My one-year anniversary with Sprint came and went this past December with little fanfare. It’s been a pain-free year; the service worked flawlessly and on the few occasions I’ve called them their service has been nothing less than spectacular. It was fairly uneventful for the most part. I was becoming kind of disappointed in their phone choices once summer came around, and was glad I had jumped on my phone while they had it.

It was only when my bills started sporting the black and yellow color scheme that it became evident: the Nextel merger was complete. As a result, the second part of the year was quite a bit more interesting, with better phones, better ads, and better technology.

Bills, bills, bills.

The overall transition didn’t seem to be as big of a deal as it did with Cingular and AT&T. With that, all their customers were suddenly all together, whereas Sprint and Nextel still have their own separate infrastructures to deal with. I’m noticing little changes, some for the better, some for the worse. New Sprint customers get free incoming calls, which is rather nice and something I’ll have to discuss with them and see if I can get. But for some reason, my zip code no longer works on their site without redirecting me to a their commerce site (in contrast, try a Minneapolis zip code and see a more integrated result).

One of the other policy changes which actually comes as a big disappointment to me is in regards to their Phone Upgrade Program. When I originally signed up, it simply stated that after 18 months of continuous service you could trade in your Sprint phone and get credit toward a new one. Now to do the same thing it’s a tabled program based on how many months you’ve had service and how many years you want to renew your contract for. Ideally you’ll wait two years and then sign another two-year contract, which nets you $150 toward that shiny new toy.

However, I don’t want to do that. The last thing I want to do is get roped into another 3-year contract; I’d much preferred the contract-free version although I can see why Sprint didn’t. That means my only option is to suck it up and buy a new phone when I need one, which is not now and probably won’t be this summer, either. I might take them up on their offer once December comes again or I’ll just get a new phone whenever.