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 Review by joeam2 
UPDATED: 4 days ago
member for 4.7 years, 284 visits, last login: 4 days ago
 Saint Clair,Saint Clair,MI
 $59 per month (24 month contract)
 about 1 days
 "Original support staff I dealt with were very good. Not so much now."
 "System speeds occasionally drop to low levels in this area."
 "Not as good as it once was but may be better than dial up."
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For well over two years, I had outstanding service with Sprint. Their tech people were great and everything was flawless with the system. Everywhere I went I had service and the speeds were great, especially at my house. I was recommending them to anyone who would listen to me. Earlier this year (2009), all that changed. Their system in this area has become somewhat unreliable and their tech support staff was no help. Lately things seem to be stabilizing somewhat after a rocky 5 month period.
Attachments:
Followup comments:  wispagod
join:2001-06-28
House Springs, MO | USB Modem my cusin has the usb modem he can plug it in directly with out the wire and it works, what's the deal with the USB cable with too ports it seems to work fine on 1? | |
| | ydoucare
join:2003-03-12
Rensselaer, IN
 ·Embarq
 ·Millenicom
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
| Re: USB Modem said by wispagod :my cusin has the usb modem he can plug it in directly with out the wire and it works, what's the deal with the USB cable with too ports it seems to work fine on 1? A single USB port puts out less power than what the radio/modem can utilize for the RF signal, so one cable that splits off is only used to draw extra power from the other port, and can improve speeds in some situations. | |
| | | wispagod
join:2001-06-28
House Springs, MO | Re: USB Modem Ok, well on a Laptop i doubt it get's more power with both cables, but it's nice to kn0w, BTW: Does the Linksys router have more power to work in a more rual setting at a SOHO? | |
| | CMoore2004
Premium
join:2003-02-06
Jonesville, MI
| In fringe areas, they recommend the use of the Y cable to get more power to it.
On another note, if you have two ports right next to eachother, chances are they're from the same controller and you won't get any more power by doing it this way.
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Sprint Mobile Broadband PX-500 | Windows XP MCE SP2 | Mobile AMD Athlon 64 4000+ | 1.5GB RAM | ATI Mobile Radeon X600 128MB | 120GB HDD | |
| | |
joeam2
Got any bugs?
join:2005-02-27
Saint Clair, MI | Re: USB Modem Yeah, thats pretty much what the support techs told me when I asked them about the "y" cable. | |
| | | | CMoore2004
Premium
join:2003-02-06
Jonesville, MI | Re: USB Modem That's also what the documentation that came with it said.  | |
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Review by can0lard
UPDATED: 32 days ago
member for 71 days, 2 visits, last login: 17 days ago
Derry,Rockingham,NH
$26 per month (24 month contract)
"Wide coverage"
"High Latency, this is pretty much standard with any wireless I guess..."
"SERO makes my world go round"
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300Kb/s down and 120Kb/s up in southern NH. love being able to connect my laptop to my 3 year old A900. Wireless tethering really wears down the batteries though 
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 Review by powerspec88
UPDATED: 33 days ago
member for 2.6 years, 1278 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Harrisonville,Cass,MO
$50 per month (24 month contract)
about 3 days
"Much faster than 56k"
"Price, it could be a little cheaper"
"Beats 56k any day"
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Update (10/18/09)
My tower has been upgraded to 2 T-1 lines so now I get on avg ~2.5Mbps down and ~600Kbps up. Only had 1 major EV-DO outage but besides that and tower load its been great! Still on a unlimited plan doing ~50GB a month and have yet to be told to stop.
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First review
Well my dad has been wanting something faster than 56k for awhile now but they live 10miles from the cloestest town. So a few months ago my friend got Sprint Mobile Broadband for his house (he lives out the the country to) and i thought this would be great for them (and me when i home)
Ordered all of it all online, i got the Sierra aircard 595 with the linksys router. I get great speeds Last Result:
Download Speed: 1141 kbps (142.6 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 156 kbps (19.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
I can hit 1.3Mbps late at night most of the time.
They love it, now they can surf the web, check email, etc so much faster and not wait for stuff to load. They will be canceling the 2nd phone line and the 56k provider.
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Review by fenix_jn
UPDATED: 52 days ago
member for 2.8 years, 639 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Miami,Miami-Dade,FL
$10 per month
about 1 days
"Comparable to DSL"
"It is OTA data..."
