Where is Sprint 4G?

So, I live in Florida. Recently I switched my cell service from Verizon to Sprint for a few reasons that will bore you to death. So I’ll sum up — When I first switched, I absolutely couldn’t have been happier. I loved my phone (EVO 4G), thought the CS reps were the bomb, and loved how my phone bill remained constant monthly (with Verizon, no two were ever the same).

Anyway… then comes the iPhone… and now everything changes. The CEO made no secret that iPhone users are their holy grail and will be treated as gold. All of us non-iphone users will simply be… non-iphone users. Since the iPhone came, my “unlimited” account is now capped at 5GB (of course they say this is allowed in my unlimited contract).

But, I digress. Today’s article is about Sprint coverage maps and why you never ever ever should trust sales people. Look at that map above, remembering that I live in Florida. Florida looks awesome for 4G coverage, no? To help, here’s just Florida:

Florida close-up

I mean, just look at that — Sprint 4G is everywhere! Remember, this is a sales map and Yellow indicates 4G coverage. This map has one purpose, and one purpose only: sales. Sales people have one purpose only: get more sales. Anything other than getting more sales is a total failure of the entire function of either the map or the sales person.

To illustrate my point, let’s look at the non-sales 4G coverage map:

Brown is 4G, Orange is NOT

To clarify, remember here BROWN is 4G, orange is NOT 4G. There’s a lot of orange on that map. Kind of a huge contrast to the yellow being 4G coverage, but what do I know… I’m just a Sprint customer that can’t get 4G.

Our hero Benjamin Franklin

In yet another demonstration of “open” government, the State of Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation accidentally provided access to 250,000 social security numbers. The social security numbers remained available for 19 days.

“We are committed to serving the people of Florida and to maintaining the public trust at its highest level,” said Monesia T. Brown, Director of the Agency for Workforce Innovation.  “We are thoroughly investigating this matter and are making every effort to enhance the security of our computer systems.”

The security breach occurred on an Agency test server for 19 days in October 2008 and resulted in the exposure of the names and Social Security Numbers of approximately 250,000 customers who received services through Florida’s One-Stop Career Centers between January 2002 and November 2007.

If you want to check to see if your information was included in the affected data, you should visit: https://www.floridajobs.org/security/security.htm. However to add insult to injury, you will need to provide your name, email, phone number, and last 4 digits of your social security number.

The State will be notifying those affected by mail. Perhaps the workers involved received their training from the University of Florida…