Review by RegGuheert 
Posted: 1.7 years ago
member for 4 years, 280 visits, last login: 148 days ago
 Berryville,Clarke,VA
 $49 per month (month by month)
 about 5 days
 "Portable internet. Nice upgrade from T-Mobile EDGE"
 "Drops to 1xRTT speeds and pings even when 'EVDO Only'"
 "Millenicom Mobile Broadband NOT Replacing HughesNet!"
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Install process:
Connection reliability:
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Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I finally signed up for Millenicom Mobile Broadband Wednesday, 21 February 2008, after considering it for well over a year. Thanks to all the posters here for helping me learn about this service! There is a wealth of information in this forum!
My hopes in getting Millenicom included the following:
1) Replace HughesNet service.
2) Reduce ping times from 750 msec to ~100 msec.
3) Eliminate FAP.
4) Reduce monthly fees by $20.
5) Be able to take a fast connection with me on vacation.
Here is my experience so far:
Millenicom has been great to do business with so far! Web sign up was easy, terms of service are great, and I received my working modem three business days after signing up!
My home is not yet shown as covered by Mobile Broadband service on Sprint's maps, but I'm impatient, so I decided to go ahead and try it. I already have a Wilson 1900 MHz Yagi antenna and amplifier in my home that provides me with better coverage for T-Mobile voice and EDGE service. My expectation was to be able to repoint this to one of the towers with Mobile Broadband coverage in order to get service throughout my house.
In preparation for receiving this new modem, I read quite a bit on this forum and did one "tweak": I installed the Microsoft patch to stabilize the speed of wireless cards within Vista. This patch *really* improved the stability of EDGE connections, so I guess it changes something. I now get a consistent 200 kbps download speed with EDGE with only 2 bars!
I am thoroughly impressed with how simple it is to install the CDU-680! What a great idea to include the software in a USB flash drive inside the modem! Kudos to Franklin!
First thing I did after confirming 1xRTT service at home was to put a four-inch magnetic antenna I had bought for this modem and drive to find the towers that carry EVDO Rev A service. I found them where expected, about 6 to 8 miles from my home in a different direction than my 1900 MHz Yagi is currently pointed. (That is pointed at a tower about 4 miles away.) Unfortunately, I didn't see great download speeds, even right at the tower with high signal strength. No more than 600 kbps, and typically less than 400 kbps. I'm guessing lots of desperate people got this service before I did! On the other hand, upload speeds were consistently MORE than 400 kbps. To my pleasant surprise, I was able to maintain EVDO Rev A all the way home, including in my driveway!
Next step was to hook my 1900 MHz antenna to my CDU-680 and try to find EVDO Rev A. No luck. No matter where I pointed the antenna, I was only able to get 1xRTT. Go figure. So I came inside the house and set the laptop on a table in my living room, without any external antenna and I get EVDA Rev A! Signal strength for EVDO Rev A in this position is -86 dBm, while 1xRTT is only -95 dBm.
I decided not to tweak my HA (New York) just yet, even though ping times tend to be 250 msec and above. Instead, my son started some downloads using FlashGet. One was a torrent and the other was a normal http download. Unfortunately, the downloads failed within a couple of hours with a "System error, unable to sign in" message. My son restarted the service and we went to bed. Same error occurred again overnight. Speeds tend to vary between 0 kbps to about 900 kbps. Average tends to be about 300 kbps, which is just slightly faster than EDGE.
Bottom line: Millenicom Mobile Broadband is not currently stable enough nor fast enough to replace HughNet as our main internet provider. Hughesnet, while limited to 400 MB per day and having 750 msec ping times, is *very* stable and provides 1 Mbps whenever requested. We have learned to do our larger downloads during the 3:00 AM to 6:00 AM free period each day. I have decided to keep Millenicom Mobile Broadband as a replacement for T-Mobile EDGE service in the hopes that it will be generally faster and that more of the Sprint towers will become EVDO Rev A-capable in the near future.
So, looking at my original list of hopes I can write a list of realities to now replace it:
1) Replace T-Mobile EDGE service.
2) Reduce ping times from >1000 msec (EDGE) to ~250 msec.
3) Workaround FAP.
4) INCREASE monthly fees by $20.
5) Be able to take a fast connection with me on vacation. (We'll see. I will take the new modem on a business trip with me tomorrow.)
Thanks again to all who have provided information on Millenicom and Sprint Mobile Broadband on this forum. While I didn't quite realize my original goals, I did find a place for this service and will be keeping it for the foreseeable future.
I realize that I am a complete newbie here and that I will be able to improve the stability and speed of this service by fiddling with it, getting patches, etc. However, I don't think it will make it to HughesNet performance or stability any time soon, given the starting point. (FWIW, I'm an electrical engineer who has worked in wireless communications, both satellite and terrestrial, for the past 20 years. I'm also not new to cellular internet, as I've been using EDGE for about 2 years now.)
I waited a couple of weeks before posting the above comments as a review, just in case I have missed something. After nearly three weeks of use, my views have not changed materially, so my review stands as above.
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