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Users Say Sprint Epic4G 3G Upload Speeds Limited To 150kbps
Miamicanes writes "Nearly everyone who owns a Sprint Samsung Epic 4G and has benchmarked its 3G performance has discovered that its 3G upload speeds are apparently limited to 150kbps. So far, Sprint has not officially acknowledged it as a problem, nor has it indicated whether this might be a firmware bug, a PRL issue, tower-related, or the result of a deliberate policy to cap 3G upload speeds. Regardless, the problem is causing widespread anger among Epic4G owners, many of whom have bitterly noted the irony of being charged a $10 surcharge so they can endure data transfers that are slower than they had 4 years ago (and a quarter of the speeds enjoyed by Evo owners on the same 3G network)." Cellphone networks are fickle beasts; can anyone out there with an Epic provide a counterexample?
What would you upload from a cell phone?
Maybe if you had like an N900 where you have a full Linux install and you can make quick edits, maybe. MAYBE. Even with my Pandora and my Gentoo boot of it doing anything on a tiny screen is a total pain.
I'm not justifying their actions, I just want to know.
Epic fail
"Don't worry. We are slowing down the Evo speeds too and we will be charging them $29.99/month for wifi hotspot."
--- We need more Ron Paul!
So long as people keep paying their bills, the market is bearing this imposition. I am all but certain that this is another example of telcoms limiting and crippling their services rather than improving their infrastructure. AT&T taught the industry a hard lesson with their iPhone exclusivity deal. They burdened their entire infrastructure which was unprepared for the load. I am of the opinion that Sprint seeks to avoid the same. Additionally, as these handheld computers are getting phone network enabled, I suspect VOIP and other forms of internet communications will become more frequently used. So they will sell you a "phone" and you will in turn use it to bypass their business model? Not if they can help it.
Maybe for a $50 fee, they will unlock the hardware and provide the full potential.
It more than just what the market allows; compare what we have in the US to say, Europe, and you will come to the conclusion that we're simply seeing the effects of regulatory capture.
Oh you thought that word means you got epic speeds? haha no.
What that means is sprint is screwing you for an epic amount of money...
If it sounds like a fair deal. Or sounds too good to be true. You are most likely getting screwed....
This is more than likely an issue with the handset itself. It is extremely unlikely the base stations or CO servers are configured to limit the bandwidth of a particular phone model or account. Still, this is not acceptable as all phones are field tested prior to launch. This should have been identified prior to release.
I have to agree - don't "be angry" as a customer, phone them up and complain. If they won't do anything for you, cut the service there and then and tell them why. If they bother to argue about things, dig out your contracts, file official complaints, etc. But, ffs, don't just "get angry" on a forum they probably never read and don't care about while you're still paying your monthly fee. Damn well complain, move companies, terminate contracts, etc.
This is the sort of thing you should realise while the contract is still fresh if it's important to you, so use the early get-out clause and introductory periods and get the hell off it. If you keep paying, it's really NOT that important to you. And if you entered into a cast-iron contract that you can't get out of (HIGHLY unlikely) for a service that you didn't bother to read up on, check terms, insist on minimum speeds, etc. then that's your own tough luck.
I still can't figure out why people pay for shit that they don't want, and then complain about it.
The difficulty is that the banks won't lend to improve infrastructure, as nobody is sure where the demand will go. In fact, I have some sympathy for the carrier. When O2, which is in my view a pretty [comment redacted owing to libel laws in UK] telecoms supplier, introduced the iPhone, our company was using O2. I noticed that every time a visitor with an iPhone entered our offices, calls started to drop out. I guessed that there wasn't enough bandwidth to the cell tower, and the iPhone was getting prioritised. I couldn't prove what was going on but I was suspicious. I jumped up and down and we switched to Vodafone; problem disappeared. I guess a supplier introducing a new, potentially high bandwidth device, would be careful so that, in the language of sales consultancy, they don't turn POCs into PPOCs (pissed off customers into permanently pissed off customers.)
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Since when is the market bearing a cost a justification for over pricing? No business has a right to massive profits, especially when it's the result of maintaining a oligopoly over the particular market.
