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.

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.

If Sprint would do something innovative like roll over the unused bandwidth for future use, then it they might something going with this limit.

You guys should live in Australia. I pay $90 per month for a 1gb cap (including uploads)!

Sprint overcharged our small company over $50,000.00. We caught them and asked for the over-payments to be refunded. they have refused. Read the full story on http://www.sprint-really-sucks.com

I’m with Jon M. I never go over the 5 GB limit, but as soon as they add it I am out; this qualifies as a significant change in contract.

Just wait until your wired broadband provider initiates caps. This is the camel’s nose in the tent. Revolt now!

I don’t think I am anywhere near the 5G limit, but if they were to cancel my mobile broadband account, they’d also lose my mobile phone (+ data) account to AT&T.

So it looks like T-Mobile is the last bastion of uncapped data, albeit at EDGE speeds. Hopefully they’ll keep 3G uncapped as a differentiator between them and all the other service providers.

:: fingers crossed ::