Sprint: ‘Unlimited’ data actually means 5GB worth of ‘unlimited’ data

Will Park

Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...

• Raidium

  Well this really sucks! They are our top sellers for broadband cards here because of their unlimited data plans, but now they are going to take a page out of the othere carriers books and mess things up! Way To Go Sprint! That wasn’t a cheer incase you were wondering!

• bruce miller

  I’ve been a Sprint data card customer for 5 years. Sprint has now just sold me on Verizon. It is very simple:

  – same limit as Verizon
  – better coverage with Verizon
  – a penalty-free cancellation to leave Sprint

  Further, according to Sprint sources, the charge for going over the 5GB limit is $.03/kilobyte. An inadvertant OS update of 500 megs over the limit puts you into debt to Sprint for $15,000.

  When I contacted Bob White, Senior VP of Corporate Communications at Sprint about this drastic change, he said he checked my records and found that I would probably not be affected by the change. Well, this is even more reason to go to Verizion, because Sprint has now just confirmed that I can live within Verizon’s limit and get more coverage for the same cost.

  The ONLY reason I was staying with Sprint was the peace of mind that with unlimited I did not have to worry about inadvertently going into serious debt and that I would have the data throughput when I needed it.

• Raidium

  Well, rest assured, anyone with an unlimited plan should be “grandfathered” into their plan so the plan change wouldn’t effect them. Ofcourse there are exceptions to that. The reason why the carriers changed their plans like they did is because 5 Gigs should be more then enough for the average internet user to consume wihtin one month (except for maybe excessive porn addicts). Even hardcore gamers like myself can stay within the limit. I only use maybe 2.5 Gigs a month and all I use my card for is gaming on mmorpgs.

  The main reason for these changes is because there are a very few minority (when I saw few I’m talking about 100 people, thats it) That use over 75% of the carriers bandwith because they run companies on a single aircard, no lie. These VERY few individuals are costing the carriers MILLIONS of dollars a month. So inorder to stop these serious loss, they limited their plans down to 5 Gigs a Month to get rid of these individuals.

  So try not to blame the Carrier for switching their rate plans to limited becasue chances are, you wont come close to using 5 Gigs by urself in a month. Not unless you are an illegal file sharer, major porn addict, or your social life consists of your ability to be connected to the net 24/7. And if any of those are the case, maybe you should rethink your lives!

• DallasDebbie

  I called in today to cancel my Sprint datacard. I originally got the card to use with my laptop because Time/Warner Cable took over my internet cable service from Comcast, and it became unstable and unreliable. The first year was okay, then in March of this year I began getting daily fluxuating speeds that were 50KB/s downloads up to the promised 700KB/s. After many attempts and service orders and finally verifying that the card was fine but the service wasn’t…I thought I should try and terminate the contract that had six months left on it. I looked up “cancel Sprint datacard” on Google and for the first time saw the 5MB limit vs. unlimited change. Hurrah! Since they are changing the service agreement, I can legally cancel my service without penalty easier than canceling for poor service.

  Calling Sprint was an experience in itself. I was literally shaking with anger as I tried to control my voice and what I said. Of course, the rep didn’t want me to cancel. She wanted to deny that the contract was changed, or that I could cancel without penalty, but I had already verified I could with a service agent a week prior. The announcement of the change was in this month’s billing statement. I finally said she needed to pass me on to someone who was able to cancel, since I wasn’t willing to answer any more questions regarding “solving the problem of slow data downloads/uploads”. She placed me on hold and came back and said I would be cancelled.
  Now I plan to call back and verify the cancellation is indeed in place and that I won’t be charged a cancellation fee. From all the post I’ve ready on various sites, the most important keys to getting things done is documentation and checking back. An informed consumer is a powerful consumer.

  p.s. DSL is now available in my area and is my next source of frustration, no doubt.

• Unforgiven

  As I see it I upgraded my aircard last September and agreed to a 2 year contract so I could get the discount on it. Seems to me a contract is a contract and I have until the end of my contract for unlimited use, otherwise they have to let me out of it with out charging me. BTW I have charter at home and I have herd rumors that the big DSL/Cable companies are planning on placing limits on their services as well.

• Megan Blalock

  It seems like Sprint is doing what ever they can to push the rest of their loyal customers away. I understand why they would do this, but they also canceled the Sero plans as they were once offered. It seems like Sprint doesn’t want to offer service anymore and this is 1 more good way to allow customers to cancel their service. I guess Sprint will be out of service in a few years.

