The bottom "Constraints" section also explains why the Curve is no longer on the website...not because it's necessarily being replaced as rumored in the Niagara comments, but because it's back ordered.

Mobile, VCI, and Squiggle I have a lot to agree with you on, but I guess I'm a little confused at the same time...

@ Mobile - Thanks for bringing up the huge jump in roaming agreements, something I forgot to mention. Not only has voice roaming improved in the past 5 years beyond belief, they have the most data roaming I've seen personally among using all CDMA providers. Most CDMA roaming agreements just allow voice/sms ("D" Service) - Example: When I (Sprint) roam on USCC in rural midwest, I still jump on 1x data even though friends VZW and Alltel phones get D service only in the same spot roaming on the same USCC tower. Same happens when I roam on VZW and Alltel - but it's not always vice-versa.

@ VCI - You brought up a good point about the iDEN reputation, which leads to my question for squiggle:

@ Squiggle: You put a ton of blame in your first post on the CDMA side and why you believe it was a bad choice, I can only understand that side of the argument when it's simply your bad personal experience with it. You have to keep in mind that 92% of the churn last quarter was from the iDEN, not CDMA side - that brings your argument down a little bit. But I will definitely agree with you on the fact that it is entirely regional, and personal experience/usage will vary so you have a great point. My story completely opposes yours; I can name 3 places off the top of my head where my indoor Sprint coverage allows full usage, where my ATT (post-gsm) only had enough juice for sending SMS and voice calls were a no-go, if I was lucky. But again, all personal experience. Also -

> "This is not true. If you consider Sprint a company without the companies it's bought, then it's built most of one network by itself (like, er, all mobile operators.) If you consider Sprint the merged whole of the several companies its bought, then every mobile phone company has built at least one, in many cases two or three networks by themselves. AT&T's AMPS/D-AMPS and GSM networks would be one example. One could go either way on whether their UMTS network is yet another network."

Couple things about that:
1) My point was that Sprint never even have to do that, what companies did Sprint buy at all since their existence, let alone to help their CDMA build-out?
2) I tried to relay the point that Sprint was the FIRST carrier of any digital technologies to do so "nationwide". Not that other companies didn't have some type of network they had in place before Sprint or even during Sprints days. Sprint was shortly followed by Voicestream (now T-mobile) in early 2000 with the first nationwide GSM network. AT&T, Cingular (Cellular one & Dobson), etc. were still on TDMA & AMPS at this time, TDMA not carrying IP services, and AMPS not being digital; leaves Sprint with the first "truly-digital (including IP/OTA services), ground-up (without buyouts/mergers), coast-to-coast, single-operator network".

However; you're right - that's not a reason for anyone to stick with or flock to Sprint, but I simply am "giving them credit" for being the first to do so 10 years ago, and now AGAIN with the first up and running 4G network (I'll give you the fact that they did this WITH a merger (Clearwire), but it's more of a partnership than a takeover. I just like to play devils advocate and give Sprint some benefit of the doubt that they can pull through this hard time when a lot of people just like to bash them, we NEED to keep them in the game for competition - I would hate to see the cellular industry turn into another baby bell monopoly situation, and now (at least in my area), cable TV choices...No hard feelings, just my 2 cents.

Oh and as for the "un-crippled" MMS comment, yes that is a PITA - but it's not "crippled", they aren't trying to make more money out of you by disabling it and having you go through one of their proprietary services - it's simply just lack of support ;-) ... stupid decision on their end I totally agree.

To all the people bashing Sprint and wishing it would "go away", you need to stop drinking the Sprint Haterade. I find it really funny how people like to compare coverage to the other big 3; You need to stop, take a look back, and give them a little credit. Have you all forgotten that Sprint is the ONLY provider to have 2 separate networks that were built completely from the ground-up BY THEMSELVES? Yes, before Nextel was Sprint, they had the first all-digital nationwide network, and Sprint built the first coast-to-coast 1900mhz CDMA network, and they did it beautifully without having to monopolize rural areas by buying out other carriers (Hey, Verizon fans - Primeco, GTE, worldcom, airtouch, and now ALLTEL ring a bell??) Yes it's an easy way to gain some coverage/customers that they love to add to their numbers, but I bet a ton of them wouldn't prefer to be with vzw, and they simply have no other choice. It leaves a lot of angry customers forced to switch to a company they would probably not prefer to have. I'm not saying these people should switch to Sprint (obviously they would have if they had the choice), but I'm saying you can't look at a networks subscriber base and assume they are all there willingly.
I've personally seen a huge jump in satisfaction with Sprints customer service in the past 3 years I've had them. Give them a little credit for actually being different and doing things on their own. Yeah it will take some time for them to straighten it out, but in the meantime I have no problem taking advantage of their across-industry lowest fam. plan pricing, on top of the fastest/largest 3g network for the price. I'll stick to my un-crippled devices, too...

Point and case why I am not, nor ever again will be a ATT customer. Learn the facts. EVDO is the fastest, and will be for time to come. ATT's 3g network (UMTS) is based on CDMA technology, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umts. This is why I LOVE Sprint. Fastest EVDO, no data caps, cheapest plans, did I mention WiMAX??? Heller...