Now, if it were a competitive market, you'd probably have a point, but this isn't a competitive market and you don't have a point. In order for a market to bear a price, there needs to be real and substantial competition.
My cable modem uploads at around 100k, and I don't have any problem with that. What exactly are these people doing on their cell phones that is so important that they can't tolerate an upload speed that is only 50% faster than my cable modem?
And yes, I can upgrade my cable modem to faster service for a price but I willingly have so far opted not to; I find my current cable modem to be more than sufficient for my own needs.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Information about the $10 "4G tax" can be found in http://explainthefee.com/ . There's a new post about how to cancel service without paying ETF in case you want out
The best test environment is production. - Me
chrome://browser/content/browser.xul
Exactly. Most contracts will include a dispute process of some sort or another. For business contracts, once the dispute is filed, you stop paying and they can't disconnect you for not paying. For individual contracts, I can't speak to it, but I suspect that the local and state laws may have something to add to that where consumer protection is concerned.
The Sprint Palm Pre, which is a 3G phone, has its downloadspeed capped to 64KBps (kilobytes, not kilobits) per second. A foul practice indeed, but there's actually a homebrew patch that removes this limitation.
A limited and controlled market can bear a lot more than a free and competitive market. We all know this. You're right in all the things you are saying. You just have to continue voting with your dollars and, if you can get the ear of a politician, complain. At the moment, no government body recognizes mobile phone service as critical in the sense that it would fall under the utilities regulatory commissions, but that is the first thing I would push to change. Putting POTS under regulatory scrutiny really made them behave properly. Before such things, you were not allowed to own your own phone -- you could only lease a phone from the phone company and could most certainly not use a 3rd party phone on your line. Premium services such a "touch tone service" was (and still is I believe) an "option" that must be paid for.
"What the market will bear" is just a nice way of saying "doing whatever they can get away with."
So long as people keep paying their bills, the market is bearing this imposition. I am all but certain that this is another example of telcoms limiting and crippling their services rather than improving their infrastructure.
I wouldn't say that it's "a classic example". Often the phrase "what the market will bear" implies a real market-- you know, with meaningful competition. This is more an issue of "what consumers will bear before they give up on having cell phones at all."
So long as people keep paying their bills, the market is bearing this imposition.
Except when you don't, you get kicked out of your house.
>>>I am all but certain that this is another example of telcoms limiting and crippling their services rather than improving their infrastructure.
(putting on conspiracy nut hat). I think it's done on purpose. ATT and others want to take TV channels 25 and up for usage by cellular phones/internet. What better way to achieve that goal than to slow everything to a crawl, and then say to Congress, "Look. We've already run out of space and need more spectrum. It's time for television to give its 'fair share' rather than hog all the space."
Of course they will conveniently ignore that Cellular services already have ~1000 megahertz and radio/tv only occupies ~200.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Since when is the market bearing a cost a justification for over pricing? No business has a right to massive profits, especially when it's the result of maintaining a oligopoly over the particular market.
What massive profits are you talking about? If you had even remotely bothered to type in a few search keywords, you would know that Sprint is losing money $250M every month. The claim that they are charging above-market prices or maintaining an oligopoly is absolutely inconsistent with the facts.
If anything, a company that's consistently (five straight quarters) posting losses should be raising prices or cutting costs since obviously they cannot burn through money forever. What's more, Sprint spent billions deploying WiMax, so it's sort of silly to accuse them of failing to keep up infrastructure. If anything, they are desperately trying to capitalize on their first-to-market status on 4G.
[ Market pricing or not, they should fix the Epic's upload problem. I was responding to the narrow and entirely incorrect (and trivially verifiable!) claim that Sprint is making massive profits, when in fact they have posted a loss in the last 5 quarters. On a personal note to the OP, please verify your claims -- at least where it's trivial to do so. ]
Sorry, but that doesn't make any sense. If it were an intentional limitation on the Epic by Sprint, then they would have done the same thing on the Evo, which has been out for several months. Or they would have ADDED the limitation in an update.
Besides, we are talking about the 3G and not even the 4G connections. Something else is going on...
