Attention Virgin Mobile Internet USB Users

[Howard Kelly]

Jeff,  we have virgin internet,  we have a Tracfone which I think is on the Sprint network . we use our phone for emergency's only so it hardly ever on.
If what you say is true BIG BROTHER is watching  OHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Isn't science wonderfull 

 

[Irover]

I have one that I bought when they 1st came out for $150. It served it's pupose when I was 20 miles from DC, but the signal in Jackson, Miss., Altoona, Iowa  Campbellsville ky and 20 miles from Mobile, al. are no good. It stays in the cabinet now and I see the price came down considerably. I also see they have unlimited. 3G/4G should really consider doing something about the coverage area.  My old prepaid net 10 phone gets a good signal in most areas. Irover

 

[Terry A. Brewer]

Well the other shoe has dropped, I just got an email from Virgin Mobile .....

"To make sure we can keep offering our $40 Unlimited Broadband2Go Plan at such a great price, we're putting a speed limit in place for anyone on that plan who uses over 5GB in a month.

How will it work?

Starting February 15, 2011, if you go over 5GB in a month on the $40 Unlimited Plan:
Your data speeds will be limited for the remainder of the monthly plan cycle. During this time, you may experience slower page loads and file downloads and lags in streaming media.
Your data speeds will return to normal as soon as you buy a new Broadband2Go Plan.
This change will only affect plans bought on or after 2/15/2011"

With the slow speed I have been getting & this new plan limitations I would not recommend this service.

By the way it is now been 48 hrs since they broke my service & I still can't use my "Unlimited Service".

 

[Wendy]

That sucks, especially since we just bought the stupid thing. Glad we still have the HughesNet on the roof.

Life was easier before advanced technology came along.
Wendy

 

[Ned]

There is no such thing as "unlimited" data in either theory or practice.  It's a marketing term that really means "unlimited access to", not "unlimited amount of".  Even the "unlimited access" is questionable as no system has access everywhere.

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

Actually, Altel customers had unlimited amount of data and still have it grandfathered after they were absorbed by Verizon. And for some extra coins, Verizon offers some unlimited amount plans as well, but I think they are commercial and enterprise wide, rather than individual plans.

Unlimited in this sense is all you can get, and may not be as much as you would truly like to have.

 

[BernieD]

I'd be happy with a 5GB allowance if some carry forward of unused MBs were allowed. We seldom get close to 5GB but there are months with a lot of large program updates and other uses that could send me over and I wind up spend more effort throttling back and calculating remaining bandwidth than I really want.

 

[Jeff]

5GB a month doesn't mean much at the download speeds Terry was getting. :

 

[fleamarketeer]

That sounds quite reasonable.  After all it is a "budget" type plan.  In a few months the bandwidth hogs will have moved on allowing average customers better access.  It should have been this way from the start.

This decision is a plus for Virgin Mobile from my standpoint. 

fleamarketeer

 

[John From Detroit]

Re; the 5 Gig limit... This month if you contract with Virgin Mobile you get genuine unlimited.

Next month they will impose the 5 GIG limit on new contracts, or so their web page says.

I expect the 5 gig limit on ALL contracts to be the next throttle.

I hope to get a Virgin mobile card next week,,, However I'll be doing the 100 Meg a week when I need it plan.. not the "unlimited" so this won't affect me.

 

[two2go]

With Verizon, I have a 5Gb HARD limit. Anything over runs up ridiculous overage charges. The Virgin limit is soft, as you can use more, just slower. But if I am restricted to 250 Mbps, that is still faster than I was getting on "3G" Verizon on average.
I am now in Columbus, NE. No 3G, just regular whatever. But it is OK for routine work. This is the one area I wondered about, but I do have access.

 

[Ned]

The Verizon Wireless $50 5GB/month plan charges $10/GB over the limit, pretty reasonable to me.

 

[Elly Dalmaijer]

I am really curious if you can get a USB internet stick unlocked like a cell phone. That way we would be able to take the stick to any country where we work, insert a data SIM card and.... Bingo!

Or am I dreaming in color?

Elly

 

[two2go]

The Verizon Wireless $50 5GB/month plan charges $10/GB over the limit, pretty reasonable to me.

You are right. I had not realized that. It was much higher when I started with them. Looks like Verizon is softening their rates as they realize there is some competition out there. They wouldn't cut me a break from $60/mo, so I will sit out and see how their 4G network develops. For now, the Virgin Mobile seems to be satisfactory. The times they are a'changing.

