Comments on: Verizon broadband data service reviewed

By: Nick

Nick — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 01:25:21 +0000

I’ve own a Verizon data card for over a year now and the connection speed is becoming extremely slow. I tested everywhere including in house, on the road, airport etc. The avg download is about 400K and upload 140K. These are significantly slower than what I was promised at the store and the results of my tests when I first bought it (800K/400K).

I called Verizon. The tech support guy was very rude and basically said this speed is normal and “broadband”. He also tried to come up with excuses such as you are indoor although he had to agree that my signal strength was good. He also said as long as you could connect, you couldn’t argue because there was no promise of the speed on the contract. (So basically even if your speed was 1K, they wouldn’t see a problem with it.)

My conclusion, I will never use Verizon again.

By: Tim Camden

Tim Camden — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 18:06:04 +0000

I have had the opposite experience. I have a Verizon Card and have been using two years. I travel the US and have hardly ever run into a issue where the card did not work well.
I would follow up with Verizon. Something doesn’t seem right.

By: Sherri

Sherri — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:11:43 +0000

Carol – We have two attorneys on the road, one in Florida and one in California, experiencing the exact same problem you are having. Where are you located? Verizon support is making us think we are two isolated cases.

By: Carol L.

Carol L. — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 01:06:27 +0000

I’ve been using the Verizon mobile broadband connection for a month and a half. During the trial period of one month, my connection was never dropped. Immediately after a verizon update I’m dropped all of the time. I don’t expect to post this comment without reconnecting. I live in a rural area so traffic is not an issue. I tried satellite and it seemed as slow as dial up. Verizon was much faster to begin with but not lately. I may try to reactivate my modem as James Clippinger mentioned. (The connection was automatically reset once while writing this.)

By: Kathie Long

Kathie Long — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 15:16:56 +0000

I just got the Verizon USB modem. I set it up on a Mac easily. Windows required a 60-minute tech support call.

I went to a show in the immediate vicinity of Chicago’s O’Hare airport and the modem automatically disconnected every 5:42 minutes whether I was actively on the Web or not. Called Verizon and they are replacing the modem. (I just got this thing a month ago.)

But at home, no problem on a Windows computer. I took my MacBook to a user group meeting, again no disconnect.

Is Verizon deliberately disconnecting in a high-traffic area in a specified time period? I had about 25 disconnects, most within 5:41-5:49 minutes; the others were disconnects after a few seconds. THIS HAS ONLY HAPPENED IN ONE GEOGRAPHIC AREA, but it was extremely consistent.

By: Dave K.

Dave K. — Thu, 24 May 2007 04:04:35 +0000

I have Sprint/Nextel data card service and it’s terrible. Customer service has
got to be the worst in the industry. I hope Verizon or Cingular has a better
data card service. I am not very excited about the prospect of more bad
performance and bad customer service. At the present time it’s $66 waste
of money each month. Good luck to all of you if you dare to experience
this nightmare! D.K.

By: James Clippinger

James Clippinger — Wed, 06 Apr 2005 03:19:44 +0000

Phil F., I have the Verizon data service and it works very well (300-500kbps) for me in Waltham and Lexington. Standard cellular caveats apply — it does not work well in basements or in metal buildings.

Phil G., the behavior you describe has happened to me perhaps four times in 9+ months of using the service. Each time, I was able to fix it by “re-activating” the modem. Also, my co-workers and I have had more success with the original Modem Connection Manager software (http://www.evdo-info.com/Downloads/Drivers/Windows_Mobile_Connection_Manager_%28MCM%29_2005022373/) than with Verizon’s later VZAccess program.

By: Phil Ferneau

Phil Ferneau — Sun, 27 Mar 2005 13:15:41 +0000

Hi, Philip. Sorry to hear that the Verizon data card isn’t working that well. I’ve been thinking about adding one myself – in part for when I also go back to visit my mom in Bethesda. But my main motivation would be to use it as a means to give me a way to get connection that’s faster than dial-up AND that I can use as the basis for a WiFi network at my home. (Living in the New Hampshire woods, my only broadband alternative currently is satellite, but I’ve only heard about negative experiences with satellite.)

One company you should check out to get more value from your Verizon data service is Junxion www.junxion.com) – they have a nifty box that turns a cellular data card into a WiFi access point. A great way to create a local wireless network wherever you go.

Please keep us posted on your Verizon data experiences. Do you find it useful in the Boston area (especially arond Waltham, Lexington, Concord)?

By: Phil Atio

Phil Atio — Sat, 26 Mar 2005 11:21:15 +0000

Philip, your experience sounds considerably worse than what I’ve heard other folks in the DC metropolis say about the Verizon wireless wide area network. In Walt Mossberg’s favorable Wall Street Journal review, the service consistently delivered higher-than-specified data rates with few disconnections. I considered installing it at home to replace my $98 per month 144 kbps DSL connection. Maybe it’s fortunate I never got around to it.

Your observation “the service is somewhat similar in feel to a 56 kbps modem” reminds me of Ricochet, who ran a wireless wide area network in the DC area several years ago. Ricochet were ahead of their time and provided around 56 kbps for $30 per month with surprisingly decent reliability and coverage. Too bad they didn’t survive. I’d expect Verizon’s service to be better than what a little startup company kludged together almost ten years ago.

It seems to me the Verizon service isn’t meeting its specifications for you. Perhaps another call to Verizon technical support would be worth considering.

By: Mike Sisk

Mike Sisk — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 01:00:16 +0000

Well, that sucks.

My experience with this card is the exact opposite. I’m using it on a Mac laptop and didn’t even need to install drivers — it’s already part of OS X. I just stuck the card in, it configured itself, and put a icon in the menu bar. I just hit connect and I’m online a few seconds later. I’m using it right now at a truck stop in upstate New York.

I haven’t used it much in the “broadband access” areas, but in the 1xRTT zones I’m usually in it just works. I’ve been online for hours at a time and have never been disconnected. The latency in the network is high (ping time of 500 ms to 1000 ms is typical) so it doesn’t work to well for interactive stuff like terminal logins, but for web surfing and email it’s quite useable and faster than dialup.