Actually Android users use more data than iPhone users, and yet Verizon has never had any network issues. AT&T's troubles were caused by a deliberate decrease in annual capex meant to pump up their stock price. Their profits have tripled from 2005 to 2008, while their capex has dropped significantly each year.
>>>seeing the effects of regulatory capture.
What's that?
Also why does everyone think Europe is so much better? According to speedtest.net the EU's average wired internet speed is 1 Mbit/s slower than the US average. Is their cell service any better, or if this just a case of "the grass looks greener on the other side" until you get there and discover it's actually no different.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I didn't know that. Thanks for the information. At the time, I was just very annoyed indeed and wanted a fix.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
In the forum thread mentioned there appears to be a comment regarding the phone's firmware.
Apparently, some guys over at xda developers uploaded the european rom and were able to get full bandwidth from the phone. Given the reception issues and other communication problems I'm going to say this is a badly cooked rom on part of the Sprint side. (Even more Epic fail).
Now, at the moment this is completely unconfirmed and if you are an Epic fail owner I would suggest visiting their site to confirm.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
> Premium services such a "touch tone service" was (and still is I believe) an "option" that must be paid for.
Ironically,"touch tone" service is really only premium service in the eyes of the sales department. From an engineering POV it's actually cheaper way of signalling than make/break pulses.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
>>>Putting POTS under regulatory scrutiny really made them behave properly
Not really. POTS fell under regulatory control in the 20s, and then we had to deal with a stagnation of technology due to the government-created ATT monopoly for another 60 years. (Example: Modem technology stagnated at 1200 bits/second from the 1950s to the 80s.) Basically the same thing that happened in East Germany with their piece-of-junk Tribant car - technology froze in a WW2 state.
It was only when the government finally deregulated and allowed competition (i.e. put power in the hands of the consumer to choose their long-distance provider, and modem/phone) that things improved for the average person. Competition breeds innovation.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
How is the cellular market not competitive?
Just like the wired phone service lets you choose your long-distance and local provider, so too do cellular service let you choose from many companies. I've got Virgin. You might have Sprint. My iPhone friend has ATT I think. Then there's Cricket and Clear and Boost and Verizon and Cingular and.....
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Either you don't know what's going on or you're purposefully spreading misinformation. Virgin and Boost are Sprint. Cingular is AT&T. Really there are only 4 companies to speak of: AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. And it'll probably be down to 3 in the next few years.
But these 4 companies don't compete very vigorously. If anything, the cost of SMS messaging leads me to believe they're coordinating.
>>>Virgin and Boost are Sprint. Cingular is AT&T
No they really aren't. For example Virgin's HQ is in London, United Kingdom, EU
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
But, ffs, don't just "get angry" on a forum they probably never read and don't care about while you're still paying your monthly fee. Damn well complain, move companies, terminate contracts, etc.
Actually, complaining on public forums does get attention.
At one of my old jobs, I did application support for a guy who worked at Comcast a few years back setting up RSS google feeds so they can scour forums, twitter accounts, and FB updates for people complaining about Comcast and respond to them in a positive manner. From my understanding, I think they have a whole team handling it now.
Apparently the big wigs at Comcast felt that there is a need to do something about all the complaints after Comcastmustdie.com was put up so they had people actually go around trying to do something about.
Though... I don't know if Sprint really cares that much.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Unfortunately, most contracts require dispute resolution through a mediator of the service provider's choice, who almost always side with the service provider. And, thanks to a recent ruling by the Supreme Court, it is up to the mediator to decide whether the mediation clause is fair.
"And for my last wish, I want a 4G network with truly epoch speed."
And the genie smiled.
the point is if you count the number of companies that have as capital assets real live TOWERS
ATT owns towers
Sprint owns towers
Verizon owns towers
T-Mobile Owns towers
everybody else rides on those towers (with of course peering agreements giving you towers owned by say Verizon having a Sprint transponder and an ATT transponder)
Virgin mobile IN THE US uses sprint towers (and the sprint PRL)
Nextel is owned by sprint and is i think being phased out (BOOST uses nextel/sprint towers)
Cingular is ATT
Cricket leases tower space from whomever
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Virgin Mobile sold their US operations to Sprint. Virgin Mobile never owned their own network in the US; it was always just rebranded service (an MVNO) from Sprint running on Sprint's network. Yes, Virgin US is a CDMA service, unlike Virgin's GSM service elsewhere.