 

[Terry A. Brewer]

Well it's been 4 days without service & they finally agreed to refund my monthly charge & email me an RMA in a couple of days to return the modem.....by the way the  foreign call center would not allow me to talk to a US representative as they didn't have a way to accomplish it.

I am not too optimistic this will happen.

 

[JerArdra]

Elly D,

Here's an idea for you.  Get Verizon's 4G Pantech USB290 modem because it already has a built in SIM card.  The modem already has a command to lock it in 3G only because for now you will find very few 4G areas.  Use it for 3G connections and in the future you will be able to use it in 4G mode and switch SIM cards.

The 3GSTORE has lots of info on 4G and the Pantech modem.  I tried one at my house and get 16MB download and 7MB upload

JerryF

 

[Ken & Sheila]

Ardra,

I though about switching to Verizon 4G but I would have to give up my grandfather unlimited 3G contract. But then I've never gone over 5GB except when sharing out my Cradlepoint wifi.

ken

 

[DearMissMermaid]

I just got this email from Virgin Mobile (since it's not copyright protected I can post it here)

Starting February 15, 2011, if you go over 5GB in a month on the $40 Unlimited Plan:
Your data speeds will be limited for the remainder of the monthly plan cycle. During this time, you may experience slower page loads and file downloads and lags in streaming media.
Your data speeds will return to normal as soon as you buy a new Broadband2Go Plan.
This change will only affect plans bought on or after 2/15/2011.

I've had very good luck with Virgin Mobile's coverage map, so far they've been very honest about where it does and does not work. (AT&T who I had last year has a horrible map that tells big fat lies about coverage). 

The speed varies widely. Some days I am zipping around at lightning speed, other days I am creeping along, but it's fast enough for my internet work which does require a lot of uploading. If you watch a lot of video streaming, then you may not be happy all the time. I avoid videos for the most part, but I do sometimes set my downloads to work in the middle of the night, that way it doesn't matter to me if they are fast or slow.

Skype phone works perfectly on it,(fast or slow)  a huge plus since Skype is the cheapest phone around and  free, if the other person has Skype too, so this is a huge bonus to talk to my friends for free.

AT&T calls me from their computer 4-6 times a day.  I sent them a letter outlining the reasons for  breaking my forced 2-year contract, still they ring my phone off the hook all hours of the day and evening. I guess they don't read their letters... Since it's a computer voice calling me, I don't get an opportunity to explain I wrote them a letter.

As far as I know, each company requires you to buy their specific modem/USB to use with their air-card. I don't think you can switch it around, as one poster wondered.

I am surprised that campgrounds are super slow to think about adding free WiFi to attract customers, or maybe it's just the campgrounds and parks I choose seem to never have it or it's a super pricey add-on.  I know most of the pricey parks do offer WiFi, but even then, some of those limit your daily usage.

 

[Kim (skyking4ar2) Bertram]

I am surprised that campgrounds are super slow to think about adding free WiFi to attract customers, or maybe it's just the campgrounds and parks I choose seem to never have it or it's a super pricey add-on.  I know most of the pricey parks do offer WiFi, but even then, some of those limit your daily usage.

What we have here is a failure to communicate....

It was not long ago that Internet bandwidth was consumed in nibbles and bits. Today, we have become over consumers with cell networks exploding, streaming video, gaming across the Internet and the demand to have instant access to all content, anytime, all the time, from anywhere.

Expecting parks to plug up multiple T1 lines, etc. so that people can have unlimited access might be too much to expect. Same thing goes for the "free lunch" of unlimited usage of cell networks, which on their best day, are probably running behind.

If you look at the amount of money spent by big business and government to have the huge bandwidth they need to provide all of us access and the fact that us lowly consumers are piggybacking on a lot of their infrastructure, the amount of money we actually pay is really small proportionately.

It's like free checking...somebody pays for everything somewhere. I am just glad we have so many choices.

 

[fleamarketeer]

The Virgin Mobile USB dongle doodads are in short supply in my area.  Two Walmarts and a little cell phone store were out of them.  A third Walmart only had 3 left- there was space for at least 30.

I'm not positive if the $40 unlimited plan will grandfather until you change plans or will stop at your first renewal after February 15, but a lot of people are buying them up.  A clerk I spoke to, said one individual bought all he had left (5 units).

If you want one, it might be a good idea to call first.

fleamarketeer