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 Originally Posted by Complex Pants
"No one ever lost a dime underestimating the intelligence of the American public."
-- H.L. Mencken
Don't rely on people to make decision based on their own intelligence. Tell them what they want to hear, and then tell them what to do. The informed consumer is a rare thing, and they will typically be well researched and decide what they want based on their own ideals. The common uneducated consumer just wants to have "the best," and will typically listen to whomever they view as an authority.
Also, many people have had a lot of difficulties with the iPhone and AT&T, but they keep going back, even though things may not have worked at all. They are told it is the best thing out there right now.
I think many people in Sprint believe the same thing you do, that people are basically stupid, and if only they were smarter, they would choose ssprint. It is this attitude that is killing Sprint and responsible for the huge bleed of customers that is ongoing, and that the Pre will not change.
You can say how great Sprint's network is all you want, but the fact is that Sprint's coverage is notably worse than VZ's and AT&T's (in general). This is because only AT&T and VZ have <1 GHz spectrum assets that penetrate indoors. There is a reason why Sprint is pushing out so many airaves, and AT&T basically hasn't even started to ship their version.
Tests consistently show AT&T as best in 3G speeds overall. In some metro areas, they have issues, but overall, they test the best, better than VZ in fact.
AT&T's family plans also allow some users to pay for data and others to not, and there is not one size that fits all. Plus they have the benefit of iPhone exclusivity. The Pre's exclusivity on Sprint was only 6 months, and it could have been a lot longer, but they approached it in a half assed way.
Plus, UMTS enables simultaneous voice/data user, which CDMA networks do not. And AT&T and VZ are both rapidly moving to LTE, whereas Sprint has it's fate tied to wimax, a network that will never get deployed in scale, at least not in the US.
So in short, there are plenty of reasons that consumers choose AT&T and VZ and get better value than the cheaper option (though Sprint has no "cheap" Pre plan).
But so what? This is Precentral, not Sprint central. I couldn't give a rip about Sprint - I'll go back to AT&T in a heartbeat once they get the Pre...
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