Recently they decided to get out of actively running a US wireless operation in the US and sold the business and licensed the brandname to Sprint. Virgin Wireless UK has nothing to do with it any more.
So Sprint is now four main brands: Sprint, Nextel, Boost, and Virgin US, plus half or so of Clear. Sprint also provides MVNO support to about half a dozen other smaller brands.
Sig for hire.
I don't know what the situation is in the US, but in Canada Virgin Mobile is owned by Bell.
The most credible theory I've seen so far is that the towers and/or Epic4G don't recognize each other as being capable of EVDOrevA, and are falling back to rev0 (which, conveniently, has a reverse data rate of almost exactly 153kbit/sec). I personally doubt Sprint would have done something as stupid as blatantly throttle Epic4G owners down to 150kbit/sec, because they're smart enough to know that Epic4G owners were going to be pulling out the benchmarks and comparing metaphorical penis size with Evo owners from day one, and anything that blatant would have been discovered *instantly*.
The good news is that if it's just a tower-phone identity issue, it's almost certainly something that can be fixed. The bad news is that if it requires tower-config changes, Sprint will probably try to work it into their normal progressive maintenance schedule instead of doing whatever it takes to deploy a potentially-disruptive fix immediately.
Hence, my primary motive for getting this story to Slashdot: harness the power of public relations to light a fire under Sprint's feet and force them to escalate this to a matter of their highest and most urgent priority, instead of plodding along and allowing Epic4G owners to languish at 150k for the next few months.
I can confirm this. I struggle to get much more than 150kbps on 3g. I have complaints about my download speed (can't get more than 800kbps anywhere in Phoenix, but that might just be Sprint's limit. Can anyone confirm that for me? My buddy on Verizon gets 2mbps down easily...
While Android users might use more data than iphone users on average, unless:
( number of Android users on VZW * android data average) > (number of iPhone users on ATT * iphone data average)
bringing up VZW's network is moot.
"There is no real right or wrong, just what the majority accepts at the time."
>>>Virgin and Boost are Sprint. Cingular is AT&T
No they really aren't. For example Virgin's HQ is in London, United Kingdom, EU
Virgin Mobile USA is not Virgin UK. Sorry, but you're quite simply wrong. See for yourself:
Go to virginmobileusa.marketwire.com and click on "Fact Sheets":
"Virgin Mobile USA Fact Sheet
Overview: Virgin Mobile USA, one of Sprint's Prepaid Brands, offers millions of customers control, flexibility and social connectivity without annual contracts for mobile phone service and prepaid Broadband2Go high-speed Web access, with national coverage for both powered by the Sprint Nationwide Network.
Headquarters: Sprint Prepaid Brands, Warren, NJ"
this is my sig
I still can't figure out why people pay for shit that they don't want, and then complain about it.
Because it's easier to speak than to act.
What makes me grin is that some people never stop complaining about their problems, but keep being victims.
Stockholm Syndrome ?
Hopefully, there will be a class action, and everything will be solved at this moment (in a few years).
Do you have any idea how much regulation and enforcement action was required to allow the consumer to choose their LD carrier? The Bells didn't just wake up one day and decide you could hook a non-bell phone to their network, they were ordered to allow it. They don't interface with VoIP providers because they like them.
They will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into a competitive marketplace. At a minimum it will be necessary to insist that all phones be unlocked and capable of operation on any cell network in the U.S. and that purchase of the phone be unbundled from the service. Next up will be ending the sneak attacks by huge bills.
After all, this is an industry that has pulled every dirty trick in the book including designing phones so that the user can accidentally do things that result in significant charges.
As a side note, the technology did NOT freeze. In that time they went from a system where a human being physically connected pairs of wires carrying analog signals together to complete a call to a fully automated digital network. The services offered to the CUSTOMER stagnated.
