 Review by caribconsult 
UPDATED: 45 days ago
member for 6.6 years, 963 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Mayaguez,Mayaguez,PR
 $69 per month
 about 7 days
 "Excellent deal, good tech support, portable"
 "none so far."
 "The best WBB deal around, a definite alternative to satellite"
| Pre Sales Information:
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(ratings above consensus)
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I was a disgruntled Hughes satellite user, and to make a long story short, I finally got out of my contract with no penalty, and they gave me a partial rebate for what I spent on gear.
After trying out Sprint to see if I had enough signal, which I did, I switched to Millenicom.. Millenicom's offer was almost $20 month less, with no contract, and they also used a better device, the Franklin CDU 680 USB modem. MC is a sprint reseller so they operate over sprint's infrastructure. If sprint works, they'll work.
They sent the package (modem and router) via Post Office Priority mail and it arrived in 4 days, and everything was up and running that afternoon, and within one or two afternoons of reconfiguring computers and devices on my existing equipment, all wireless systems were operational and everything was working nicely on my 3 station network. My setup has had so many different types of IP connections that getting rid of the old tweaking was half the job.
Even before I owned their product, I had several good conversations with their tech support people and I was impressed by their desire to make it happen for you, with no BS.
So the choice was clear. Millenicom also offers a good deal on a compatible router, the Assent Wireless MBR-400, and they charge $50 less for it than if you bought it retail. So when you add it all up, it's a very good package for the money, it works smoothly and it's far superior to satellite in every aspect. Three cheers for Millenicom, and let's hope they grow and don't lose their personal touch.
UPDATE 8/1/08: MCom has raised their fee to 59.99/mo, but it is still uncapped and still works nicely, and still no contract required. They've also opened up their service to users who have their own devices.
UPDATE 3/09/09 I recently changed my equipment from the CDU680/Assent MBR400 combination originally sold to me by MCom, to a Sierra 598U I purchased on EBay for $99, and a Cradlepoint CTR500A router.
The difference is huge, especially in staying connected. The new rig stays on for days at a time, and when it does disconnect, it reconnects automatically, often within seconds. I've never caught it "dead in the water," unlike the CDU/MBR setup, which would 'crash,' for lack of a better term, when I plugged in my grid antenna. The grid works perfectly with the new setup, yielding about 16db gain of its rated 18db. The Sierra also seems to discriminate better between competing antennas, locking in to just one active pilot at a time, again, unlike the CDU, which jumped around all over the place, showing as many as 4 active pilots at one time. Speeds are at least as good, perhaps 25% better, but overall useability is way up.
MCom's headquarters tech support was terrific in making this switchover. Without mentioning names, as is requested by the forum rules, I emailed to one of their support personnel and received a telephone call from that person, and we took it from there, easily. I don't know if they'll do it for new accounts, but I already had an account for a year. Well worth the expense of the Sierra and the Cradlepoint, which I might point out, is a better router and has a more complete interface than the Assent.
UPDATE 10/09. It's closing in on two years that I've been using Millenicom and I have to say I'm pretty satisfied, especially since changing my hardware rig as described above. I did move up to the new "really unlimited" account for another $10 a month. It's worth it to me to not have to worry about ridiculous overage charges or getting cut off. And since internet is my main source for watching Yankee games, it would be easy to burn up 5Gb in a month...one game takes about 600Mb or more.
There's NOTHING else to choose from up here in the mountains where we live. Forget about DSL or cable, and you can read my comments about Hughes above and on a separate review of HN. Were it not for MBB, it would be death by dial-up. In fact, I used to keep a dialup account for those times when my HN satellite went down and for remotely accessing client computers, since HN worked like crap for RA. That's been canceled as unnecessary, saving me another $20/month.
Dealing with Millenicom has been fairly easy. I can email one of their senior techs and he responds quickly enough. He made the switchover from the CDU to the Sierra painless. So overall I'd have to give MCom a B+, maybe even an A for me individually since I really have so few other choices.
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