"Reliable connection if a tower is nearby"
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09/29/09: Well still using as backup connection, just in case. I test it just to see how sprint is keeping up... well it is working! 1.4 Mbps to 2 Mbps in good days, about 800 - 600 Kbps / 512 Kb upload average. Latency... well... very high but that is expected from a OTA connection. So it is good for file upload and download, web browsing and email.
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Currently I'm using this connection as backup. Of course, the slow connection can be due to the fact that the modem used is a cellphone (a treo 700p) and not an actual broadband card. The maximum speed reached is about 250 - 290 Kbps and about 128 Kbps upload. I'm sure a broadband card can reach about 1 Mbps.
The low price is a bundled solution. Install is basically limited to connect a cable on the phone (USB) and running the application on the phone. So far, a few disconnections, as expected from wireless access. So far, I'm happy with the service.
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Review by bryanmeyer
Posted: 81 days ago
member for 5.9 years, 50 visits, last login: 3 days ago
Menlo Park,San Mateo,CA
$25 per month (24 month contract)
about 7 days
"Great Coverage, Good Speed, Reliable, Good when traveling"
"Sometimes variale speed at times"
"Good value for what you get"
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I use Sprint Mobile Broadband through a Palm Centro and it works great. Speeds are better than dialup (usually) and you can use it while traveling in a moving vehicle.
I have been using Sprint Broadband from phones for many years, starting on Sanyo phones where speeds were comparable to dialup, and transitioning to Smart phones which offer much faster speeds.
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Review by jriley
Posted: 85 days ago
member for 2.2 years, 5 visits, last login: 19 days ago
Perris,Riverside,CA
$62 per month
about 5 days
"always seems to work, no real down time. been with sprint 2.5 years"
"it used to be faster,2.5 yrs.ago up was .5 mb,down 1.5 mb"
"now it's avg. down is .7 mb, up is still ok about .4 mb. I'am looking for other wireless options"
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service is reliable but has been getting slower. wireless is only option right now.
might try a local wireless isp again , the last one i tried for 4 years constant battle to keep up running. at least spint works all the time,but thats about it. I been with sprint 2.5 yrs. they lmight loose me they need to get it together soon.
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Review by dslkjm
Posted: 99 days ago
member for 3.3 years, 17 visits, last login: 99 days ago
Los Altos,Santa Clara,CA
$65 per month
"Reliable wireless connection with reasonable speed; unlimited data"
"Maybe the cost, but otherwise can't think of any"
"If you can afford it, this is a great way to get internet connectivity for your laptop"
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I have been using Sprint Mobile Broadband on my laptop (with a Pantech add-in card) for three years now. Anywhere I've gone (Silicon Valley, San Diego area, Colorado Springs, Tahoe), in the middle of customer and supplier buildings, I've always gotten a reliable connection. Most of the time I can get 1 Mbps download (using broadbandreports speed test). Even when I'm in an area where my Verizon cell phone gets weak coverage, I'm still getting 500+ kbps.
It was pretty easy to set up, as I recall.
Since I haven't had any problems with the service, I have never had any need of tech support, so I can't rate them on that.
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Review by Mediocrates
UPDATED: 114 days ago
member for 1.4 years, 449 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Raleigh,Wake,NC
Contract price not specified.
about 5 days
"Price competitive, 'free' unlimited service on your cell phone"
"Device is expensive, not shipped with proper configuration, call quality is uneven, security is bizarre, can interfere w VoIP"
"The advantage of having ONE phone for everything must be weighed against some of the problems"
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I am a Sprint Cell phone customer on 5 line shared line plan. I decided to install Airave with which is Sprint's femtocell appliance/service. This creates a local cell where the device is installed and it directs all calls in and out, to your broadband connection. The advantage is that for a flat rate you get unlimited cell minutes while connected regardless of your plan.
I ordered device, it's an appliance that plugs into your router. After 2 days of trying to get it to work, I called support who immediately realized it had never been configured or provisioned correctly prior to shipping. Once this was fixed, the device did function.
When you're connected you get a double ping dial tone; this tells you you're connected to the device. The device is able to support 3 simultaneous calls @ about 40kbps per call for a maximum of 130 kbs in both directions.
One problem is that if you limit access to a specific set of phones, then ANYONE who's a Sprint customer who's not on that list CANNOT get cell phone service unless they are out of range of the device. And the range of the device is quite good. It's built to support a 5000 sq ft area. There's no middle ground. Phones have to be registered to the Airave the first time by keying *99.
Secondly, call quality is highly dependent on the quality of your broadband connection. If it's clear, has few or no dropped packets, congestion, noise then you're good to go. If you have a lot of traffic on your line, a lot of latency then you are going to be MISERABLE. It will be unusuable if the broadband is saturated enough.