Their single biggest expense is administrative and marketing. Of course if thyey would quit pissing people off, their marketing department wouldn't have to run up hill all the time.
Ironically,"touch tone" service is really only premium service in the eyes of the sales department. From an engineering POV it's actually cheaper way of signalling than make/break pulses.
Really? My dad couldn't use touch tone phones in his house until they came and 'upgraded' the line. I never really did understand that.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
What 4G in the US&A? say what? Ah, it was only a marketing thingy.. like those chinese mp5 plyers... Afaik the only real 4G networks are in Sweden and Norway... (We are talkin some 50 Mbit downstream here) I wonder what real 4g will be called in the us.. Epic 4G, no wait... that's taken too.
All I have to do is look at my Comcast Monopoly, realize that it was GIVEN that monopoly by my state government, and that negates any belief that government is "good" for the consumer.
Government is more often an impediment because otherwise I would be served by numerous cable companies like Comcast plus Cox plus Cablevision, and be able to choose for myself. Government grants of monopoly have taken away that choice, as they did during the 1920s-70s ATT era.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
>>>ATT...Sprint...Verizon...T-Mobile owns towers
Okay now I see your point. So if it any different over in the European Union? (just curious) Or do they also have a quadopoly like US has?
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Really old, really crappy lines might have had a problem with DTMF signalling, but then those lines would be sub-par for any other application, too. Including clear voice calls.
It's much more likely that the line at the CO end had to be moved from a 50-year-old piece of junk to much better gear in another cabinet.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Really old, really crappy lines might have had a problem with DTMF signalling, but then those lines would be sub-par for any other application, too. Including clear voice calls.
Voice was just fine. I think we even had a 2400 baud modem working on it too. My dad couldn't see the point in paying the upgrade fee just to get touch tone.
It's much more likely that the line at the CO end had to be moved from a 50-year-old piece of junk to much better gear in another cabinet.
That wouldn't surprise me. I think it was a money grab.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I've actually made a visit to one of those switching houses where all the phone lines are being relayed from here to there. This was quite some time ago in Paris Texas. There was actually one segment where there existed a huge active board of relays clicking away! Talk about bizarre!
Yeah, the switching networks should all be digital by now, but at the time, those old stations were still running old style. I was quite surprised and amused. It seemed they were still transitioning over as they still had sophisticated uplink gear that translated the last miles from the local copper network to the rest of the nation. I suspect in those areas, at that time, touch tone was not quite an option of the day either... that must have been over 25... almost 30 years ago. I was somewhere between 12 and 15 doing HVAC work at the time (with my father).
The monopoly wasn't given, it was bought and paid for in various ways both legal and shady. In the same way various radio, TV and wireless carriers bid on and buy radio spectra, cable, power and phone network companies pay for the right-of-way to build and operate their networks. They paid for their monopolies. Make no mistake about it. Now as far as the deals the carriers got for their money? Well, I agree that it is essentially used as a license to rape the consumer. But watch for when the deals are up for renewal and contact your government representatives. If you want to see change, make sure they know some people are watching.
Government regulation in itself is absolutely necessary. BAD regulation is a serious problem, as is no regulation. Some regulation is actually essential. Someone had to use eminent domain to allow all those cables to be run at all. More to allocate the EM spectrum.
The problem isn't that your state government granted Comcast a monopoly, the problem is that the fools fail to pull on the strings attached to the grant (or more likely, Comcast is pulling on the strings attached to the "campaign contributions").
Of course, we are now at the point that we should probably consider raw fiber to the home provisioned by the government and open to connection by the various ISPs, Bells, and cable companies. Raw ethernet service supporting multicast, vlan and MPLS tagging would be a good way to go That would provide the competition you want where it is feasible and limit the natural monopoly to the issues that require it (the grant of eminent domain).
The alternative would be NO cable TV at all and phone service still spotty with no interoperability between networks, just like we had before the government stepped in.
It's easy to forget that before the government granted AT&T it's monopoly, we had tangles of phone lines from various phone companies, customers of one company couldn't call customers of another company, and most people had no phone service available at all. There was no pre-monopoly cable television at all. It just wasn't feasible.