• James

  Raidium, you really have it all wrong, please let me explain.

  This month my sprint Data usage was 11GB.

  I did my best to try to keep it low and this was the lowest I could achieve.

  I don’t download movies, music, porn, or anything.

  However I do use my card as my homes total internet solution.

  We live in the boonies. For us it’s Satellite, Dial up or a PCS card like Sprint or Verizon, that’s it…no other options.

  When I first got this all set up in 2007, I researched long and hard to find the right service for me.
  Sat. has an awful rep. A GB cap of their own and a nazi-like FAP (Fair-use access policy) and if you want to play any on-line games, forgetaboutit. 900 pings do not a good gamer make.

  Dialup is as you know, crap.

  So that left PCS cards.

  Verizon with their 5GB cap seemed out of date with today’s internet. There’s so much to do, watch and listen to. How could anyone survive on 5GB a month?

  So..I went with Sprint. For the last 1.5 years I have been very happy. It’s not DSL or cable speeds but it ain’t bad. It’s fairly dependable and I was planing on renewing for 2 more years when my contract was up next spring.

  I have never abused it but I do have 2 or 3 computers in the house and my kids use one, I use one, my mom uses one and my wife uses one.

  Still, I think my avg. use per month is only about 15-20GB.

  I have been at about 10 GB on the lowest month and about 30GB on the highest month.

  This past month, all I did was game and surf and email and my kids surfed, my wife surfed and my mom surfed…that’s it. No movies, no music DLs and we STILL hit 11GB !!

  A family CAN NOT LIVE on 5GB.

  What boggles my mind is that sprint offers no recourse for users that want a bit more.

  If they had a true unlimited plan or maybe a 30GB month plan at something like $99 a month, I would jump on it in a heartbeat to protect what I already have.

  Not to mention the extra equipment I had to buy to get good reception here in the rural farmlands of Ohio.

  I had to buy a $100 antenna, a $350 amplifier, a $200 router, $50 worth of extra cable AND $100 for the datacard just to get it to work right.
  As long as it was unlimited, I was happy to do it and am quite proud of my family hotspot here in the middle of nowhere.

  Now it seems it was all for nothing

  If this 5GB thing is the only option I am offered when they finally get around to officially notifying me, I will be saying bye bye and going back to dialup.

  I thought Sprint was my saving hero, looks like they prefer to be corporate rats just like Verizon and AT&T.

• Mike

  exactly what james said. same situation, same solution, same result. cancel sprint.

• Ben

  Just like James, I was only able to get dial-up, satellite, or wireless in my area. DSL doesn’t come out of town this far and low and behold the Cable lines stop half a mile up my road. So I had five options:

  A. Dial-up – Unacceptable, I play too many online games, stream too many videos, and surf too much for dial-up.

  B. Satellite – Would have been the best option as for speed, but obviously is horrible for gaming and the connection would likely slow down or die when there was a cloud in the sky.

  C. Sprint Wireless – Cost as much as satellite with slower speeds, BUT was unlimited and no worries about going over 5GB per month. Good for everything in my own sight.

  D. AT&T/Verizon Wireless – Same as Sprint but what turned me away from this option was the 5GB limits, as I knew that streaming and downloading video as well as playing games would eat that up in a heartbeat.

  E. Burgin Wirless(local wireless ISP) – VERY low costs for wireless internet(like rivaling DSL and Cable prices) with very high connection speeds. Broadcasting antenna on top of a water tower that is visible from my home. Unlimited. But what stopped me here was the number of people I had heard from that while the cost and speeds were awesome, the connection was down constantly due to problems with the Burgin Wireless servers. Sometimes the connection was down for months at a time.

  So out of the options, I chose Sprint because it seemed to be the most reliable broadband option I had. The price was a bit high, but it seemed that it had an advantage over the other choices. Well it worked fine and actually never went down on me for 2 years. I was completely satisfied with my service, until I read a disturbing bit of news on a random forum. With a 5GB limit on my connection now, I am constantly concerned with how much I download, surf, and even how much I play games. This is ridiculous and has caused me to immediately think about switching to Burgin Wireless. I have asked around and as it would seem, the service is now much better than before and they have worked around all of the bugs that they used to have. Thanks alot Sprint, but I believe you have just lost my business.

• John Adams

  They shot their own foot

• niceguyeddie

  how is unlimited not unlimited? Someone should sue them for false advertising, Knowingly misleading the public, fraud and a host of other things.

