July 9th, 2007
BULLETIN. Sprint to me: "we won't disconnect military roamers," but no comment on other termination policies
After contacting Sprint about multiple reports citing that nearly 200 U.S. military members with Sprint accounts received disconnect letters because of “excessive roaming,” I’ve just received this response from SprintNextel corporate p.r.:
Sprint Nextel will not discontinue service for active duty military customers because of excessive roaming. As part of a general enforcement of the roaming policies that all customers agree to under our terms and conditions, we have contacted some customers about violation of those policies, due to excessive roaming.
We understand that military customers may have unique circumstances regarding roaming, and we will not discontinue service for those customers. Any military customer contacted by us regarding excessive roaming simply needs to contact us to confirm their military status to have the roaming issue waived and to ensure continued service, and we apologize for any inconvenience.
Then, the spokesperson added this qualifier:
SprintNextel is proud to be a strong supporter of our employees and customers who serve in the military and particularly honored to have been named by G I Jobs Magazine for the past five years as one of the Top 25 Most Military-Friendly Employers. For our military customers Sprint Nextel provides assistance to military personnel who are sent overseas into active duty. Instead of having to disconnect their wireless service due to deployment, military personnel are able to temporarily suspend their account for 24 months and keep their phone number at no charge.
But now the “but”:
In the same communication I sent to SprintNextel that resulted in the above reply, I asked for comment about their general excessive roaming account termination policies, as well as account terminations for too many calls to customer service.
In his reply email back to me, the Sprint spokesperson I contacted did not acknowledge, nor offer a comment on either of those issues.
It sounds to me that although Sprint may be backtracking a bit from the most outrageous of their cancellation policies, they are preparing to hold their ground on terminations for excessive roaming by non-military personnel, and excessive calls to customer service.
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
