Sprint is Dead. Long Live Sprint

Farewell to the carrier that made wireless technology available, and affordable, to a wider range of people than its US competitors

TheVerge.com
Sprint Tmobile Logos

We now have just three major cell phone carriers in the U.S.: Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, which just completed its merger with Sprint. If you’re a Sprint customer, don’t panic. The Verge explains what’s next for Sprint customers now that the T-Mobile merger has gone through.

In the days before and just after the iPhone, Sprint was by far the best carrier for people who used smartphone capabilities. Verizon was turning off GPS and limiting Bluetooth while Cingular (soon to be AT&T) was struggling to prepare its network for the iPhone onslaught. Both charged a lot to use their networks. And T-Mobile, well, it was doing its damnedest to get sold off to AT&T.

Sprint, meanwhile, had a really solid CDMA 3G network, charged less than its competitors, and didn’t try to break smartphone functionality in a bid to sell you its own services.

Sprint was more willing to work with people who had questionable credit, too. Sprint genuinely made technology more accessible to a wider swath of people than other US carriers.

(more on Sprint’s legacy from The Verge . . . )

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