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Review by gopnick 
UPDATED: 2.1 years ago
member for 4.8 years, 964 visits, last login: 50 days ago
 Benton,Saline,AR
 $59 per month (24 month contract)
 about 3 days
 "Cost effective, reasonably fast, excellent coverage in Arkansas"
 "Higher cost than traditional DSL/Cable Internet"
 "When there's no DSL or Cable, give EV-DO a try!"
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Purchased a new house only a few minutes from my old one. The new house did not have DSL or Cable Internet access despite being so close to the old one that I can hear the ice cream truck from my old neighborhood when in my new!  I purchased (through my company plan) a Kyocera KR1 wireless EV-DO router and a new Air Card.
I will detail my experiences according to DSLR's standards:
Pre Sales Information: I rated this a 4/5, only because my rep couldn't tell me when Rev. A would be deployed in my area. They did however send a business team to drive by my house (!!!) and confirm that I did have access before I purchased the router (at $300, I wanted to be sure). The quality of the info was poor, but the customer service end was amazing!
Install Process: They sent me the wrong card and I had to flash my KR1 with a new ROM in order to make it work. This alone makes it impossible for the novice user to install and use. That said, most people using this KR1 would need to be a bit geeky in order to know it exists anyway. 
Connection Reliability: The connection does fine, but it drops every two or three days. I would ordinarily give a 1 or 2 rating for this, but it is CLEARLY the KR1 and not the service, as a reboot fixes things up fine. I can handle this, but again, a novice user wouldn't want to deal with it. I gave a 3/5 rating for my troubles.
Tech Support: Alltel has great, honest tech support. When I found the ROM flashing issue before they did, the tech asked me to e-mail him a link so he could update their system so they can help other customers!! I was glad to help and the informality and openness at Alltel makes me want to do business with them more in the future.
Services: The QoS is good. I get about 600-900kbps down and 70-140kbps up. Respectable. Not as good as AT&T HSDPA 3G, but good enough for me (and much cheaper, especially up front). The coverage foot print is also excellent, and my KR1 came with a car adapter so my car can be a traveling Wi-Fi hotspot!! The only problems are equipment related (disconnects every 24-48 hours, requiring KR1 reboot) but again, the overall QoS for the Internet access is great.
Value: Excellent. Comparable 3G cellular technology is normally $79.99/mo without a voice plan. I got this for $59 on my corporate account discount. AT&T wasn't willing to work with me to help me get a 3G router (they don't even sell one directly!!) or on monthly cost.
Update: 10/2/2007
Ok, the KR1 sucks. Don't buy it if you have any other choices. The service is ok, but it gets really slow at night... as low as 50k. By 11pm it picks back up to 1 megabit or more. Alltel really needs to work on their backhaul.
Still better than satellite, IMO.
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Review by bigboy250
UPDATED: 2.1 years ago
member for 9.2 years, 862 visits, last login: 54 days ago
Wilmington,New Hanover,NC
Contract price not specified.
"Good Coverage in Big cities."
"Good Coverage in Big cities"
"Okay speeds, could stand a coverage upgrade!"
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I've got service through work. The coverage is excellent in the city but you go outside the city into the country and it stays in 1x mode. Never switches from EVDO when in the city which is nice but I work out in the country a lot. The 1x mode is the most annoying thing ever, the speed is just impossible to VPN or just regular web surfing. I have to stay connected to my VPN while in the truck but it right away disconnects my VPN as soon as I switch to 1x. On a good day while in EVDO mode I can get 700kbps down and 110kbps up but I average 300 down and 90 up. I did hit 1.7 down and 1.2 up the other day sitting at home which was nice. I'll update if the speeds increase.
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Review by da1bomb15
UPDATED: 2.1 years ago
member for 2.9 years, 4 visits, last login: 289 days ago
Burnett,Dodge,WI
$65 per month
about 3 days
"Low Pings, better than Satelilte."
"Slow Speeds, difficult to share connection"
"Low Latency. Webpages open faster. No Download or upload Limits"
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When i first found out i could get EVDO i was pretty glad cause i had just gotten off my wildblue contract. So for about 3 weeks i was on dial up. After having such crappy service with wildblue i didn't want another contract. So when i heard that if i bought my own phone i could avoid any contract with alltel. So i went on ebay and bought a Razor V3c to us with alltel. It was only $104 and if i didn't like alltel i could allways cancel and sell my phone back on ebay. So as soon as i got my razor i called alltel and had them hook me up with a voice plan for 500mins for $39.99.(Had to pay a activation fee of $25) After getting my phone all set up, use a old sony psp usb cable and hooked up. I Download the razor usb modem drivers that i got from some razor mod site and used my old usb cable . (saved like $70) But then i didn't know how to connect with my phone so i called customer service and the guy told me that i had to plug in the phone to the computer and set up like a dial up connection. The Phone number being #777 and the Username : 8005550000@alltel.net (Replace the numbers with your cell numbers) Password:alltel (same pass for everyone) So then i was up surfing the internet. the only problem was i was running at 1x speeds not evdo speeds. So i called up tech support and they said i was maybe out of reach of evdo. But i thought they where wrong. but then again i am 6 miles from the tower. But i kept on searching on google to figure out my problem. Then i came accross someone saying something about updating your phone by dialing *228 , so i did and boom, i got evdo. lol lucky i guess. So then i called alltel and added the unlimited phone tethering for $25 extra to my bill making it $65 a month. but i get unlimited internet and 500min plan. not bad aye? So now i'm trying to figure out how to be able to share my phones connection without buying those evdo routers for $150+. I may end up selling my Razor on ebay and buy a pc card that can get evdo rev. a which is faster and lower latency then what any phone can handle. Razor only does evdo rev.0 and 1x. Evdo rev .0 isn't that bad, like average 400-600kbs down and 50-60kbs up. but i think a evdo rev a would be better. i may get like 1mbs average.
