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 Review by screavic 
UPDATED: 241 days ago
member for 3.2 years, 350 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Paron,Saline,AR
 $70 per month (24 month contract)
 "Nothing anymore"
 "Not as good as DSL or cable"
 "They are up to something and it's nothing good"
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Support and everything happening lately has been nothing good and I really wish I had something else out here. I'm going to cancel this piece of junk service soon, thank you Alltel for NOTHING.
Bottom Line: They updated my PRL version on my phone and caused A TON of more problems than what I was calling with. SUPPOSEDLY according to their lying tech support that this update would "Fix all my problems". Not even worth $10 a month cause that is what I should be paying for these horrible speeds and constant disconnects. Dialup is faster than this and it sucks cause this is the only carrier I pick up partial signal with at my house. I'm probably rolling back to dialup soon cause at least I can check my email.
The install process on the UM175 is something all manufacturers should look into cause the drivers are built into the card. When you pop in the card Windows see's the drivers and you install the software right off the card. Great idea UT Starcomm
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 Review by minglis9031
Posted: 252 days ago
member for 6.1 years, 951 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Benton,Saline,AR
$59 per month (24 month contract)
 about 2 days
"Fast Reliable Connection (When in EVDO)"
"Signal bad in rual areas"
"Great all around if this is your only option"
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My connection works great in town, but when I get to the house (in the sticks) its really hard to find a Evdo connection. I love it other than that. Would recomend.
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Review by channelzero0
UPDATED: 262 days ago
member for 343 days, 25 visits, last login: 161 days ago
Lincoln,Benton,MO
$60 per month (24 month contract)
about 1 days
"Large 3G Netwrk, No 5 GB Cap, 200ms Ping,"
"Not as cheap as T-Mobile Wireless. Would have gotten T-Mobile if it was faster."
"Clear winner against Satillite and Dial Up. Has both good speed and ping."
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Recently moved to an area that did not have DSL access. So I tried to get a local wireless hookup where I would have to mount a antenna facing towards the nearest town's water tower but they told me the signal was not good enough. So I was dreading the idea of having to go with Wildblue or Hughsnet after the bad reviews I had read before.
So I decided to take a step back into 1995 and start using dial up, the same service I thought I would never have to deal again. $23 dollars for the dial up service and $30 for the phone connection was not my idea of a great deal. So I looked up Alltel and found them to be the best deal. Three days later I had my USB wireless modem and after about 10 mins of setup I was up and running. I live in an area surrounded by EVDO (3G) so I have a very fast connection considering it is going through a cell phone tower. About 1000-500kb down and 300-100kb upload. For me this was a great upgrade.
$53(Dialup) vs $60(Wireless) This was a no brainier.
I'll update later on my service.
Update... I have downloaded like a madman, in the area of 200mb-2gb everyday but now have slowed down a great deal just because I have finally reached the end of the internet and so have run out of things to download. But I am really surprised they did not kick me during my binge downloads.
My only problem with with Alltel is that it trys it hardest to connect to 1x which would be fine with me but I have never been able to download from 1x. So if the stars are in the wrong place the modem will continually try to connect to 1x and then back to RA. This is my only problem with Alltel which is not that bad because I do not need to download much anymore.
Hope This Helps..
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Review by littlekites
Posted: 285 days ago
member for 285 days, 12 visits, last login: 94 days ago
Pollocksville,Jones,NC
$59 per month (24 month contract)
about 1 days
"Billed with phone service"
"Very intermitent connection"
"Not worth $60/mo."
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I've been using this service since July 2008. Previously, the only thing available in my remote area was dialup or Hughesnet, which was 10 different kinds of bad. For the first two months, my connection was very speedy and very solid. Since then, however, the connection has gotten shoddier and shoddier, to the point where it's unusable about 40-50% of the time. This includes non-peak hours. Calls to customer services have resulted in the normal useless CS response - "It's your computer, not us," despite the facts that 1) nothing had changed on my computer, 2) I could repeat the problems on other household computers, 3) My PS3 has just as much trouble staying logged in, 4) I am NOT a computer n00bie and am quite familiar with the ins and outs of usage, and 4) I now have it hooked up to a router and it still stinks.
To give you some idea of the load it can't handle, I cannot stream YouTube videos - this includes the very short ones; about 10 seconds of it will load and then it will quit. Heavily imaged sites are completely out, they won't load. I am kicked off of instant messenger services a good half-dozen to dozen times a day. This is all when the service actually works. About 40-50% of the time it just plain doesn't connect at all.
I am also not happy with the fact that they purposely kick me off every 12 hours. Yes, they do do that, even if they say they don't. However, it seems to be a regional thing.
We now have the lowest level of Embarq DSL available, my neighbor has it. At some point, I am going to go over there and test it out. Even with their slowest package, if the thing actually stays connected it'll be one step ahead of Alltel, not to mention $40 cheaper. If this service weren't so expensive, I'd probably suffer through it, but at $60 a month, forget it.