Next, while I don't have numerical data to support it, I suspect there is something about it which can interfere with other VoIP services you may have. I often hear people at home complain that Vonage stops working when Airave is on. You can simply turn off the Airave device when this happens but it takes about 15 minutes to reconnect when you need it.
But overall when it works it works acceptably well. In addition the ability to drop your home line and have unlimited cell phone minutes from your house OR wherever you plug the device in, and having only one phone number is a nice feature to have and very convenient.
The Airave appliance is $100 OTC, the service $5/month. To put ONE phone number on unlimited minutes is $10/month. To put more than one phone number (shared minutes) on unlimited minutes is $20/month. So to put your family plan on unlimited minutes costs $25 month. Roughly the same as most of the unlimited VoIP services like Vonage.
Followup comments: 
WiFiguru
Formerly jnethostman
Premium
join:2005-06-21
Lodi, CA | QoS Have you messed with QoS on your router at all?
It might solve the congestion issues. | |
| | Mediocrates
join:2008-05-27
Raleigh, NC | Re: QoS Yes I have, it's hit or miss. Airave seems much more sensitive to broadband throughput and SNR than any other VoIP I've ever worked with. | |
| nevtxjustin
join:2006-04-18
Dallas, TX
| Anecdotal femocell story This is anecdotal...
I was told a city manger moved to a new home and his city supplied Sprint phone had poor coverage. He bought a femocell and installed it in his office and didn't tell anyone to register their phone to his device.
All the city Sprint contract phones lost coverage in the city hall and the city went with AT&T.
The irony was AT&T had *no* coverage in his new home. | |
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 Review by TKJunkMail
UPDATED: 129 days ago
member for 7.7 years, 4981 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Ocean City,Cape May,NJ
$70 per month (24 month contract)
about 1 days
"Service & features on Palm Pre excellent; monthly price very good for included features; sales staff at Sprint store excellent"
"Coverage inside house poor on voice & EVDO; but free Airave femtocell offsets that; customer service willing but mediocre"
"Good phone; good voice quality in my area; good contract price for services"
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Bought a Palm Pre on 1st Saturday available at a Sprint store. Phone was provisioned and phone number ported from Verizon within 2 hours. Store sales & support was excellent.
EVDO & voice inside the house was marginal at best. Ordered the Airave femtocell to improve voice coverage inside the home. EVDO coverage inside house not an issue because Palm Pre has WiFi capability and that is preferable to EVDO speeds anyway. Sprint gave a credit for Airave femtocell when I asked for it.
But here is where Sprint's much maligned customer service came in to play. They lost the initial order for the Airave and when I checked 2 days later, they didn't know anything about it. After an hour on the phone, it was reordered and shipped overnight. It arrived next day and setup was painless. It was working in about 30 mins and voice coverage in the home was now 5 bars all over the house. Sprint gave me an additional $25 credit for the hassle. Sprint customer service has been very nice and very accommodating and goes out of way to please. But their backroom systems stink and their competence is still mediocre.
After receiving second bill, it was fouled up because of all the credits and the Airave purchase. After 2 hours on phone and getting dropped calls twice on transfers to another department, that got straightened out. I got an additional credit for the hassle again.
So, to sum up:
Phone is great
Voice quality excellent
Cell connections good in areas I travel in(mostly South Jersey and Philly metro area)
Store staff excellent
Cust Svc very willing and accommodating
Back room systems & personnel still mediocre
Phone Speeds:
1200 kbps download on EVDO
4000 kbps on WiFi
Wireless plan(Single everything data) for $70 includes:
450 mins voice calls
Free calls after 7 P.M. & all weekend
Free Sprint to Sprint calls
Unlimited text msgs; unlimited internet(5 GB/mo in TOS); unlimited email; unlimited picture uploads
Sprint navigation(GPS)
Sprint TV
Pandora music streaming
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 Review by belawrence
Posted: 130 days ago
member for 9.2 years, 3612 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Santee,San Diego,CA
$60 per month (24 month contract)
about 2 days
"internet on the go when I need it"
"a couple of areas in my territory aren't EVDO yet, 1xRTT is slow as molasses"
"great when wifi is not available, firewalled to block my business software, or is too expensive (per hour charges)"
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Equipment used: Tethering from an old-school PPC-6700.
No real complaints. I don't really expect it to be lightning quick - as long as I have connectivity to check corporate email, run work apps, and view online scheduler, all is good. I can stream slingbox from home with watchable quality and have never came anywhere near the 5GB cap as of yet.
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