Virgin Mobile Broadband $40 unilimited?

I have a Sprint card and a Virgin. I thought I'd give Virgin a try before canceling Sprint. Sprint card gets shut off day after tomorrow. There were some serious issues about two months ago with the Virgin service, but they seem to have everything squared away, and frequently, the Virgin card is faster than the Sprint card. I'm not saying Virgin Mobile is for everyone. What service you use depends on where you frequent. If you spend a lot of time in the southeast, any service that uses Sprint towers isn't a good idea. Ditto for the mountain states out west.

As far as tethering on AT&T, good luck with that.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2...-phone-tetherers-gives-ultimatum-deadline.ars

 

If you say so. Here are speedtest.net results. Same laptop, same location, done moments apart, hitting the same speedtest.net server less than 50 miles away.


Sprint:



Virgin Mobile:


Both got F+, but speedtest.net bases that grade on regular broadband speeds. The advertised maximum speed of Sprint and Verizon's 3g is slightly over 2.0 Mb/s, and as you can see, both VM and native Sprint came close to that promise. Both of them are a hell of a lot faster than dial up, that's for sure.

I'm by no means pounding the table for Virgin. If you buy one now, the Unlimited plan costs $50 for 2.5 gigs, then you are throttled to 0.25 Mb/s. It's up to you if you can live with that. The $40 Unlimited but throttled after 5 gigs that I have is a far better option, but unfortunately that's no longer available, unless you buy a used one off ebay that was activated by the previous owner before 2/15/11.

As far as my opinion on tethering to a phone goes, I'm planning on getting Virgin's Optimus V Android phone. $25 unlimited data and texts. Tethering is against their stated TOS, but what happens if you get caught? Are they going to cancel your non-existent contract? It seems to me there's little they could do about it since it's a prepaid phone. According to that article I posted above, AT&T is cracking down on unauthorized tethering. T-Mobile has always turned a blind eye to tethering, saying that it was against their terms, but made no efforts to block Android tethering apps. ATT and T-mobile are merging. I suspect Sprint and Verizon will crack down on tethering as well, they are every bit as greedy as ATT. I have an AT&T phone, and was looking into getting an iPhone, and did the math. If I use their tethering plan, and use my normal 5-6 gigs on my computer, my bill would be $125 a month minimum. Too rich for my blood, especially since there are cheaper options out there.

 

I got an android phone a few weeks ago, from Virgin Mobile as well, and hell, I rarely fire up the laptop anymore. I'm about a week and a half into my billing cycle and I've used half a gig. About the only time I fool with the laptop these days is when I'm laid over for an entire day. Most nights I'll watch an episode or two of tv streaming over my phone on the 4 inch screen, then go to bed.

I'm pretty sure T-Mobile will throttle you at 5 gigs as well, but I don't think they charge extra for tethering like the other carriers do. if that works for you, go for it.

 

The wifi plan at FlyingJ/Pilot is good some places, not so good, even unusable, in others. It's hit or miss. I'd hate to have to depend on it.

My Android phone through Virgin will tether. It's disabled in the menus, but there are half a dozen or more apps you can install that turn the hotspot on. The unlimited plan is only $25. But tethering is against the rules. I haven't heard it happen to anyone yet, but if they catch you, they will terminate your service, which can also include blocking the phone's ESN so it can never be activated again. That'd leave me with a $200 paperweight. So, I keep the $40 usb stick around. But like I said, the amount of time I use the laptop has gone down drastically. There ain't much this phone can't do that my computer could, and all I have to do is whip it out of my pocket. From what I've heard, T-Mobile is the one carrier that really doesn't come down on you for tethering, but they will throttle your speeds if you go over 5 gigs, even if you only used the phone. I thought about getting an Android phone through them. Before I moved everything to Virgin, I had a $100 a month phone through AT&T, and a $60 a month internet card through Sprint. Now I'm paying $65 total. The only downside is the phone coverage is no where near as good as I had with AT&T. I never used AT&T for internet or data, they charge too ###### much for it.

For movies..have you thought about RedBox? You can get movies for $1 a day at any Walmart, and drop it off at any other walmart in the country. They got vending machines in the doorway. That's how I get my movies these days.