Virgin Mobile Broadband2Go vs. Sprint Mobile Broadband

Anyone interested in buying one of these Virgin Mobile devices for $40 a month unlimited, needs to read this before buying one.


An article posted over at EVDOInfo.com:




http://www.evdoinfo.com/content/view/3368/64/

My opinion: Obviously these devices are throttled from the get-go. But, I still think $40 a month, even for slower internet, is not a bad deal. Also, I'd be interested in seeing what the speedtest.net results would be for a Virgin Mobile device would be out on the road where we use them, instead of a crowded urban coffee shop like it was done in the article. I mean, If you are sitting on I40 in middle of Tennessee and essentially have the Sprint tower to your self, is it still going to be throttled? Then there is the fact that a service that can't download or view flash videos from youtube or Hulu.com is highly unlikely to go over 5 gigs, so what's the point of being unlimited?

Well anyhow, I thought I'd put this here so you other drivers looking for service can make an informed purchase.

 

tough call, i havnt tried anything yet the 5g with overages scares the balls out of me with how much time i spend online, so less performance but no overages might not be the worst thing. chances are any 3g is going to piss me off anyway, im spoiled with 15mbs at home.

 

I hear you. $40, even for a throttled service isn't that bad of a deal, the way I see it, but I think Virgin should be upfront about it's limitations. There is clearly some deception going on here. If the guy that wrote the article's tests are the average speed everywhere, then calling it "Broadband" isn't very appropriate.

 

those speeds are insanely slow. even the good one. it would be awesome if they could just handle all the customers and not have to be sneaky about it. i would like to stick with verizon so i could just add it to my phone bill, and i have used their mobile internet and its pretty #### good for what it is.
i dont track how much bandwidth i actually use here but its well over 5g a DAY. of course a lot of that is downloading stuff which i would continue to do when im at home, but i still dont think 5gb a month would cover me.
and they arent that clear about what the overage charge is, but you always hear those stories about kids who run up a $2000 bill for their parents hahaha

right on the site for virgin it says no speed restrictions. wow!

 

My experience was exactly the same. I had used the Virgin mobile broadband when it still had a 5GB cap and a 60 dollar tag and was very happy with the service. Last week I renewed the plan # $40 for unlimited and found the speeds and performance basically unusable. And this is not for any data intensive activity like video, just basic work email.

I live close to Boston airport and each website took 1-3 minutes to load. I canceled the service right away and got my $40 back..Virgin had a good thing going with initial plans. I was okay with the cap but love the month to month option. Now its useless. I signed up with Verizon on their contract plan.

 

Painfully slow combined with Sprint's terrible coverage. Yeah, seems like a deal to me.

 

I user VM everyday.. and dont have any problems with it.. I watch hulu using it.. and it works just fine..lol.. and for 40 bucks..Im happy as crap
I know it says sprint.. not sure how come the OP's says virgin mobile on his.. since it is sprint network..

 

You probably have that tower all to yourself right now. I never said it was a bad deal. $40 a month is a great deal. I just warned folks of what other people were telling me, that the VM device plays second fiddle to a Sprint device. In fact I started to order myself a VM Mifi the other day, but they are completely out of stock..The only place I can find one is on ebay, and I have had 2 bad experiences from buying phones off ebay. Also, I'm hearing Verizon is lowering it's prices on it's mifi. $50 for 5 gigs, and $10 a gig overage charges. The Mifi is free with a 2 year contract, so you don't have to pony up the $150. This is supposed to happen on 10/28. I'd like to get a Mifi, then replace my phone with an iPod touch, and use Skype on it to make my occasional phone calls that i make now.

 

5G a DAY???! Wow man... You must have:

A. A serious and consistent internet connection
B. A BIG hard drive (unless you do lots of deleting also...)
C. Time

 

3-4 hours of streaming HD video would bring you close to that number, but you'd have to have one hell of a fast connection.