• IMSaulK

  Sprint took an opportunity, and bungled it. So there were a couple of hundred users that were burning up 75% of their bandwidth? Why not offer tiered pricing, as they still do for a variety of voice plans. How about 6GB for $59.99 to keep them just a little ahead of Verizon and AT&T. Then $79.99 for 9 GB and $99.99 for 12 GB. The exact tiers could be tweaked a little bit. I think the important piece would be the first tier.

• andrew

  this is dumb i just refered 2 of my family members to sprint and now they do this bullshit?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! arrrrrrr makes me mad we all use way over this amount this was why i got sprint….fuck sprint if they go through with this!!!!!!!!!!!!aaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!iam going to canncell and i dont care if they try to penilty me iam fighting this

• Sharon

  My story is exactly like James’ post above. I am using my sprint aircard as my family’s ISP provider. I live in the country and other options are all very limited. I bought the card in January of 08. I did not get a router until this this past summer. The router enables good service through the house. My family used 17GB this month and the company sent a letter that our service is being canceled at the beginning of October. I was not aware that my unlimited plan was limited to 5GB a month. This is unreasonable to charge the high monthly charge and place this limit on my service. I am very upset that I have paid for this service, bought the equipment and now the company has redefined the word unlimited.

• Mike C.

  I just got off the phone with Sprint. They sent me a letter canceling my contract for excessive use and roaming. My card does not even roam, it is locked in to the PCS network. I also live in the country and also drive a truck. My usage used to average 13 gigs, but started to watch my usage after the last letter and phone call from Sprint. My usage according to Sprint the last three months dwindled from 11 gigs to 7.5 gigs to 5.5 gigs last month. Because my usage exceeded 5 gigs three months in a row, they have decided to not honor their contract and cancel on me. When I signed up, it was unlimited. I was informed the end of last year that unlimited meant 5 gig. My contract did not specify a limit with my unlimited plan. Even my account online says unlimited usage. So how can they just change the rules mid game? When asked about this the rep just hung on me. I really think we need to file a class action lawsuit against Sprint PCS. I am not interested in money, only to make them honor their agreement. They are putting the screws to us, selling us a service under false pretenses, then changing the terms at their descretion. There should be grounds for some kind of lawsuit, even if I have to sure in small claims court. At least it will get their attention, costing them time and legal costs. I hope something happens here……..
  Pissed in Alabama

• Susan

  I just called Sprint to cancel my card because I need to reduce my expenses and my contract ended two months ago. The Sprint rep. cautioned me from cancelling because I have an older unlimited plan (started in June 2007) and in his words, it is a “gem”. He said I am not limited to the 5 GB like new subscribers are. I don’t have cable and use my card for primary internet and like to watch tv online. I’ve already paid for the next month, which started yesterday, so I’m going to think about it the value of keeping it until this months service ends. I sure hope the Sprint rep. knows what he is talking about. Unlimited service should be just that. Anything else is false advertisement.

• Daisy

  I agree, we should file a class action lawsuit. I was just charged $125 in overage charges by sprint under the “unlimited” plan. The rep told me that the FCC did not allow sprint to offer unlimited internet plans (I’m not sure about that, I googled to do research on what she said, but nothing came up).I’m tired of big corporations doing all this shady stuff and getting away with it.

• george

  I have a sprint Compass™ 597 by Sierra Wireless with unlimited data and a free upgrade worth $150 this is a grandfarthered plan that I would transfer, the most they give now ig 5gigs worth of data, I would transfer this plan to you for $150,my email is gakele@optonline.net

• frusterated

  welcome to america, home of the scams, and rip off masters, and thiefs.

• Thejohnshue63

  Well this sucks. So much for streaming music services anymore.

• Cantsay00

  Verizon is actually still truely UNLIMITED until July 7th. It was AT&T first, now Verizon is the last to change. But if you don’t want overage charges switch over to Verizon and you’ll be grandfathered in.

• Rick

  This was posted in 2008 and i use about 20 gb a day on sprint and no extra charges 

• Sprint lies to Americans

  Well Sprint finally caught me using unlimited data. Wow, what was I thinking? Everyone knows if you use too much water the water company will call and say ‘no more daily showers for you’ The electric company will shut your power off if you run too many gadgets and leave a light on. 

  I was totally unaware the President Clinton drafted the PCS terms and limits document: “Ok, sprint, let’s redefine the word ‘unlimited’ to mean limited.” Besides, who needs all that freedom and access to data, That is a whole DVD worth! It ain’t right I tell ya, next they’ll be wanting decent jobs and healthcare.