Sprint, can we talk?

Sprint, you had me at “unlimited.” Then you lost me again with your fine-print. I was amazed how I could be turned from an interested new customer to taking a second look at carriers I swore-off years ago.

Here are five things you can do to become the premier carrier in the US and win my business when my new contract expires in two years.

1. Contract free, but with a phone-loan.

Rather than locking me in for two years with a contract and an early termination fee, give me a phone-loan. With a phone-loan, I can buy a new phone for the discounted price on a no-contact plan, but $20 a month is added to the bill for the first two years. If I leave before the two years is up, I need to pay the balance of the loan. If I stick around for more than two years, my monthly bills go down $20.

2. Unlocked means Unlocked.

This is where you lost me as a potential customer. If my prior phones are an indication, I’m going to have the iPhone 4S for between three and five years. Coincidentally, I tend to travel overseas once or twice every three to five years. I know at some point I’m going to want to drop in a local SIM, get a local number and pay local PAYG rates. The “unlock” I’d get from Sprint limits my carrier choice overseas to your partners and still requires I pay Sprint international roaming fees. No, thank you.

I’m getting tired of US carriers innovating from their marketing departments. First, it was “unlimited” that wasn’t unlimited, then T-Mobile’s “innovative” use of the term 4G to refer to their 3G network, and now your ‘innovative” use of the term “unlocked” to refer to enabling the world-phone features, complete with roaming fees.

3. Eliminate Sprint Surcharges

Reading about your “Sprint Surcharges” in forums made me an unhappy customer before I even signed up. I can understand the local and state taxes, the E911 fees and all the other government-imposed fees. Taxes are taxes, but I draw the line at the “Administrative Charge” which is “to help defray various costs imposed on Sprint by other telecommunications carriers.” Good grief. Interconnecting with other carriers is your business, not an add-on. Isn’t that what the $70 a month plan is paying for?

Seriously. We’re getting tired of being nickel-and-dimed. Innovating from the accounting department isn’t any better than innovating from marketing.

4. Pre-compute taxes and government fees

Before we can even shop for a plan, you ask for our zip code. Given a zip code, you should be able to pre-compute the taxes and fees on any plan. Yes, taxes vary from time to time as governments at all levels look to close budget holes or enhance community services, but those increases are known months in advance. Be honest and sincere, don’t try to hide the dirty truth and give us the real total at the beginning of the process so we won’t have sticker shock on the first bill.

5. Data plans are for smartphones

It looked nice at first. $70 for 450 minutes voice and unlimited everything else. That’s what the other carriers charge for limited voice, limited data, and don’t include any texting. It seemed that you were acknowledging texting is the cheapest and least network-intensive way for customers to communicate. Then this $10 smartphone fee popped up and wiped out the saving. That $10 fee would apply to Androids, Blackberrys, Windows Mobile and iOS phones. So, what phones use a data plan but are not considered a “smartphone?” Are you still selling WAP phones?

It seems like every time we dig a little deeper we find another fee, every time reducing the advertised price to a smaller and smaller fraction of the real cost. Every one of those fees makes us feel a little more lied to, and we think twice about signing up, until finally we abandon the cart.

See you in two years.