As a freelance writer, I obviously work from home. I do 100% of my work online. This means that I need a reliable Internet provider. Since I updated my laptop recently, I thought it would be a good idea to update my Internet service to a completely wireless technology. Since I have one of the latest laptops out, I thought it to be reasonable to accompany my new laptop purchase with the latest Internet technology, so I bought an Air Card from Sprint.
From what me and my boyfriend were told when the Sprint Air Card was purchased, the Sprint Air Card provides unlimited high speed Internet access for the mere price of $60 per month. We thought it sounded like a pretty good bargain, so we went through with it. I was so excited to finally get back online and begin working again. I had been without access to the Internet for over 3 days, and as a freelance writer that is unacceptable. Everyone knows the saying “time is money”, and it is especially true when you are a freelance writer and work from home. Only God knows how much money I passed up because I wasn’t able to work for those three days, but I digress.
Unreliable Service
When the package arrives at my door a couple of days later, Its time to install the software and the device. I have never been good with anything technical so I call my boyfriend to walk me through the installation. The installation was simple enough, I was online within twenty minutes or so. I sign on to my Associated Content account to catch up on missed work, everything is running smoothly for the first three to five minutes, and then… my Internet connection goes down. I call my boyfriend frantically screaming because this so called “reputable” company has sold me a piece of junk! Neither of us can figure out how to fix the problem, so in a moment of complete desperation purely driven by rage, I yank the Air Card out of my laptop and wait an hour before I plug it back in.
Once I plug the Air Card back into my laptop, everything is working fine for about another four hours. For those four hours my Internet was quick. Web pages loaded within 3 seconds of opening and I barely had any issues when viewing videos on You Tube (that sneezing panda cracks me up). Then my Internet starts acting iffy. My web pages were taking close to two minutes to load and within half an hour, my Internet didn’t work at all. I’m sure you can image my rage. I bought an Air Card from a so called “reputable” company, and the product doesn’t work as advertised. At this point I am hoping its just technical difficulties with the Sprint towers, so I call customer service.
Since When Does Unlimited Only Mean Five?
When I (finally) reach an actual person at customer service after weeding through all of the eerily cheery automated robots on the line by screaming “live advisor” about a dozen times, I am greeted by a pleasant gentleman named Steve*. I explain to Steve what the problem is, and after rambling on for five minutes, he finally admits that he has no idea how to help me but would transfer me to someone who did. I was transferred to another line and after being on hold for no less than twenty minutes, I decided to hang up. There is no point in fighting an unwinnable battle with Sprint.
The next day my boyfriend calls me and tells me that Sprint lied about the Air Card allowing unlimited Internet usage. Sprint had told us that the Air Card would allow us to have unlimited access to the Internet, but in reality they only allow 5GB of data per month. Since I speak in the language of women and do not understand anything technical, my boyfriend had to give me the rundown of what it all meant. Basically, it takes 1,048,576KB (Kilo Bytes) to make up 1GB (Gigabytes). I had already used 1,028,420KB within one day! That means that I would be out of Internet service in another three to four days. Unless I was willing to pay the $35 per day overage charges, I would have to cancel my services. For arguments sake, if I decided to continue my service, I would be charged $1040 per month to continue using their wireless Internet service.
Do I recommend you get your wireless Internet service through Sprint? No! They lie, cheat and have overall crappy service. Its simply not worth it. The service is overpriced, the service is unreliable and they lie about having an unlimited plan. I am switching my Internet service to ATT DSL this week (hopefully I have better luck with them). At the time of writing this article, I have had the Sprint Air Card for less than 3 days, and I have never had a worse experience with Internet service in my entire life.
