Review by ydoucare 
UPDATED: 127 days ago
member for 5.5 years, 1723 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Rensselaer,Jasper,IN
 $59 per month (24 month contract)
 about 2 days
 "Very stable, Great downstream"
 "Nothing worth noting"
 "Great alternative to those who only have Satellite, or poor wi-fi connections available."
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(ratings match consensus)
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I've been subscribed to a wireless ISP out of Rensselaer, IN since 2003. My wireless connection consistently got worse and worse as they began to add more customers. I eventually went from being able to pull around 2 Mb both ways, to being capped at 512k for the last couple years.......and STILL seeing slowdown and very unstable latency during most of the day.
For these reasons, I decided to try out Sprint EVDO Rev 0. I was shocked that the area that I live in has EVDO coverage, since it is mostly rural (Rensselaer has a pop of around 5k, I live out in the country). According to Sprint's coverage maps, the tower I am pulling a signal off of is being upgraded to Rev A within the next 120 days.
I ordered the Unlimited data plan with the Novatel U720 USB modem.
I have consistently been able to pull 1200 k down, and 120 up. I've seen a 120 mb file download at a sustained 153 KB/s. Latency to places like google averages about 170 - 210 ms. I've seen it as low as 120 ms. Connection remains solid during peak hours. According to Google Earth, I am 5.26 miles from the tower, and I have a signal strength of around -69 to -74 dBm.
I'm going to update this review once the tower has been upgraded to Rev A, but so far i'm very happy.
»www.speedtest.net/result/96084708.png
**** Update: 3/24/07 ****
As expected, the tower I connect to was updated to Rev A. Pings to my first hop dropped to around 90 - 100 ms. Downstream remained the same, upstream averages about 400 - 600 k.
Pinging google.com [64.233.187.99] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=122ms TTL=234
Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=122ms TTL=235
Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=129ms TTL=234
Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=121ms TTL=234
Ping statistics for 64.233.187.99:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 121ms, Maximum = 129ms, Average = 123ms
Update: 2-19-08:
Still going strong, consistently 1200/500, great uptime, and stable.
Update: 6/2/08
I will be terminating my Sprint account after be notified of the new 5 GB cap. 5 GB for 60 bucks? No thanks.
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