 Review by LordFlux 
UPDATED: 1.1 years ago
member for 4.5 years, 699 visits, last login: 1 days ago
 Dublin,Laurens,GA
 $59 per month
 "Faster than dial-up | Easy installation | Fairly reliable connection"
 "Technical support is useless | Occasional connection drop for no reason"
 "Good for rural locations (with no wired broadband) | Better than sat. IMO"
| Pre Sales Information:
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Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I've been using a 28.8 dial-up modem since 1996 to connect to the Internet. I tried satellite back in 2001 and was very unsatisfied with the speed and FAP. So I just decided to stick with dial-up until DSL or Cable was available at my location (which is in a rural part of central Georgia near Dublin).
Well I just happened to be doing research for a school project and I ran across Alltel's Axcess Broadband. I was familiar with cellular 1xRTT networks (having used my Sprint phone to get on the Internet several times), but unfamiliar with the new EVDO standard. One thing that I was wanting to avoid, though, was being locked into a 1-2 year contract. So after doing more research, I found out that if I were to purchase a data card from another vendor, then pay to have it activated at the local Alltel store, I would not be locked into a contract. However, since this would be my only device using the Alltel network, the monthly cost would be $79.99. Luckily, my father has an Alltel cell phone and we activated the card under his account -- so the monthly cost is $59.99.
When doing research and talking with the local Alltel representatives, they told me that my area was currently only 1xRTT, but EVDO was coming soon. This was back in March of '07. In early July of '07, EVDO became active -- but not without issues.
While they were doing upgrades to the towers, my connection was completely useless for about 3 weeks. Called the local Alltel store and also the technical support phone number. The local store was unaware of what was going on and the technical support representative on the phone was telling me that my Kyocera KR1 Router was bad. The connection had been stable at 150k download/100k upload until that time, so I decided to just wait to see if the issue cleared itself up. After 3 weeks, I started cruising at 900k download/150k upload.
The connection would still sporatically drop me for no apparent reason, but after doing more research and manually updating my PRL, the connection seems a good bit more stable. I'm using a Kyocera KR1 Router and a Kyocera KPC650 data card. There are 7 computers attached to my network and also a PS3 and an XBox360. The connection latency doesn't allow gaming online, but I am able to download items from Live MarketPlace and the Sony Store.
I've been very satisfied with the service, except for the period of time when the card would not connect at all (during the EVDO upgrades). I would have been okay with it if Alltel knew more about what was going on with their network, but instead, I was left in the dark. However, I am very glad the network is now EVDO capable and the speeds are impressive compared to my old 28.8 modem. In my opinion, EVDO is the way to go if you live in an area that doesn't have DSL or Cable.
UPDATE 2/12/2008 : We are no longer using a Kyocera KR1 Router and Kyocera KPC650. Now we are using a CradlePoint CTR350 and Kyocera KPC680. The connection is rock solid stable and we get consistent 1.2mbit download/150k upload transfer speeds.
UPDATE 9/06/2008: DSL is finally available in the area, so we are cancelling the Alltel Axcess subscription. We had great success with their service and never had a problem with it. Funny thing is -- my BellSouth 1.5Mbit DSL speeds are almost equal to the Alltel Axcess speeds. After doing a speedtest with DSL, I'm getting 1.2mbit download/250k upload. But of course the latency is much better, allowing XBox Live to work flawlessly.
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