Traveling Gal - Virgin Mobile Prepaid Broadband Review

by Laura
(Illinois)

•Which service provider(s) have you tried? - Virgin Mobile


•What was the coverage like? - pathetic even with a strong signal, the page load time/ speed can be as slow as dial up. I have used this is SC, IL, KS, and OH. The only state that actually worked pretty well was KS but that is Sprint's home territory.

If you can't get Sprint voice service, then the USB won't work either. If you get good Sprint service, then it all depends on how much cell traffic is on the tower - Friday afternoons and weekends are really bad.

•How did you find the speed? Was it fast enough? - NO!!!!! and calling customer service doesn't help. They never have any solutions other than to just "wait" and be "patient."

•How was the quality/features of the modem? (i.e. Was it reliable? Did you have a PC Card or a USB modem?)- USB Modem. Could take several minutes for the computer to recognize the device, and everytime you need to log onto internet. No problems with activation.

•Would you recommend the service to a friend? - Heck NO! I'm not sure I would put my worst enemy through this awful experience.

Comments for Traveling Gal - Virgin Mobile Prepaid Broadband Review

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Dec 23, 2011
Rating
starstarstarstarstar 		Virgin Mobile SLow NEW
by: Anonymous

I have had my Lg smartphone for about 3 months now. I have NEVER gotten the speeds they advertise. I am averaging about 100kbs. The best was 500-600 kbs. The worst about 20-30 kbs. Streaming video , forget about it.
Aug 31, 2010
Rating
starstarstarstarstar 		Virgin Broadband2Go Review
by: PrepaidWirelessGuy

Wow...yikes, it sounds like you've had an absolutely horrible experience! It really is odd that even when you have great coverage that your connection speed is so poor. I wonder if it’s connecting at 1xRTT speeds instead of EVDO RevA (i.e. 3G) speeds? With good coverage in terms of the number of bars you’re seeing, I’m thinking that may be the issue.


Although the speed of the computer and the number of apps you have open can impact speeds, it’s unlikely that you have a super old system(?). I have a decent laptop (less than one year old), and usually have 6-8 apps opened, including 15-25 Firefox tabs open at all times, and haven’t seen that affect speed (I’m not using Broadband2Go, but network aside, computer speed impacts should be consistent across networks). It does take awhile to reload all of those tabs, though I tend to just hibernate my PC to avoid having to worry about load times.


Yes, network load is always a factor, which is why AT&T gets a lot of slack, for they have fast speeds so long as the network isn’t congested, however, from what I understand, they’re almost always congested such that speed is virtually almost always pretty pathetic. Perhaps others with more direct AT&T experience can comment on that! I’m not aware of Virgin toggling speeds for its users vs. what Sprint postpaid provides; their website says: “fast 3G connection and no speed restrictions.” And the clause at the bottom of the plan details page lists EVDO RevA speeds (600-1400 Kbps) so it doesn’t appears as though it’s a Rev0 connection.


Taking several minutes to recognize the modem IS super slow! Unfortunately, logging in is always required. There are, however, two caveats. Most connection manager software (Sprint uses SmartView, which I expect Virgin is using some flavor of that) allows you to toggle a setting that will automatically load the software and login. So as long as you have the modem plugged in and recognized, it will login without you have to load the app and click “Connect”. The other way around this is that login is not required with MiFi Hotspot devices b/c the modem will login on its own, and your PC will always automatically connect to it via WiFi if you set it up as your default connection.


Anyway, it’s sad to see that you’re having such a poor experience. Is it too late to return it and try something else?

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