Review by Duramax08  - Location: San Antonio,Bexar,TX
- Cost: $60 per month
- Install: about 1 days
Good "Works good for gaming, youtube"
Bad "$60 for 7.5 GB cap, not that bad I guess"
Overall "Works pretty good as my only connection"
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Clearwire didnt work out, got caught tethering my iphone 4 with unlimited plan (fun while it lasted) so had to find another way to get internet since im on the edge for both DSL and cable and both companies have no intention of expanding. During the time tethering my iphone I tried out virgin mobile. Signal sucked so returned it to the store. I saw that it had a external antenna port but didnt think of it that much till AT&T started going all nazi on tethering unlimited user. I decided to bite the bullet and try out cricket. I went with them since they had a 7.5 GB plan at $60 a month so went to walmart and got the EC1705 for $30. Brought it home, activated it and had a weak signal inside my house so got the laptop and walked outside. Was getting 1 3g bars so I knew that I can get some kind of signal and decided to bite another bullet investing into this usb modem so went online and did some research.
I bought the following
antenna- »www.antennagear.net/servlet/the-···n/Detail
extension cable- »www.antennagear.net/servlet/the-···n/Detail
I plugged the antenna with extension cables to my external antenna port on my EC1705 and got a stable 3 3g bars just putting the antenna on a temporary rigged up 15 foot pole so went out back and found a old 30 foot telescopic pole that was rusty. After cleaning it up and putting a new coat of paint on it we raised it up to about 25 feet and ran the antenna cable into my room. Works almost great. Heres the speed test.
»www.speedtest.net/result/1287149766.png
Warning:I almost shitted my pants when the adapter that came with the antenna wouldnt fit the usb modem but if you got a steady hand and a nice sharp knife, just cut a little of the plastic out of the modem so you can fit the external antenna adapter onto the ext antenna port on the usb modem.
To me it seems like the speed test is wrong. Cricket provides a software program that starts the connection for the usb modem and it gives me real time statistics and it maxes out around 600 kbps watching youtube. The whole household is able to use my connection since I share the connection from the usb modem to my wireless router so whenever my computer is connected. the household is connected. Im looking into a 3g wireless router but seems a bit expensive for what they do. But for now this is working just right. Lets see what that broadband plan actually does (if anything).
-Update 6/22/11
-.-, So last month my service went out, Forgot it was prepaid so paid it right away and it was connected the next day. This months payment came around so I decided to pay it a week in advance so did so on the 15th. The cut off date arrives and BAM, everything leads me back to the cricket site. So I decided to give the CSR's a shot. I made a big mistake.
I called them, told the automated guy my info and got transfered to someone, they didnt sound like they were from India so that was a relief. Told the guy my problem and said I even have a confirmation number and he said let me transfer you over to tech support. Got transfered to tech support and the lady said let me transfer you over to broadband then said she couldnt and gave me the number. After writing it down and calling it, I found it was the number I just called......
So called them again and told them my problem. The guy said let me transfer you over to tech support. I said I was just transfered over to tech support and they said they couldnt help me and to give you guys a call again. He said Oh, let me look for the right number. A minute later he says im going to transfer you to the right place. I said ok and got transfered. Now I hit some India guy named bobby or some shit like that and I told him "my services just got disconnected and I paid a week before the cut off date, is their anyway you can help me? I got a confirm number from the payment I made". After I told him my problem, CLICK. He hanged up on me. I lold. Wow, really? This is pathetic. Seems like those reps are only good for telling you how to reset your phone by taking out your battery. This is one shitty company TBH.
Cricket is my only internet option as of now. I do get all the big boy companies like AT&T, TMO, Sprint but dont want to get in a contract since I see AT&T working on a possible DSLAM near our house, I could live with a 150GB cap. Cricket works good when it works but when it doesnt, its a pain in the ass to talk to CSR's. And when I paid my bill wayyyy in advance to avoid service interuptions and still get cut off, that really pisses me off.
Screw you cricket
Update
Its been working pretty decent lately. I can watch youtube with little to no buffer. Ive been playing l4d2 on steam and my ping on servers range from 140-280ms. Its been a little laggy but still good (unless something is updating in the background, its gona lag). What I dont like is that it tries to auto dial when I turn on the computer. Since its not set up for that, it does it a few times and I cant connect during the 5 times it warns me. There probably is a easy fix for that, I just need to sit down and tinker with it. It also bugs me that when all that auto dial stuff goes away, I can connect when I have the max of 3 EVDO bars and once im connected, it will stay at 1 bar. By disconnecting and connecting seems to fix it but also gets annoying. And one last thing. I can turn on the internet at 8am and it would disconnect itself around 6-8pm. not sure why it does that but connecting again seems to fix it. I just dread the payment deadline. Even if I pay on time I will be disconnected for 1-2 days. Its bullshit but I guess thats how it works. Im gona give those cricket cards a shot and see if it wont delay activating the services again.
Update 12/12/11
I bought a cradlepoint MBR95 for my cricket modem and I might say it works pretty well. There has been times where it would say theres no internet connection but if I plug the modem into my pc, shows I get 3/5 bars. One of the firmware updates were pissing me off, it would turn off the wireless function or disable the cricket modem to where it wouldnt connect. Ive been using v3.2.4 and it works just fine.
THE END! WOOT!
So this is my last update of my cricket service. It recently started going downhill where I was reaching dial up speeds. Said screw it, going to someone else. I went with Millenicom and getting speeds like this
[URL=http://www.speedtest.net][IMG]»www.speedtest.net/result/1689145···G][/URL]
I have 15 days of my cricket service left, really not worth the hassle. It was good while it lasted cricket, but ill enjoy my 20GB cap vs the 5GB cap YOU NEVER TOLD ME ABOUT!
The End.
member for 5.1 years, 2435 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 1.7 years ago
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![www.speedtest.net/result/1689145···G][/URL]](http://www.speedtest.net/result/1689145740.png[/IMG][/URL]){kind=link}