DO NOT USE MILLENICOM!!

[SuGar_Shack]

We began fulltiming 3 months ago. My husband is extremely dependent on the internet for his work, which is educational consulting. As you know, rv park's internet can be very unreliable. We are with Verizon and after reading what many RVers are using for internet, Millenicom Jetpack, I signed up in April. (and about two days later they raised the price $20, but that was still cheaper than paying for Verizon's gigs. $164.98

Last month, our second month was great with Millenicom. And the first 3-4 days of June, this year was great. Then suddenly we realized we were getting an EXTREMELY slow connection, sometimes we coudln't even load a page. I did the speed test and sure enough it was only .02 download. That's POINT 02. I called and they were very nice and I explained that we NEEDED to use the internet. They said several times they were putting our case at top priority. About the fourth time I called, in the evening, the man said by the next morning it would be resolved. Well, it WAS faster. It now registered POINT .08. Two days later, after no resolution, we decided to go directly with Verizon. We used the device, which Millenicom charged us $164.98 and got a new sim card free from Verizon. The actual jet pack device costs about $50 at Verizon) We have paid a total of $423.45 to Millenicom.

I called Millenicom to get a prorated refund for the 89.99 we paid for June. I felt sure they would give us the refund since we obviuosly had not used any gigs since June 4. He said they are still working on our problem and it should be resolved "soon". We had used about 6gigs by June 4. They refused to issue ANY refund for this month. I have no idea if it's working now, and I doubt that it is, because we have decided to bite the bullet with Verizon. You DO get what you pay for!

So, just a warning. IF you're using Millenicom, BEWARE. Your service could basically slow to a halt at any time, for any length of time and you have NO recourse. We are now with Verizon and our speed is great. Just a warning. Apparently IF we re-sign, we get a $30 dollar discount. How big of them. I just recieved this email from them:


ATTN: XXX

Support Ticket #41909 has been updated

Description:
Hi Gary,

Your Millenicom account will be canceled as requested.

We look forward to the opportunity to serve your internet needs again in the future. You can restart the service to this device at any time at $19.99 activation fee (reduced from our normal $49.99) + prorated monthly service.

Thank you for choosing Millenicom.

Millenicom

If you want to view the entire log of this ticket log onto our client management site at https://members.millenicom.com/members with your username (contact email) and password.

If you have any questions regarding this response or any other support questions please feel free to contact us.

Thank you,
Millenicom

[wintersun]

How can the OP be unaware that the Mifi is connecting to the same Verizonwireless tower regardless of whether the account is through Verizon directly or through their reseller, Millenicom. Why post a rant that only shows how stupid you are?

We used Verizonwireless and with 3G we had lots of problems. 4G made a great deal of difference and we switched to Millenicom to get both a better rate and to avoid overcharges from Verizonwireless.

A great many people on the Verizonwireless website's forum were reporting bills with charges for excessive use of $300 or more and no success in getting Verizon to explain why as soon as they switched to 4G their usage apparently increased 5 fold when their online activities had not changed.

Millenicom resells service with either Sprint or Verizon tower access. Verizon has more towers and better coverage in the USA than any other provider. There are online tower maps so you can determine which provider has leased space on the tower closest to your house.

[rware]

What I don't understand about Millenicom is how anybody can actually get it! I have been trying to switch from Verizon to Millenicom for months now but whenever I go to their website to sign up they are always "Temporarily out of stock" on everything.

I figure it must be bandwith they are out of stock on, how difficult is it to get a modem or an iPad? If Verizon is limiting the amount of bandwith they make available to Millenicom that might also explain why some people are seeing slow downs.

[hawkeye-08]

Redsky wrote:
We have used Millenicom and the Verizon network as there are no Sprint towers where we live (no AT&T either). The OP mentioned having throughput problems but this is not a Millenicom issue as they are using the Verizon or Sprint network. They are ONLY a reseller.

If you have a problem with the service, Millenicom can only pass along the trouble ticket to Verizon or Sprint and wait for their engineers to diagnose and hopefully fix the problem, assuming it is with the tower and not the user's home or computer setup or network environment.

We had 3G service with Millenicom and when we upgraded to 4G we noticed a 10x increase in speed and more reliable connections as well.

To rant about Millenicom without verifying the details is truly stupid. Better to keep your mouth shut and your fingers off the keyboard.