Because people want to pay to say they go the newest connection.... even if it's slower and cost more...
You are a fucking retard. Why the hell would all those companies run lines to your house if you weren't promising to pay them? I bet you can get any service you want if pay the line yourself, why don't you do that, then you can take a second shift flipping burgers to pay the 1500$ bill, and ./ could have a break from your ignorant, uneducated opinion.
Don't be fooled too much by the numbers. Sprints loses are mainly coming from defection of old Nextel customers who are moving on after their contract is up. That happens a lot after acquisitions. Sprint's own customer base is pretty stable or growing, and the numbers look good after the bleeding stops from the Nextel buyout.
>>>Virgin and Boost are Sprint. Cingular is AT&T
>No they really aren't. For example Virgin's HQ is in London, United Kingdom, EU
Yes, they really are, at least within the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boost_Mobile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Mobile_USA
Do your research before you post next time.
FC Closer
No, it's typical basement-dwelling Slashdotter repeating of something someone else said that isn't true.
Slashdotters also like to keep saying that in the U.S. you are forced to pay for incoming voice calls and text messages. Well, sure, if you did exactly ZERO research into the matter. There are plenty of U.S. networks that don't make you pay for incomings. U.S. Cellular, the #1 carrier in Chicago is one of them.
Just like the average Slashdotter believes that Tokyo's Akihabara district is a haven of exotic electronic wonders. It isn't. It's just 12 blocks of Best Buys and some that have been exploded into flea markets. But they've never been anywhere or seen anything first hand and explored enough to realize that it's not the 80's anymore -- there's nothing in Asia you can't also get in the United States; primarily because everything built in Asia is built for Americans, and secondarily because anything available in Asia can be bought in the United States through an importer. (Ditto for the Yosan electronics district in Seoul. Nothing there you can't get here.)
Slashdotters love to talk about how "advanced" the cell networks are in Japan. But the Japanese pay almost twice as much for cell service as Americans. The expats I know in Japan WISH they could get the same crappy plans they had with Verizon and AT&T. And you know what's the #1 cell phone in Japan? The iPhone. Because it's the most advanced phone available there.
Stereotypes from the 80's die hard.
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
What about the Cell Phone Empowerment Act of 2007? Did that ever pass?? And what about States like California, Arizona, Rhodes Island, and Illinois? Don't they have some pretty strong recent cell phone consumer protection laws?
I think it's criminal that Sprint charges us $50 more for the Epic over the Evo and still charges us the extra $10 per month for "premium data" while limiting our upload speeds to only 150kbps. I will be returning this phone before my 30 days are up at the end of this month if the cap isn't lifted and the battery draining issue isn't resolved. I hate being ripped off and I'll leave Sprint if I have to return this phone because these issues aren't getting resolved by the end of my 30 days. I've been a loyal Sprint customer for over ten years and this will be the final straw for me. The ball is in your court Sprint. Don't fumble. I'd like to be able to keep this phone because there is so much to like about it but I won't pay more for a phone that is capped at speeds for 3g that phones over for years old can beat. Come on Sprint get your act together. You have a killer phone. Make sure that this phone gets the killer service it deserves.
Sprint has been successfully sued in class action year after placing a mediation only clause it the service agreement, as have many many other companies. Just because they throw the kitchen sink in the agreement doeskin mean it is enforceable. I think their $10 a month for premium 3g (and sprint has formally in writing declared it has nothing to do with 4g) is very much at risk from class action. Bundled and PROMOTED applications like QIK video chat do not work -- specifically becasue of this data cap on upload.
Most countries only have a few major mobile operators. The difference in EU is that most/all of them use GSM, so it's much easier for customers to switch; and that they're otherwise regulated much stricter when it comes to any kind of collusion or customer abuse.
In fact many mobile network operators (not just MVNOs like Boost Mobile) do not own/operate their own towers. Even for those who do, they most likely lease coverage in rural areas where they don't have a presence. Furthermore, many MNOs have roaming agreements in place with their competitors.
In Sprint's case, they don't own any towers any longer. They sold their towers back in 2008, and they contracted Ericsson to take over network operations in 2009.
