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My wife wants an iPhone and we are trying to decide between Verizon and Sprint. We live in the Pittsburgh suburbs.
My father works for Sprint and through his discount she can get a plan for $40 a month. This includes unlimited data, messaging, mobile to mobile minutes, and 500 anytime minutes to landline. Tethering is not included in that plan though. That is cheap but I am concerned about coverage. Both my parents have Sprint service. They have no complaints though my father will drop calls on a rural stretch of road he takes to work and my mother roams where she works in a small town surrounded by rural/country areas. When they come to visit our house, they have three bars of coverage and receive calls/texts fine. I am not sure on data speeds in our area. I know there are a few remote places at the moment where you get LTE in our area and I have heard and read numerous complaints on Sprint's data speeds being awful. But my wife would mainly use data via WiFi when connected at home, work, or Starbucks.
Regarding Verizon, they have the best coverage and speed in our area. I have had Verizon through work for seven years and have had zero problems or issues and pretty good 3G speeds. I receive full bars when inside buildings, at home, and most main roads and never any dropped calls. We know of one tiny "dead" spot in our main traveling area with Verizon (with Sprint it is unknown for us) and that is it. Pricing out a new Share Everything Verizon plan with my corporate discount would be $80 a month for the 1GB of data, $88 for 2GB and tethering is included (she might use this as she has a Kindle Fire).
So the Sprint option would be half the price per month, but unsure of the coverage and data speeds. Verizon is more expensive but we know the coverage and speeds we are getting. Is it worth the cheaper price (saving $480-$576 a year) to go with Sprint?
Note: the iPhone cost and contract terms are similar on both carriers.
That's really up to you. Is it worth paying an extra $40 for peace of mind? Is it worth saving $40 a month at the expense of a slightly smaller coverage area?
I haven't used Sprint in years, but the last time I did, there were very few areas without voice coverage. At the time 3G coverage was sparse, but this is probably no longer the case.
In my personal opinion, if I was getting Sprint for half the price of Verizon, and didn't need tethering, I'd go with Sprint.
Normally I'd say Verizon is a no-brainer if you're OK with the cost, but wow! That is a steal of a deal for the Sprint service, especially if the iPhones are at contract price.
It sounds like Sprint is building LTE in your area right now. Although they say they will have their entire network redone with LTE by mid-2014, they'll probably be done in the city and suburbs much sooner.
I'd say it's definitely worth a try. Sprint postpaid has lots of voice/text roaming agreements, so you'll theoretically always be in contact whenever you're out of town--just not always on 3G or 4G.
Just be sure to mark that 14 day return period on your calendar, in case Sprint's service isn't working out.
sprint sucks id'e go with verizon for the peace of mind. and once you hit 5 gb of data sprint shuts you off ask my gf. as well as verizons customer service is based in the states and is not in another country where they don't speak english. and verizon has more 4g lte converage than sprint. and sprint has a 10.00 charge for what they call premium data useage. and ask verzion on the phone if the companies you work for offers discounts to it's employees as well that will help save a few bucks every month
well they cut my gfoff once she hit 5 gb. and the bill was paid
She must have had a different/older/non-unlimited plan. Sprint may not work for most people, but one feature Sprint contract/postpaid customers can get is actual unlimited data if used on the Sprint network. Roaming data does have limits though. And if it's one of Sprint's other brands, like Boost or Virgin, or an MVNO that uses Sprint's network, like Ting, they each set their own rules.
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