Well i hope this helped. Sorry , about any bad spelling or grammer.
Followup comments:  Answer Guy
join:2006-07-28
Grass Lake, MI
| Sharing connection You don't need a special router to share a connection. The only bad part is that you must dedicate one machine to being the sharing internet computer. I have mine setup to a dedicated machine and share the connection to 3 labtops and one desktop.
You could get the PC card, but the service costs $60 just for the connection and you don't get any voice minutes. I'm waiting for a Rev A cell phone as I can live with $25 a month for access. | |
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 Review by aRebel
Posted: 2.6 years ago
member for 6.9 years, 855 visits, last login: 119 days ago
Alltel
$25 per month
"Unlimited /Great Price/Mobility"
"Speeds Vary Alltel needs to update their EVDO"
"Use your cell phone or data card"
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I just started testing using a data cable and my Razr
I'm only connecting at 1x not EV-DO way better than dial-up not as fast as satellite
I'm still researching and learning hoping to dump satellite
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Review by adolobe
Posted: 2.6 years ago
member for 7.3 years, 251 visits, last login: 90 days ago
Jacksonville,Onslow,NC
$25 per month
"Fast reliable speeds where cable and dsl are not offered"
"upload is better than dial up but nothing to get excited about"
"Awesome service in an area formally only serviced by satellite or isdn"
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I've had direcway set up at my parents home in Easter NC for the past 5 years. Service always worked for the most part but their FAP was always an issue on a network with two computers. Embarq started offering dsl in my area last fall but unfortunetly we are 800 feet to far to get service. Charter laid fiber optic down in 1999 to my drive parents drive way but still to this day have yet to turn the whole street on( about 8 miles of fiber is laid dormant for over 7 years now) they tell me its budget issues.
I found out that alltel was offering EVDO in the area my parents live, Actually they have almost 60% of the whole state of NC service with EVDO on there net work or with roaming agreements with sprint and verizon. I also found out you can add unlimited EVDO to any evdo phone for $25 a month and you can teather to a laptop ro computer via bluetooth or usb. Or you can sign up for the air card but the monthly fee would $60. We opened up a new line of service and purchased the Razr for $49 and i already had the data cable that would work from an old samsung digital camera.
I have the phone connected to my main pc and then i have the network set up from there for the laptop wirelessly off the pc. I'm getting speeeds that match my direcway in both up and down. The service does slow down during peak hours to around 250K-350K but after around 9pm and before 10am i'm seeing speeds from 800k-1100. Upload is anywhere from around 50k-79k my highest. Ping time are typically from 285ms-500ms much better than with my satellite.
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Review by breethon
Posted: 2.7 years ago
member for 8.8 years, 48 visits, last login: 2.1 years ago
Vermontville,Eaton,MI
$25 per month
"Highspeed for rural america, can take it anywhere"
"high latency ruins online gaming, frequent disconnects (need download mgr for large files)"
"Only thing available here other than 24k dialup is satellite"
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I have had the Alltel unlimited data package added to my phone line now for around 3 months. It has never failed to connect ever. If I try to download large files, I get frequently disconnected (not sure if it is coincidental or not). I consistenly have 500Kbps download and 100Kbps upload speeds. Latency has been anywhere from 150 up to 600. Usually around upper 200s as an average. All in all I am extremely happy with the service, as like I said earlier we can only get 24K dial up out here. Yup, the modem can't even get 56K we are so far out in the middle of nowhere. I definitely miss my Comcast cable though. No more late night Battlefield 2 sessions 
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Review by Answer Guy
Posted: 2.7 years ago
member for 3.3 years, 291 visits, last login: 202 days ago
Grass Lake,Jackson,MI
$35 per month (24 month contract)
about 1 days
"Fast downloads"
"None so far"
"A very good connection if your options are limited."
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I just moved from Verizon Wireless to Alltel due to better reception at my house. I purchased the "My Circle Plan" for $69 and added 5 phones. I will be using 4 of the phones for normal cellular service. I also got one Motorola E815 for use only on the Alltel Axess network. The cost of the phone each month is $10 for service plus $25 for the unlimited Axess service feature. I did it this way so that I could leave the phone connected at home 100% of the time and never have to disconnect it.
I currently live about 5.4 miles from the closest Alltel tower. I get about 66% on the signal connection. I did a few tweaks and I currently get around 750k / 95k. This is a lot better than my only other option of 49k on dialup.
I have 3 labtops and I do travel from time to time, so this will really provide me with great Internet access. Alltel covers a large portion of MI with EVDO, so I will have great coverage where I travel.
At some point when Alltel starts to sell EVDO Rev A phones, I plan on upgrading the E815, but that probably won't be for another year.
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