, my cable provider, even my insurance company, so you don't have the market on that problem.

[direct225]

Don't kid yourself

Yes, what you state is true. But do yourself a favor, try a cingular phone for a week or two and experience the difference between a phone that works 99% of the time compared to any phone on either the Sprint CDMA network or the Nextel Iden Network. Cingular is head and shoulders above Sprint's service.

[lstinpa]

Nextel no more

I was a long time Nextel user up until 6 months ago. I live in the Boston area, and started expierencing dropped calls, and issues connecting to the data network(lived on telenav). This started shortly after the Sprint/Nextel merger, and I hung in there as long as i could. I worked with Customer service too many times to count to try and resolve the issue, until finally I couldn't take it any longer. I wasn't going to pay for a service that I could no longer use. I switched to Verizon(just due to coverage areas), and have been happy with the service.

I recieved my final bill from Sprint and had a 400 dollar charge on it for canceling my service(I was a year into a 2 year contract). I contacted sprint and asked to have the charge removed, as I canceled due to poor service. The would not reverse the charge, as thier contract does not provide for a clause for poor service. It seems that SPRINT only has a guarntee on coverage, and not on acutal service within thier coverage areas. I asked what they expected me to do with phones I could no longer use, and they stated that I should just pay the 150 a month I was spending with them, and wait for them to "fix" the issue, which they said they were not going to do anyway.

So SPRINT wants me to pay for a service that they admited that they could not provide due to the fact that they have thier contracts worded so that you can not use poor service/no service as a reason to break the contract.

This is just not right. I would never go back to them now. SO LONG SPRINT

[direct225]

Sprint screwed the Nextel merger up big time.

How long does Sprint expect their bread and butter Nextel customers to stick around? The reason why Nextel grew like a snowball rolling down hill in a blizzard is because once everyone's friends and business associates had nextel, it was extremely convenient to direct connect with each other. Now that you can't make a call without sounding like you are in a fishbowl or flat out just dropping the call, people on nextel are leaving in droves to Cingular and Verizon. No point on sticking with Nextel if more than half or your direct connect contacts don't have Nextel anymore. It's been a year since the merger and the service is getting worse, not better. Regarding Sprint's service. It's not much better than Nextel in many parts of the US, so a hyrbrid phone will not solve their problems. It's no secret why Cingular had their best quarter ever...You can actually make a phone call with their phones that stays connected and doesn't sound like you are underwater or in a tunnel.

[jessica_rachelle]

this cracks me up

i am a customer service rep i know admitting to that i am going to get all kinds of hate responses, and i dont blame you i know sprint sucks but hey i work for a vendor site and well i have to pay bills somehow... anyway, the sprint/nextel merger has not had anything to do with the service getting ******, i dont doubt that the service sucks, but the merger hasn't caused that, sprint phones only run on cdma and nextel only run on iden. they cant run on eachothers so if nextel is starting to suck that is their fault and they need to check their towers, it makes me so mad when customers call in and blame the ****** service on the merger.. some of you wonder why customer service sucks... its because we have to deal with complete morons all the time who think they know everything about every subject, if you know so much... WHY THE HELL ARE YOU CALLING US?!?!

[adnanonly]

networks never merged

It is funny how may subscribers comment that phone service have become worse after the merger. Unfortunately most of us are unaware that the merger was for financial reasons and no network has been merged. Actually, the networks probably will never be merged. Both are very different platforms. With the new PowerSource (hybrid) phones Sprint network is used for voice and data and the Nextel network is used for ppt only.

[rjladdjr]

Networks Never Merged

yes this is true, but listen at the radio ads ... about the guy with two cellphones ducktaped together and the other guy is going on about how sprint has the new hybrid phone uses both the sprint and nextel networks (FALSE) if you dont have sprint coverage but have nextel the only thing you have is PTT and if you have no Nextel and only Sprint you only have what? Cellular .. BINGO! i think that the ad is very misleading and confusing for most people. hell Id rather have two cellphones ducktaped together might work better than this idea eh? but yes you are very correct and they wont be merging the networks, their plan: shut iden down.... end of story

[ladona23]

sprint/nextel customer service

Customer service is not only bad it is outsourced to third party vendor ACS Inc. I have serious questions as to the security of personal information. CSR are rude, disconnect calls, lie,
and apparently are able to access your information without a login being documented. So any third party rep claiming to be Sprint/Nextel can access your info and do who knows what with it. Identify theft!!? How honest is the guy that is lying to you and hanging up on you? We are supposed to trust that this is not the guy that helped commit the identity theft that cleaned out your account. Is Sprint/Nextel listening to the customers about the customer service debacle. Sprint needs to evaluate the security and performance of their third party customer service vendors.