Unfortunately data communications is often difficult to setup properly and there is evidently no EVDO for Dummies book available.

I'm curious about this difficult setup you mention. It seems pretty simple (insert SIM if not already), turn on MIFI device, connect other devices to it, use them. I don't see a change of setup going from a Millenicom SIM in the MIFI to a Verizon SIM as being a difficult setup. I would expect nothing else changed in the OP's usage.

I think the OP provided the details, slow connection on Millenicom, wasted a week waiting on them to fix it, switched to Verizon. Problem solved.

[Dutch_12078]

Nutinelse2do wrote:

lryrob9301 wrote:

NHIrish wrote:
You can buy both 3g and 4g wifi hotspots at Walmart that use Verizons network at a fairly good rate 0f 10 bucks a gb...no contract and buy time as you need it. Works very well for me.

X2 I would also like to know who provides this!!!

Straight Talk Hot Spot

The Straight Talk UMX Hot Spot is 3G only...

[Nutinelse2do]

lryrob9301 wrote:

NHIrish wrote:
You can buy both 3g and 4g wifi hotspots at Walmart that use Verizons network at a fairly good rate 0f 10 bucks a gb...no contract and buy time as you need it. Works very well for me.

X2 I would also like to know who provides this!!!

Straight Talk Hot Spot

[Junk4u]

Having similar issues with them for the past month . Over and over I have to call to reset.

Dropping them for the new verizon plan. Tired of them dropping me to dial up.

[lryrob9301]

NHIrish wrote:
You can buy both 3g and 4g wifi hotspots at Walmart that use Verizons network at a fairly good rate 0f 10 bucks a gb...no contract and buy time as you need it. Works very well for me.

X2 I would also like to know who provides this!!!

[Redsky]

We have used Millenicom and the Verizon network as there are no Sprint towers where we live (no AT&T either). The OP mentioned having throughput problems but this is not a Millenicom issue as they are using the Verizon or Sprint network. They are ONLY a reseller.

If you have a problem with the service, Millenicom can only pass along the trouble ticket to Verizon or Sprint and wait for their engineers to diagnose and hopefully fix the problem, assuming it is with the tower and not the user's home or computer setup or network environment.

We had 3G service with Millenicom and when we upgraded to 4G we noticed a 10x increase in speed and more reliable connections as well.

To rant about Millenicom without verifying the details is truly stupid. Better to keep your mouth shut and your fingers off the keyboard.

Unfortunately data communications is often difficult to setup properly and there is evidently no EVDO for Dummies book available.

[jcpainter]

Which one of the hotspots that Wal-Mart currently sells is 4G, no contract, $10 per GB and uses the Verizon network? Several years ago I read (on another forum) that sometimes it depends on which part of the country you purchase their devices as to what network each device uses. . . . but I definitely do NOT know that to be accurate.

NHIrish wrote:
You can buy both 3g and 4g wifi hotspots at Walmart that use Verizons network at a fairly good rate 0f 10 bucks a gb...no contract and buy time as you need it. Works very well for me.

[Dutch_12078]

ryoung wrote:
Millenicom is to Verizon as Consumer Cellular is to AT&T. Both sell their excess capacity and slower bandwidth to the smaller companies. Obviously you're not going to get the quality of service from the cheaper service providers.

ryoung

Does this look like "slower bandwidth" to you?

Tested with a Millenicom MiFi 4620:

[Learjet]

Happy Millenicom customer for almost a year.

current speed test 65ms 19.21 mbps down and 9.70 mbps up

4620LE I have now is much better than the 4510L I had with Verizon.

[NHIrish]

You can buy both 3g and 4g wifi hotspots at Walmart that use Verizons network at a fairly good rate 0f 10 bucks a gb...no contract and buy time as you need it. Works very well for me.

[ryoung]

Millenicom is to Verizon as Consumer Cellular is to AT&T. Both sell their excess capacity and slower bandwidth to the smaller companies. Obviously you're not going to get the quality of service from the cheaper service providers.

ryoung

[TomG2]

Why are some so defensive about Millenicom? They used a basic marketing ploy of providing something cheaper than the competition. Either, they will raise prices, reduce service, or continue to gain market share depending on the whim of Verizon. Which do you think will happen?