This is long, so first a summary.
The good: Verizon LTE for $10.31/GB, a la carte. Good hardware that works well with a Wilson Sleek 4G-V.
The bad: Straight Talk customer service, no on-network activation or refill, no easy way to monitor usage, erroneous cutoff, permacookies.
The meh: throttling.
The long story:
I bought a Straight Talk ZTE Z288L Mobile Hotspot in 2014 November from a Walmart in Alexander City, AL. I had to phone several Walmarts to find one with the right model in stock.
It's not possible to activate from the hotspot itself, nor is it possible to buy more data from the hotspot itself once the data have run out or expired. One must get Internet access some other way, or phone customer service. Verizon on-network activation and refill is clearly possible, because the iPad does it, so it's very annoying that Straight Talk can't. After the data expire, the hotspot shows LTE as unavailable, so it's not even possible to use the hotspot to check LTE signal strength.
I was able to run a speed test on the ZTE and a Millenicom Pantech MHS291LVW from the same location and only a few minutes apart. ZTE: ping 60 ms download 4.98 Mbps upload 2.08 Mbps. Pantech: ping 53 ms download 19.91 Mbps upload 10.95 Mbps.
This is consistent with very heavy-handed throttling, but for my purposes Straight Talk is fast enough.
When I log in to the Straight Talk web site and check my balance, it always says "Data: 0.0 MB of Web Browsing" regardless of how much data I've actually used.
I bought 4GB of data, advertised as expiring after 60 days. Exactly 30 days later, every web browsing attempt redirected to
http://www.datareplenish.com/bbportal/vendor/processPleaseWait.do which said "We apologize but at this time your data services has been exhausted." Because I used a single computer running SurplusMeter (on OS X), I knew exactly how many bytes I had used (about 1.5GB).
Straight Talk offers customer service by email, chat, and phone. I first tried email. The reply I got was to reset the ZTE hardware, and if that didn't work to contact them by chat or phone. I really did reset the hotspot, even though I knew it wouldn't help. Then I tried chat. After a long time searching for records, the agent typed "Please dial *22890." I had to explain that a hotspot can't dial anything. After a lot more time, the agent typed "You have to manage the configuration settings of the device." and then disconnected before I could explain that the configuration was fine.
So I phoned customer service. I explained the problem, and a very polite man told me how easy it was to run out of data streaming video, and did I have a WiFi password (yes, very long and random). He offered me 1GB as a one-time "courtesy," but I was unable to convince him that I had used only 1.5 of the 4GB I'd paid for. Eventually I asked for a supervisor, who reset something, and I had service again.
In a situation like that, there's absolutely no evidence that one didn't run through all the data. The customer service agent is seeing 0 on his or her screen.
In future, I think I'll only buy what I expect to use within 30 days. That's less of a pain than dealing with Straight Talk customer service.
Browsing
http://lessonslearned.org/sniff shows a UIDH (permacookie). Verizon says it will be possible to opt out. When it is, I'll ask Straight Talk about opting out.
The ZTE hotspot works well. The web interface works with Firefox. It has a setting for "Short Wi-Fi Range" that saves the battery by reducing WiFi power. The hotspot fits nicely in a Wilson Sleek 4G-V (now a WeBoost). It beeps on each new WiFi connection.
Conclusion: consider a Straight Talk ZTE Z288L if you're cheap, don't need a lot of data, have data usage that can vary a lot from month to month, prefer prepaid to postpaid, can tolerate poor customer service, can monitor your own data usage, don't need really high speed, want access to the Verizon network, and don't mind having your web browsing tracked (or use a VPN).