In Alltel's favor, the salesman I dealt with when I purchased the services was absolutely fabulous, though. Probably one of the best salesmen I've ever encountered.
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 Review by Kevin83165
Posted: 286 days ago
member for 7.6 years, 2622 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Herrin,Williamson,IL
$60 per month (24 month contract)
about 1 days
"Very portable, comparable to DSL and Cable"
"Still a bit pricey, lengthy contract and initial startup cost (with rebate though)"
"Works great for what it is"
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I am probably one of the very few, if not the only, person who is surrounded by great DSL and Cable at offerings of $17-$19 per month which blows this away in all aspects. However, me and my family camp in our 5th wheel in the summers around here at the lake and we need internet. I don't really want to pay for 2 bills so we use this as our only connection.
I had Verizon EVDO service before this, and they were extremely great until they brought the cap of 5 gigs a month. I decided to go with Alltel due to the truly unlimited connection plus we have been happy with their cell service. So far so great, I get full 5 bars signal strength and in the very short time I have it I have had nice connections.
It might be worth mentioning that here in Southern Illinois Verizon did not buy out Alltel in our area and is not allowed to. Alltel here is still waiting to see who gets to purchase them here. There are talks of T Mobile taking over. We will see.
One thing I noticed right away, is the pings are a lot worse than Verizon was at around 200 MS (Verizon gave me around 100) and the upload speeds are roughly half, but it's a fair tradeoff for the unlimited connection.
This USB modem is the newest one and came with the software built in. WOW. Even on OS X I did not have to install anything!
So far I am pleased with the service and I will update this review should I have any more experiences that are worth mentioning.
My speedtest here today was 1750 down and 123 up.
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Review by tlewer
Posted: 299 days ago
member for 1.5 years, 17 visits, last login: 212 days ago
Pardeeville,Columbia,WI
Contract price not specified.
"Cheaper, faster, more reliable than Satellite"
"More costly than standard DSL or Cable"
"If you thought your only option was Satellite over Dial-up, NOT ANY MORE!"
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Easy to order, easy to setup. Make sure you call tech service to get your Axess card, or Express card updated. It's just an off the shelf item, and the automatic updates don't change certain settings that Tech support can tweak for optimal performance.
See if your local EVDO store (Verizon, Alltel, Sprint, ect) will give you a demo phone to check coverage. Worst case you will need to hook up an external antenna to your card.
EVDO routers are now available so your card or usb can plug directly into that, and presto, your house is wireless.
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 Review by Arctic nut
Posted: 331 days ago
member for 2.9 years, 389 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Thief River Falls,Pennington,MN
 Business customer
$60 per month (24 month contract)
about 7 days
"Works without fail, even at 1x it's better than dialup, Very fast in metro areas"
"No EVDO coverage here"
"Good and reliable."
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I use Alltel as a backup for Hughesnet *OFTEN*. Works great on the go.
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Review by Irythros
UPDATED: 353 days ago
member for 2.1 years, 9 visits, last login: 170 days ago
Mount Olive,Wayne,NC
$78 per month (24 month contract)
about 2 days
"Tech support actually helps."
"Before calling tech support, the speed was worse than 14k dialup, pings were ranging from 300ms to 27000, spotty evdo coverage"
"Best option if your stuck to dial-up. Lower pings than satellite, likely better coverage in bad wheather, cheaper too."
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Moved down here to North Carolina last year at the end of November and was horrified when I heard there was no cable or DSL available at the house.
When I got down here, I never thought dial up would be THAT bad. Anyways, about 2 months ago I heard of this thing called evDO and heard that it was wireless, cheaper than satellite was in-all better. First carrier we tried was U.S. Cingular but that was horrible, 2kbit/sec with 5k ping wasn't good for 60 a month.
After we found out alltel has pure evdo (not 1xrtt) coverage in our area or mostly. So, we got the new Huewei ec360 card and plugged that into our ancient clunker that barely runs windows. Setup was easy and quick, no problems. Followed instructions, got 2-3 bars in the middle of the house so we moved it to my room and got evdo for awhile but was faster overall. I was tinkering with it all night but stayed 1xrtt.
This morning, once i got up I tried again and no luck. Got my brother to help setup a 'computer crash cart' so we could move the whole setup around the house. Didn't get an evdo signal again down-stairs so we went up to the atic and was getting evdo on and off. Speedtest.net wouldn't work, the mobile tester here on dslreports maxed out at 24kbit/sec with 1000+ ping.
