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My affair with Sprint began with a divorce from at&t. After almost 10 years of stellar turned substandard turned fraudulent turned compensatory service, I decided to part ways with at&t Orange (I came from Cingular).

My tenure at at&t involved leveraging a MAGNIFICENT unlimited MediaWorks Cingular plan that included unlimited SMS and Data for an unheard-of $20 against at&t's inability to see what devices used what plans. The tenure featured over 10 devices, and several ups and downs. One remarkable incident involved a scam the local at&t store reps were running, removing and re-adding features to increase each others' commissions. Little did the idiots know, but they managed to get rid of my precious grandfathered MediaWorks plan and were then unable to add it back!

Long story short, I called and complained to several tiers of support, about how the morons screwed me over. Support says they can't re-add the plan. My friend, who was a regional manager, informed me of the scam the guys run, where the local stores delete features, and then have their buddies at a nearby store re-add it. And here they were caught.

Finally, I managed to get $20x24months contract length  = $480 dollars + $60 for time on the phone credited to my account for my troubles.

After that came the iPhone era. For the first time, I no longer felt like I needed the next new badass phone that comes out every 3 months. For years, I was finally content with the iPhone I had, because it destroyed all competition.

There was only one problem with the iPhone: it used a new Radio chip not used in any other phone. The chip, it turned out, was a complete dud. The iPhone dropped calls left and right. The radio system often failed, where we would get "Call Failed" messages in 5 bars of reception. The situation was pretty ridiculous because other at&t phones could make calls without problems.

As time went by, Android phones grew up and the superior widget/notification interface suddenly looked more appealing than the frozen-in-time UI of the iPhone. I got tired of the rows of apps. I wanted to see more information at once! At&t had one decent Android phone at the time, which was the Samsung Captivate.

The Captivate was a sweet piece of kit. It didn't drop calls like my iPhone. It had HSUPA, unlike my iPhone (3GS). It had that sweet AMOLED screen. There was only one thing it didn't have: a functional GPS.

The thing didn't fucking work at all. On all 3 units I tried. I STILL can't believe Samsung got away with selling ALL THOSE Galaxy S's worldwide.

Faced with a dilemma and a lack of other usable Android phones,  I, for the first time, seriously considered leaving at&t.

I carefully compared all the rates, all the reviews, all the coverages, and save for the coverage, I took a liking to Sprint.

I remember sitting at an at&t store at the end of October waiting to talk to them and Samsung on the phone to see when that Froyo update for Captivate will roll out and whether or not it will fix the GPS. They could not give me any answers. I returned my Captivate right then and there and went down the street to the Sprint Store to get an EVO.


Welcome to the Now Network.

P.S. as of 2/28/11 there is still no Froyo or functional GPS for Samsung Captivate.