Internet Access

Internet Summaries

NEWS FLASH. VERIZON LIES! - Dec. 04, 2008
I moved down the hill 6 miles, to a little valley, where the Verizon Wireless Internet Access Service DOES NOT WORK. When I tried to cancel it, after 14 months, Verizon charged me an "Early Termination Fee" of $110. They are a pack of liars.

1. Yesterday, I went to the Verizon office on 41st Ave. in Santa Cruz, CA, and I was told by the representative that if I cancelled from my new residence, there would be NO ETF. That was a LIE!

2. Today, I called to cancel, and the woman Ashley said that I must talk to tech support first, before I could avoid the ETF. That was a LIE!

3. I talked with Jennifer in tech support, and she tried to have me "transfer" the number to a "family member cell phone". I had no intention of doing this, for the sole purpose of continuing to pay Verizon. Therefore, there would be an "Early Termination Fee" of $110 on my next bill.
After going back and forth for 10 minutes, and threatened with the "legal team", I finally gave up, and told her to go ahead and add the fee to my bill, because it would be worth it to me, to tell the world about these VERIZON SCAM ARTISTS. (She was as happy as a clam. I yelled, "Thank you for your wonderful support", and hung up my new land line phone.)

AVOID VERIZON WIRELESS IF YOU POSSIBLY CAN!

After moving, I got this Error 913 over and over again.


After moving, I also got this Error 918 over and over again.

My non-existant signal strength. Either I got -125 dbm, or 0 dbm.


It DOESN'T MATTER that the Verizon Service DOES NOT WORK at your new address! You must pay the ETF anyway!

Verizon Early Termination Fees - 1,080 Google results

The representative that I spoke with at the Verizon office also told me that the Verizon Class action lawsuit was "an urban legend". Oh, yeah? Then what's this?
Verizon EFT Settlement - July 10, 2008

Verizon Sucks - 20,300 Google results (A search for "att sucks" only returns 6,000 results, less than 1/3 as many.)

The good news? I now have Comcast, which is 15-30 times faster than Verizon ever was. Comcast Rules! No more connection problems! No more "The connection was terminated by the remote site". No more "Try connecting later".

  Notes

Cap = 5 Gig/ month
If exceeded, account canceled.
Min. MAC = OS10.3.9

The USB-720 comes with a special, dual USB cable and CD ROM software called "Verizon Access Manager".
The USB cable has TWO USB connectors at the computer end.
The use of this cable is not required, UNLESS
A. There is not enough clearance to plug the USB modem directly into your computer (G4, my case), OR
B. You are in a fringe reception area, and you require extra power for a reliable connection - in this case,
BOTH must be plugged into 2 USB ports, to double the power supplied to 1 Amp.
I had to use the cable for BOTH reasons A and B.

For PC or Mac (OS 10.3.9 minimum)
"If your Verizon cell phone works at the location, so will the USB720 Modem."
An optional high-performance antenna is available for $20, which is not stocked, and must be mailed.
The USB Modem is manufactured by Novatel, who also supplies a very similar device to ATT, and to Sprint.
It features the latest EVDO high-speed technology, also known as "Rev. A"
The unit is $100 retail, but currently a $50 rebate is offered, resulting in a $50 equipment charge.

Review:
Setup was straightforward, and only took me a few hours with no help.
I am getting 1.5 Mbps peak download speeds, and 147 kbps upload speeds.
This Internet option is FAST, and is very reliable during my first month of usage. Bye-bye satellite access.

Conclusion: This is an EXCELLENT option for broadband Internet access. You may want to consider it. Try a Verizon cell phone at the location first, to verify coverage by a nearby Verizon cell-phone tower.
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THE 4 MAIN SCREENS OF THE
USB720 VERIZON ACCESS MANAGER Software for Macintosh -
1. Networks Screen - VC Access Manager Networks, Signal Strength Meter
2. Statistics Screen - Real time graph of last 30 seconds traffic
3. Usage Screen - Your traffic summary for the month
4. Support Screen - Help Topics, Verizon Wireless Products, Contact
Here is a screen shot of "Verizon Real Time Stats" in action.

VZAccess Manager Screen Shots Using Macintosh OS 10.3.9
(UPDATE Sept. 23, 2008: Now using VZAccess Manager with Mac OS 10.4.11)

1. Networks Screen - VC Access Manager Network, Signal Strength Meter. The single BroadbandAccess option is automatically selected, with the "4-bar" signal-strength gauge on the right. The screenshot shows a signal strength of 1 bar. Three bars equals approx. -85dbm, 2 bars equals approx. -90dbm, and 1 bar equals approx. -95dbm. One bar works just fine.






2. Statistics Screen - Real time graph of the last 25 seconds of traffic. The above graph was screen shot about 15 seconds after a Google request made with the Firefox browser. The data comes from the right, and slowly move out of sight to the left, after about 25 seconds.






3. Usage Screen - Your traffic summary for the month (5 days for me). There was a little problem initially (30 minutes?), until I got "Activated". There has not been a single problem since.
Screen 3 needs to be wider, so I don't have to widen the "Received" column width to see the "MB", every time I summon the screen. I speculate the boss didn't give the programmer the info that the first field would be soooo wide (NationalAccess - BroadbandAccess), resulting in all the other columns getting "squinched". This micro-window-size philosophy only exists at M$ - a carryover from the early days, that M$ users must still deal with today. Drives us Mac users crazy. In the Mac world, you can make any window as big as you want, and it REMEMBERS THE SIZE, unless it is an application ported from M$ by an M$ immersed programmer. C'mon, for most people, you have 1,000 pixels horizontally - what's the squinching all about? Ultra conservative mentality? What are you trying to save? RAM limited? I don't get it. Why force the user to resize columns to observe the data within? Poor usability, from my point of view. Unwieldiness.






4. Support Screen - Help Topics, Verizon Wireless Products, Contact

A. Clicking on "Help Topics" produces the following choices -
Browse VZAccess Manager Help
Getting Started
Using the VZAccess Manager
Connecting to the Internet
Solving Problems
Glossary
TM / SM / Legal



B. Clicking on "Verizon Wireless Products" produces this screen -

5. Verizon Products - Descriptions and links to the "BroadbandAccess" and "NationalAccess" services, referring to the Broadband Access and National Access products.



C. Clicking on "Contact Us" opens an email to wirelessdata at verizonwireless.com

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DISCLAIMER
This Verizon Wireless USB720 Review is entirely the work of the author.
I do not have any relationship with Verizon, other than being a customer.
I hope there are no errors.

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