Brought it back down, got tech support on the phone and they did actually have a solution (The tech support person was patient too. We had HIM on hold for about 30 minutes since the computer was crashing or the keyboard/mouse stopped working). Got a .prl from them, a password for their tech support guys to mess with settings and that kept failing on our clunker. Moved it to my computer, it thought the pcmia slot was a USB hub, pulled that out and put it back in the clunker. Didn't work so put it in my brothers old machine and that didn't have network sharing on it so then we moved it to his real computer and went smooth after that.
If you dont like reading bad paragraphs, went from bad to awesome. Now we get between 100-200 kbit/sec (our dialup maxed at 24) and tech support was awesome. I would HIGHLY recomend this to anyone on dialup.
If anything goes down hill, ill be sure to update this.
Update:
So, we decided to get a new card. BIG difference. With our old card (huawei 360) we ONLY got 1x with the exception of evDO 3-5 times in a YEAR. Now with the new card (UTstarcom PC5750) we can lock evDO and we can usually stick to evDO speeds. Occasionally it drops to 1x but we just need to move the laptop around a bit in the room till it hits evDO then its fine. Speeds range from 400->900kbps and latency between 150 and 220. dBI is random, can go as low as 70 or as high as 120->no signal.
We have bought an antenna, but we were sent the wrong adapter for it so... Once we get that up, it'll be dropping our dBI by ~20.
Connection reliability is sketchy. Sometimes it stays up for the 12 hours before alltel auto-drops, or it'll stay up for 1 minute before i have to go manually reconnect. Still beats satellite or dial-up though.
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Review by DemonChicken
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 3.1 years, 188 visits, last login: 336 days ago
Boon,Wexford,MI
$60 per month
"Faster than Dial Up"
"Working, happens infrequently, more often, its terrible"
"Avoid, with the exception that it can be Better than Dial up... sometimes."
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Edit at bottom.
The max speed I ever get and stay at is about 500kbps. When downloading some things it loads for about 2 seconds drops to 0kbps and starts again, I do not know why it does this, I have swapped out the modem and it still has the same problems it had before the switch. Do not get this internet service unless you desire to disconnect every hour or less.
I do not know what causes all these problems, Some days it will not disconnect at all during the time I am on the computer, to date, that has probably been about 5 days total, max. I got this service near November of last year, there seems to have been no fluctuations in quality of service, It has always been poor.
Customer Service was nice helpful and friendly and did not treat me like I was an idiot. At least the man with the southern accent was. I cannot recall his name. He should be commended.
There was a slight case of lying to me while I was buying the service, they told me adapters for PCMCIA to PCI cards were $200, as I thought at the time, they are about $10-$20. The USB modem we have (CDU-550) COULD be the problem, however, I would recommend, that if ALL you do online, is download and check email, and non latency requiring tasks, that satellite MAY be a better option, if you are willing to pay the outrageous install costs and service costs.
In my experience, gaming can be possible, sometimes I will ping to a server on Team Fortress 2 for 180, A very playable ping especially for a person like me who is used to high ping, however after playing at that "good" ping, my usual of 250+ was unplayable.
Sometimes my service will drop to 0kbps for no reason, and then it will disconnect, instancing in WoW being one of the two off tanks with no main tank was not what I or my group would prefer.
I can honestly say I wish that I had never discovered this service, and that I just had dial up, at least then I would not disconnect so much.
I cannot wait for charter, as I read in a review from them, a review disconnected only every 2 hours, and that that was unacceptable. There has been some tree cutting on each side of the road around my area, I am not sure if it is for the installing of cable or so cars can see further at intersections, I would prefer it be the former, however with my luck I'm almost sure it is the latter. I would prefer that over disconnecting every >20 minutes. For an example, I just disconnected while writing this review, after 15 minutes of a connection.
The longest time it has ever been connected is 12 hours, and that was idle, while it was doing nothing.
In conclusion, avoid this service in Michigan. Heck Avoid it if at all possible. If you know a better service is coming to your area, DSL/Cable, Fixed Wireless, and less likely WiMax, wait for that, do not subject your self to this terrible service.
EDIT(11-4-2008): Service is improved with a new USB modem, I am not going to change my ratings, for lying to me about a converter, which granted is information I should have known, regaurdless, it performs well now, and deserves a higher score, but due to its pre fail, it will not receive one. I am happy with the service, SOMEWHAT, and as soon as something better comes along, I will jump, and avoid getting this service again if at all possible.
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 Review by MoJeeper
UPDATED: 1.1 years ago
member for 9.1 years, 1835 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Springfield,Greene,MO
$50 per month (24 month contract)
about 1 days
"Fast Speed and Great Signal"
"pricey"
"Still Happy"
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KPC680 revc with Cradlepoint MBR1000 and its great. Also reduced price as my employer uses Alltel. I would highly recomend Axess. Easy to setup and fast.
No DSL or Cable available in my area. The only viable alternative was Alltel at the time. At&t just turned on 3g in my area also.
The router was simple to setup and works fantastic.
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