Contract Up, WANT S3 desperately. Which carrier should I choose?

[bsweetness]

T Mobile doesn't say they have LTE. They say they have 4G. And according to a ruling, HSPA+ is, in fact, considered 4G.

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Yep. The International Telecommunication Union - the organization responsible for the definitions and designations for a lot of cellular technology - adjusted their original definition and the requirements for 4G to include both HSPA+ and LTE. Originally, not only was HSPA+ not considered to be 4G, but LTE wasn't even technically considered to be 4G either. The changes came about from significant pressure from carriers, particularly carriers in the U.S. and Canada. Here's a good article that gives a brief overview on it all, along with a follow-up about "true 4G" (which is the technology that 4G was originally supposed to be).

[kparks]

I've had my first smartphone, a Droid 1 for two years now and my contract is finally up in 2 days. For months I have lusted after the Galaxy SIII and it is now within my grasp!

The question I have is: which carrier should I go with, and for what reasons? I currently am a Verizon customer but am willing to look elsewhere; I liked the look of the Sprint unlimited data but have been reading a bit about how their network isn't very good and may be slow to roll out 4G LTE everywhere. I'm in the Lehigh Valley (Allentown) area of Pennsylvania - if that matters.

I'm shopping on Wirefly/Cellular Choices because I used them for years to get other phones but are there any other, better deals for the S3 out there? I am thinking of calling Verizon anyway, just to see if I can squeeze a good deal out of Customer Retention.

All help and advice is appreciated!

None the s3 is garbage ill be selling mine in about 2 weeks and use a DROID x till a phone worth my money comes out

[sweeeeet]

None the s3 is garbage ill be selling mine in about 2 weeks and use a DROID x till a phone worth my money comes out

hilarious

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[Debala]

None the s3 is garbage ill be selling mine in about 2 weeks and use a DROID x till a phone worth my money comes out

And I willingly gave up my Droid X for this S3 and love it!!

[sweeeeet]

I'm not a Sprint fan but just a heads up that Amazon has it for 80 bucks

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[Tailgun]

I'm not a Sprint fan but just a heads up that Amazon has it for 80 bucks

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I took an extra two days to consider it and I missed out on this deal, as they just increased the price to $120 (still a good deal!).

VZW offered me the S3 for $170 (after a $30 credit) and that price matched what I had been seeing on Cellular Choices/Wirefly, so I took it. I know I could have saved some money by taking the Amazon Sprint deal but all the talk of the inferior Sprint network compared to Verizon led me to stay with Big Red. I'm just going to not think about the price tags and just focus on my new baby, hopefully arriving by Thursday.

Thanks for the help, guys!

[sweeeeet]

nice!... Congrats... awesome phone awesome network... imma get one soon

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[k1ngr4t]

Does anyone have any personal stories about the Sprint network being so terrible? Or have we all just heard it so much it makes sense? I mean, if you live in a strong 4g area (Atlanta), are usually on wifi anyways blah blah....I mean, is it really THAT bad??

[sweeeeet]

Does anyone have any personal stories about the Sprint network being so terrible? Or have we all just heard it so much it makes sense? I mean, if you live in a strong 4g area (Atlanta), are usually on wifi anyways blah blah....I mean, is it really THAT bad??

wifi has nothing to do with phone calls.. u know phones still do that lol... I had sprint for a few years and it was a miserable experience and I'm in NYC.. not sure how much more city u wanna get than that lol

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[k1ngr4t]

wifi has nothing to do with phone calls.. u know phones still do that lol... I had sprint for a few years and it was a miserable experience and I'm in NYC.. not sure how much more city u wanna get than that lol

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Well actually I was referring to data cutting out, since it's their "4g" network we're talking about. What made it so miserable? Lots of dropped calls?