Sprint to sell wireless towers for $670 million
Ericsson to manage Sprint network in $4.5-$5bln deal
Am I the only here who noticed that only in the US of A do people always include the carrier when taking about phone models? "Sprint Samsung Epic 4G"?! What happened to just "Samsung Epic 4G"? What if you use that phone on another network, would that tell you if the problem is with the carrier or the phone?
Oh, you mean in the US, the phones are still locked to the carrier? You cannot simply take the phone and put another carrier's SIM into it? Does that mean you guys always replaces you phone when you switch carriers?
Wow, how many DECADES are the US behind the rest of the world in cellphone service?
Talk about a captured market. Why don't you guys get angry about that (carrier locked phones) first? Once you can easily switch carriers while keeping your phone and you phone number, nobody will put up with crap like putting artificial limits on the network.
Oliver.
How?
It's not like you can just buy a phone and use it on any telco like say in Europe. This is not "what the market will bear" this is "how much can a monopolist/oligarchy abuse you" and the answer to the 2nd scenario is "a hell of a lot more then the in first scenario". Places where the market is made to work right like Australia and Europe not only are you not forced to buy a 2 year contract as you can get phones outright and pay month by month but you can switch between carriers at will as they all operate on 2100 GSM in major cities.
The market is not "bearing" this imposition. This imposition is being forced on the market whether the market likes it or not.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
What's written on paper, and what a court judges to be fair, differ in many ways. Consumer protection is high on the list for most judiciary - just don't expect some small claims court to accept that argument if you try to represent yourself (and do it badly). Just because something is written down, does NOT make it a fair and binding part of a contract. Otherwise, a company could easily write that every agreement it signs is covered by the laws of Sealand which is happens to own. If you're trading in a country, that country's consumer protection, court interpretation and idea of contract law applies. They can wipe out any clause they want, if they think it's unfair, and still make the company enforce the rest of the contract.
The fact that in law there exist such things as "implied contracts" where NO paper or any record at all exists, no words have ever been spoken, but the court feels that such things would be implied by any reasonable consumer means that the judiciary know that, let loose, companies would do whatever they felt like. That's what consumer protection laws are for.
It's the same the world over - I can name ten large store chains that INSIST they have to have a receipt to refund or exchange a faulty item. It's bollocks, under UK law, but a "store policy". They try to make it as difficult as possible but you do NOT have to have a receipt - that just happens to be the most convenient proof of purchase, however a credit card bill showing the stores name for a roughly correct amount will happily suffice and stores have to keep credit card records. Try explaining that to even the managers of some stores and they will not give in. Write a letter to their head office or take them to court and they cave within the first minute - because they KNOW it's bollocks, whether they have it written into every contract with their customers or not.
I've owned the Epic 4G for a few days and posted an extensive bug list on the Sprint Community Forums. I haven't heard a peep from Sprint on the issue. Calling Sprint is an exercise in futility. They expect their users to do a hard reset of the phone which wipes all the data, applications, and contacts off the phone. After that, they don't have much more to offer. The slow upload speeds and non-working GPS amongst other bugs means that no one should buy this phone as far as I'm concerned.
Bug list:
>>>The monopoly wasn't given, it was bought and paid for in various ways both legal and shady.
The monopoly was given by the State Government's leaders who granted Comcast the exclusive right to distribute TV in my county
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
How is the cellular market not competitive? Just like the wired phone service lets you choose your long-distance and local provider, so too do cellular service let you choose from many companies. I've got Virgin. You might have Sprint. My iPhone friend has ATT I think. Then there's Cricket and Clear and Boost and Verizon and Cingular and.....
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Why did you post this again?
actually those mediator clauses very often don't hold up. Sprint specifically has lost class action judgments brought by costumers with their contract supposedly excluding class actions.
Sorry for the late reply. In the United States, it is the Unequivocal Law of the Land, as handed down by the Supreme Court in a really recent ruling, that if the consumer contract has a dispute resolution clause, it is up to the mediator/arbitrator to decide whether that clause (or any other) is unfair, and that finding is final. I don't know how it is in other countries, but as the corporatist takeover marches across the globe, expect them to follow suit.