[tc1uscg]

Spirit Airways too..

Think outsourcing Sprint/Nextel's teir 1 support is bad and security? Spirit (no Sprint) airways is doing this too. Dumping hundreds of employees onto the streets so they can outsource overseas. If find this amazing since when my wife got onboard as a part timer a few years go, he had to go through all kinds of back ground checks. Heck, my TS clearance in the military took the same amount of time and requirements.. So, you gonna tell me they are checking out all this outsourced employees for issues? Give me a break. I'll pay the extra and fly someone else.

[Skipper1234]

Sprint Sucks!

Their customer service agents lied to me on multiple occasions which wound up costing me $400 in early termination fees. When I called customer service to complain about their representatives misleading me, the agent actually said she didn't believe me! Avoid this company at all costs because I guarantee you will get overcharged. And if you ever need to call customer service for help you will wind up feeling powerless and taken advantage of.

[srlingam2004]

Sprint Nextel Customer Service

Thats TRUE, there should be some rules to applied by gov that the secured information will not will out sourced. The Customer Service really bad, they are very poor in understanding the problem and solving it and won't complete your request.
Now a days these kinda companies are out sourcing the services to save the money but releasing the critical/secured data to unsecured places.

[tomaeaton]

Contract with Spint Nextel

So what did you do about the $400.00 charge? I am going through the same thing for the same reason.

[skotters]

and the list goes on...

i have recently come into the same problems as all of you. so the big question is what can be done? big companies like this have done "the unspeakables" (and i mean plural!) to many of thier customers for no other reason than greed...and the list goes on!!! they are allowed to do these things because of many reasons. so will blogs help? maybe someone will listen and do something. personally i think maybe we can start by saying "NO MORE CONTRACTS"! i don't know about all of you but i am sick to death of thier "contracts". if they do what they say and believe in customer service then they would honor this. but then again companies can't be dishonest without them and wouldn't make the kind of money than they would have otherwise. "contracts are for suckers" and they know it. why else would they push them. they call the shots and change them at will. thank God i left sprint/nextel but what about the other companies. i think a big step in the right direction is to stand up and say "NO MORE CONTRACTS"!. if we don't like the service we will go elsewhere!

[skotters]

good question

because we get frustrated! and unfortunatly we take it out on the first person that comes up
because we get the run around. like today i stayed on the phone to resolve and old issue and was sent here, there and everywhere including
the "spanish network". over 2 hours later i recieved the same runaround. i really couldn't say
whos fault it is but it seems wierd that it didn't start untill the merger. i don't blame you it's the upper management. that's why your there, to take the abuse. you don't think they want it do you? thankyou for your support

[leftsprintforverizon]

The most outrageous customer service manager EVER

I have dealt with poor customer services for over six years with Sprint. I have wasted countless hours over the years on the phone trying to get fixes to billing errors and trying to get straight answers from different Sprint reps.

The tipping point for me was when a Sprint manager threatened to call *my* boss because she was mad I wouldn't accept her answer that there wasn't an address I could mail a formal complaint to.

Read my open letter to Sprint here:
www.dear-sprint.com

[lynne30]

I recently upgrade my telephone form just nextel to sprint/nextel and I have had nothing but aggravation from day one. Phone service works fine, but nextel direct connect & web access do not work. I have spent countless hours on the phone and in repair centers no one can help me, yet I am told that I pay for phone service, and that they dont have to provide me with the other features included in my plan. Word of warning to anyone tempted to sign up with sprint/nextel dont do it!!!! Customer service is the worst , and you will end up cancelling and going to another provider.