 Review by Pyrion 
Posted: 293 days ago
member for 7.9 years, 3748 visits, last login: 1 days ago
 Poway,San Diego,CA
 $70 per month (24 month contract)
 about 2 days
 "Usable practically anywhere."
 "Horrible latency during peak hours, 5GB/billing cycle cap."
 "Good if you're on the go, or extremely desperate. Otherwise find something else."
| Pre Sales Information:
Install process:
Connection reliability:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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The circumstances that brought me to Verizon for broadband service go as follows: I'm in the midst of an extensive home remodeling that's going to take the better half of this year, and needed broadband connectivity that could be practically guaranteed regardless of location. Living with relatives out in the boonies where cable and dsl don't service means one's options are severely limited.
Anyways, I mostly have gripes regarding this service stemming from my life as a consummate gamer. The 5GB cap is extremely restrictive, basically it is useful only for daily web browsing, emailing and the occasional Windows patch download. It is too limiting for anything else. Forget playing games over this sort of connection, at best you'll see pings of 100-120ms, more than likely 150-170ms, and during peak hours, 450+. The maximum download rate of the service barely competes with the cheapest of DSL plans, 2Mbit down and roughly half a megabit up. If the local cell node is congested, then speeds and overall service responsiveness drop like a brick of lead.
Really the only positive aspect of service like this is that you can use it practically anywhere. If you have cellphone service, you have internet access, and it's better than nothing in most cases (but dialup is at very least consistent).
I rated Pre-Sales Information 3/5 cuz Verizon's sales associates are largely clueless. You really have to speak to someone accustomed to servicing corporate customers to find out the difference between the USB and ExpressCard phones (yes, they're still technically phones, with their own numbers), and their USB phones are flimsy and easily breakable. The ExpressCard (which I have) seems much less prone to incidental breakage, which is just as well, as Asurion WPP insurance is $5 extra per month.
I rated Install process 3/5 because nowhere do they explain that you have to call up Verizon to activate the phone (and agree to the terms of the contract) before you can actually start using the thing. Only after repeated failures of trying to activate the phone through VZAccess Manager did it finally spit out a phone number to call to activate the phone manually.
Connection reliability 2/5 since I've been forced to reset the connection multiple times in the last few days (and I've only had the service for this long) due to overcrowding on the local node. Plus the aforementioned gripes regarding latency, particularly during peak hours.
Services 4/5 because yes, I'm that desperate for internet connectivity in the first place. I'm shamelessly addicted to the Internet, particularly online gaming, and even though I can't do much of that with this service, I'm not completely disconnected from the modern outside world as I would be if I went without this service.
Value for money 2/5 cuz $70/month for service that I have very few positive things to say (and much to complain about) doesn't deserve anything higher. It's not absolute crap (or I'd have eaten the $150 early termination fee already) but for this much money, Verizon has a lot to answer for. If you can live without internet access or can find something better in your area, then I suggest you go that route. This is only for those few of us that are hopelessly addicted to net connectivity stuck in areas where there are very few options.
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