Review by travis5379 
member for 8 years, 144 visits, last login: 183 days ago
updated 1.3 years ago
 Rathdrum,Kootenai,ID
 $60 per month about 5 days "Verizon speed and 20 GB for 60 a month" "The only billing option they allow is auto-recurring debit/credit card" "Good so far"
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This review is for Millenicom 3G high speed internet using the Novatel USB760 modem. At the time I signed up (June 2, 2011), they offered a 20 GB plan that cost 60 USD per month. This was the "Advanced Plan." They no longer have that plan and instead offer 50 GB for $70. My bill hasn't increased, so they must've grandfathered my plan. I'm not sure how much longer they will continue to do so. As part of the plan, I had to purchase the USB modem for $99. There was also a $50 (approx) set-up fee.
Before signing up for Millenicom, I was a Cricket 3G subscriber for about a year and a half. The plan I had was 5 GB for 60 a month. The great thing about Cricket was that they didn't charge you if you went over your cap. The service was passable, but not great. At peak usage times, my speeds were 200-300 Kbps down and 200 Kbps up. At non-peak times, it was 500 Kbps down and 300 Kbps up. Not great, but it was sufficient enough to play World of Warcraft.
A few months ago, Cricket adopted new pricing plans. The old plan, which I had, was $40 a month for 5 GB. And no overage fees. And then they changed it to $40 for 2.5 GB, $50 for 5, and $60 for 7.5. And just recently they've increased their prices yet again, this time adding $5 to each plan. So the (current) pricing is $45, $55, and $65.
To compare the old pricing that I had with the current pricing means that my bill would've went up 37% in less than a year's time. However, they did grandfather my $40 at 5 GB. Unfortunately, they decided to enforce their data caps right about the time they introduced new pricing plans. Probably to force the $40 people like myself to switch over to the more expensive 7.5 GB plan. So one day after noticing that my speed had been throttled down to 50 Kbps, I called them and they verified that my speed had been throttled due to exceeding my 5 GB cap. As 50 Kbps is quite unacceptable, I had them upgrade my account to 7.5 GB and my speed was restored to normal. Unfortunately, that also meant my bill increased by 50%.
Unhappy that I was paying $60 a month for what amounted to 300 Kbps and a 7.5 GB cap, I went searching for a new ISP. I considered the usual suspects (Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, even Virgin and T-Mobile), looking for a good value on 3G internet access. I didn't find any. Virgin used to offer 5 GB for $40 a month with no overage fees, but that was simply a bait and switch, as they have since gotten rid of that plan.
Cricket was barely a good value at $40 a month. At $60? Nah. No way. Not for that low of speed. The kicker is that when I called them to cancel my service, I was greeted by an Indian woman named "Michelle." Yeah, ok. Outsourcing debates aside, is it really necessary to insult the intelligence of your customers by pretending that your Indian tech support staff have American names?
Enough about Cricket. This review is for Millenicom, which I found by doing a simple web search for 3G providers. They seemed like a good value, so I came here to see what the cold, hard truth was on them. The reviews checked out, so I decided to give Millenicom a shot. I ordered the basic plan, not wanting to spend the $99 to purchase the modem until I knew whether the service was good. As I mentioned earlier, I ordered the service on June 2, 2011, the modem shipped the next day, and arrived on June 6. Setup was a breeze. I just plugged the modem in, and Windows XP took care of everything. I immediately ran a speed test, and was pleasantly surprised to see the results. 1.2 Mbps downstream and 500 Kbps up. A fourfold increase over my usual Cricket speed. Over the course of the next several weeks, I ran periodic speed tests, at various times of the day, and the results were between 1 and 1.5 Mbps down and 400 to 700 Kbps up. It should be noted that the plan I have with Millenicom uses the Verizon network. They have another plan that uses the Sprint network.
I've read DSL Reports for years (my account was created in 2005) but this is my first ISP review. I will keep this review updated if anything changes with my account or there's any drastic changes in speed. I've been using the service for a little over a month and so far, I'm pleased with it.
December 5, 2011 Update:
Service is running great. I've attached an image of the results of a typical speedtest, once again it's using Verizon's EVDO Revision A network. I'm not using anything to boost the signal.
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