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Review by tman852 See Profile

  • Location: Lancaster, Fairfield, OH, USA
  • Cost: $65 per month (24 month contract)
  • Install: about 5 days
Fast download speeds for 3G
Very spotty coverage, low 5GB cap prevents any real normal usage.
Don't waste your time and money
Pre Sales Information:
Install process:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

Download speeds typical of 2-2.5mbps, upload was about 700kbps until July 4th weekend with that software glitch At&t had that limited HSUPA and HSDPA devices' upload speeds to 100kbps, they said it would be temporary and still IS NOT FIXED. To add to the problem, latency is through the roof, 300+ms ping times average now as of 4th of July weekend too. Oh and don't forget the 5GB cap each month with $0.05 per Megabyte overage charges. Keep in mind this review is on their 3G wireless with a USB Lightning laptop card, but all At&t 3G devices share the same fate as this. Also, expect your supposed $59.99 monthly charge to be at least $65 if not more, because of taxes and other BS fees they throw on there, and even more if you go over your data cap. Tech support is completely worthless, I actually had to tell the lady about her own company's network and how it's all over the web with that Alcatel Lucent software bug that started july 4th weekend, and how the minimum upload speeds of HSUPA and HSDPA devices are much higher than the 100kbps I was getting. She continued to tell me my communications manager program was messed up even though I confirmed my issue on multiple computers, different devices and SIM cards of friends, and in different locations and different firmware/software versions. Well guess what lady, 100kbps upload with 300+ms ping times doesn't cut it when I need to video conference or do remote work on servers.

**UPDATE 8/11/2010**

Upload speeds and ping times finally fixed. 4Mbps download speeds and 1.5Mbps upload speeds, with 100 ms ping times to most places. Not bad, but still the terrible 5GB cap per month.

**UPDATE 10/30/2010**

Still going good. 5GB Cap is what ruins it. My employer pays for the service anyways so I suppose it's not all bad.

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member for 13.7 years, 1634 visits, last login: 3.6 years ago
updated 13.4 years ago

chgo_man99
join:2010-01-01
Sunnyvale, CA

chgo_man99

Member

All US wireless carriers use 5GB cap

either hard or soft.

Even Virgin Mobie's "unlimited" is not really unlimited and it is soft capped at 5GB/s. Thats the nature of cellular, 3G and caps are common worldwide. Even "4g" clearwire service does not allow you to use too much. There is no free lunch.

You want truly unlimited, I suggest you use fixed broadband.
tman852
join:2010-07-06
Columbus, OH

tman852

Member

Re: All US wireless carriers use 5GB cap

Virgin Mobiles is truly unlimited. I've used well over 20GB on it, so have others, and it is fine. I would use fixed broadband, but guess what, it isn't available where I am. At&t DSL, U-Verse and Road Runner blanket my area but will not cover my road. So until I'm offered one of those alternatives, this is my only option. I'm not even in a rural area to top it off, far from it.
chgo_man99
join:2010-01-01
Sunnyvale, CA

chgo_man99

Member

Re: All US wireless carriers use 5GB cap

I guess you must be isolated and there is not much neighbors on your road. No telco or cable will put new costly deployments to only few people. Sometimes they do when you are willing to pay for extra costs in installations.
tman852
join:2010-07-06
Columbus, OH

tman852

Member

Re: All US wireless carriers use 5GB cap

Yea Road Runner cable lines stop about 1000ft down from my home. From the point where it stops till then end of our road, it's about a quarter mile distance and 15 homes including mine. So, I guess we're SOL until more houses come about.
chgo_man99
join:2010-01-01
Sunnyvale, CA

chgo_man99

Member

Re: All US wireless carriers use 5GB cap

At least 15 homes should give some heads up to your local city/village hall and see if they push the cable to deploy further. And what about phone line? I cannot believe they would not do that, especially since its still important for 911 calls (it can't quite replace cell phone, bc its more accurate). And since you mentioned you have DSL/U-Verse in your area, it should be available once you have phone line.

You guys pay taxes and should be entitled to your voice. It may mean some local tax increase but a slight tax increase is better than losing your grandma from a heart attack!
tman852
join:2010-07-06
Columbus, OH

tman852

Member

Re: All US wireless carriers use 5GB cap

We have digital phone lines all the way down to our houses, problem is, they say the line is 33k feet long which is almost twice the distance limit for DSL unless they put another repeating station in somewhere along the line. I'm still doing some digging to hopefully find an alternative...